45 - wednesday

I fell asleep during my exam this afternoon. I KNOW.

I debated whether or not to share that, because I'm embarrassed as all get-out. but in the name of full disclosure, I thought you should know. I spent the first 35 minutes of a 3 hour exam nodding off like a bobble head doll. I had to leave the room three times to run up and down the stairs in the building to try and wake myself up. it was ugly, but at least it's over.

I need eight hours of sleep a night. I like my ten o'clock (yeah. or earlier.) bedtime and I really would rather wake up feeling well rested than go to the bar with my friends. pulling all-nighters to get work done therefore makes me VERY cranky. pulling all-nighters two nights in a row? I guess I was kind of asking for it. I was doomed.

t sent me a sweet email when he woke up on his side of the world, just before 2am here. I quickly shot back with, "I'm still awake. kill me." he stayed at the computer talking to me all night, helping me stay awake and encouraging me that if I just kept working, I would get it done. without him there I am certain I would have wimped out somewhere around 4am and crawled into my bed, but then my paper wouldn't have gotten done and I still probably would have fallen asleep during my exam. so thanks for that, babe. and sorry for being a cranky gremlin. it's not you, it's my stupid LIST.

44 - tuesday

sigh.

I have talked a lot recently about days where I feel like I work and work and get nothing done, or where I do a little bit to start a lot of projects but accomplish nothing of substance. I don't have much to show for myself (I was REALLY gunning to cross the first paper off my list tonight), but I am making progress. I am not nearly as discouraged as I've been.

I'm just tired. three hours of sleep last night, made restless by too much caffeine. ten to twenty minute catnaps every four hours during the day. and my arms are sore from doing push-ups. oh well. time to put on another pot of coffee...

43 - monday

in ten days, I will be done with grad school!

erm, sorry for the low drama, that's not completely accurate. make that: in ten days and five hours, I will be free from the clutches of the dark, dark days known as finals period.

whew. that was much better. that's how it feels, at least.

in an effort to spare you from ten days of pictures of coffee mugs, empty redbull cans, scary windowless library solitary-confinement cubicles, and my bleary, bloodshot, sleepless eyes (crap! I got carried away with the drama again), I am providing you with this stunning piece of amateur photography: a list.

it's ok to be scared. I am, too. that's 87 pages of writing, 170-205 pages of papers to grade, twelve months worth of work to assemble into a portfolio, and one extremely important conference to prepare for. 

pushup count? t does push-ups on the jet when he's not having a great night. I know how things have gone for him based on the number of pushups he reports. I am notoriously lacking in push-up ability. t challenged me last fall to do two pushups for every mile I ran during my half marathon training cycle. I did it, but it was really hard at first. yes, you read that right. 26 consecutive pushups was a serious accomplishment.

there you have it folks. my final countdown list. look for it every day from here to may 19. I'm not saying it's the only thing I'll post, but I am promising that there will be days when crossing off something you see here, or adding hashmarks to the pushup count, is the most triumphant moment of my day.

seen on my run: weekend edition

I really need to start running with a camera.

on saturday, I saw an elderly man running in shorts and a yarmulke. no shirt, no shoes, no problem. way to observe the sabbath by leaving all that frivolous shoe-technology at home, bro.

a google image search for "man in yarmulke no shirt" turned up surprisingly few results. 
he must be ahead of the trend.

yesterday was mother's day, and the running path was full of moms and kids. most were just out for leisurely sunday walks, but I saw two moms running while their kids chugged alongside of them in a SWEET ride-on kids car.  this thing was pimped out.

it put my barbie car from the mid-90's to shame. is it wrong to be jealous of a 7-year old's battery-powered toy?

42 - sunday

happy mother's day.

there are all kinds of mothers out there in the world. there are those who insist on spending the day being pampered by their children. from breakfast in bed to a day at the spa, this category includes my lovely grandmother who tonight refused to even open a bottle of champagne for herself because she is a mother. then there are those who insist in spending their day doing what they want to do. both t's mom and my own fall into this category.

I brought t's mom flowers this afternoon, and found her in the garden, grubbing with t's dad, planting tons of stuff. I know. descriptive, right? I'd love to tell you what they were planting, but seriously, it looked like I arrived just after they finished planting EVERYTHING. we'll be here all night. the takeaway point is: she was in gardening heaven.

and here's how my momma spent the day:

covered in mud, smiling from ear to ear, powerwashing the back patio. what. a. babe.

I made her dinner, of course. after last year's mother's day lamb snafu I learned my lesson about shopping in advance and got the lamb on saturday. holy expensive meat, batman! I was so nervous that I was going to completely under- or over-cook it. the fact that my dad and grandfather get hungry and impatient and keep coming into the kitchen every five minutes to lurk or ask, "are we ever going to eat?" doesn't help any with the nerves.

final verdict?

medium rare, perfectly cooked lamb. served with balsamic-rosemary syrup over roasted new potatoes and rainbow chard.

41 - saturday

I lived for a year without a microwave until t gave me an extra one he had back in january. I got used to cooking with my stove and oven, and only really missed the convenience in reheating stuff or in making popcorn (which I'm not even good at). slowly but surely, I've gotten used to having it around.

I love baked potatoes. they are infinitely adaptable. they are filling. they are delicious. to say I was excited for dinner tonight is an embarrassing bit of an understatement, but waiting an hour for it to do it's thing in the oven just seemed like so long.

so I took out the microwave user's manual (hush, I'm new to these things) and looked up how to use the baked potato button. it seemed simple enough. five minutes to baked potato-y goodness instead of an hour of waiting around? sold.

listen, I know by all appearances it LOOKS edible under all that cheese and butter and "sour cream" aka greek yogurt. but it was gross. it was completely dry and overcooked around the outside, and solid and uncooked in the middle. I tried re-nuking it once I bust it open and filled it with the goods you see pictured here, but it didn't help.

it's true, what they say. if it aint broke, don't fix it. lesson learned.

40 - friday

forty days already? wowza. we are a third of the way through this deployment! pretty soon we will be turning the corner for halfway and there will be fewer and fewer days until t comes home. now that's something to be thankful for.

today I am also thankful for my own thrift. I have talked before about my love for the circular, and even admitted to having a login account with my grocery store's website (they even have an iphone app - I haven't taken our relationship to that next level yet). logging in not only gains me access to the week's deals, it also lets me know how many gas points I have racked up.

which is good, cause gas is expensive. and so is food - but how can I be mad about that when the grocery store pays me back in spades at the pump? exactly. I cannot.

what regular, non grocery-savings-savvy idiots pay 

what I pay. boom. $0.40/gallon discount. stop & shop ftw!