Bowling for Empties!

I’ve mentioned before that I have an “issue” with accumulating empty bottles, hoping that one day the Rinse Fairy will come along, rinse them out, and deliver them to the Recycling Dudes (or the “Doodle Cycle”, as one small boy calls them!…but I digress).

Today, on my Day of No School (which was wonderful!), I played Rinse Fairy and took care of the empties that were under my sinks.  Here they are, all nice and clean!

That’s five fabric softener bottles, five facial soap bottles, four shampoo bottles, two detergent bottles, two hydrogen peroxide bottles, and a moisturizer bottle!  Imagine having all this stuff under your small sinks!  It’s so nice when it’s all clean and can go to the recycling folks.

And now a question.  Do you empty one soap bottle into another to get the last bits out?  Inquiring minds want to know.  *grins*

Grad School #27

This week is spring break.  I would argue that it isn’t spring (there’s snow outside!), and it’s not really a break.

Earlier this week, it was kind of a break, as I was only working on school stuff about 6 hours or so per day.  My evenings felt luxuriously long and free!  Then yesterday, I did about 10 hours of school work, finally putting my reading away at 10:30 p.m.  And today, I was on campus for six hours (two meetings today), followed by a couple of hours of reading and writing this evening.  My “to do” list is still long, as I have barely scratched the surface of my assignments for one of my Tuesday classes.  How is it that my work GREW to the size of the break??  It didn’t seem like that much when the professors assigned it!

Tomorrow, I am determined to steal a day — just one day! — to have a real break and not do any school work.  I have a couple of appointments, and I’m going to clean and wash sheets and catch up on e-mails and pay attention to my life!  I’m going to pretend school doesn’t exist.

School?  Who me?  Oh please, I’m so not in school!  I never, ever read anything at all.  I haven’t picked up a highlighter in 70 years!  Ha!

It’s raining girls!

I may have mentioned once or twice (or eighteen times!) that I have five cousins who are pregnant right now!  (FIVE!  This still makes me grin ear to ear!)  We just got word this morning that both of my California cousins are having girls!  That will continue the girl streak on my Dad’s side of the family.

See… My Dad’s parents had 14 grandchildren, mostly boys.  And now there are four great-grandchildren, ALL girls!

On the other hand… My Mom’s parents also had 14 grandchildren, mostly girls.  There are countless great-grandchildren (seriously, I’ve lost count) and almost all boys.  We only get a girl every 4-5 years, with five or six or eight boys in between!  My cousin on that side of the family who is due soon is having a boy.  It’s crazy how many boys there are!  We love our boys!  They are completely darling and hilarious and so very boy with their cars and superhero tendencies.  They don’t, however, like to wear ruffles.  *laughs*

So I’m just saying that it’s nice that things even out on the other side of the family.    (And isn’t it weird that it keeps flipping from one generation to the next?  Does that happen in your family too?)

Oscar, Oscar

I am watching the Oscars, even though I’m pretty sure that the only movie that I’ve seen that was nominated for anything was Wall-E (which just won!).  One of my friends and I are chatting via e-mail about dresses, etc.  What is up with all the drab color dresses this year?  Where’s the PURPLE, BLUE, and more RED, RED, RED please!

Dancing: The Day of Teaching!!

I’ve missed a couple of dance class updates, but today was a big day (well, in terms of dancing anyway!) because I got to teach!  And I loved teaching dance!  Watch out world!  *giggles*

I got to teach Red Hot Salsa, which is a dance I do at home a lot (seriously, I do it several times a week!).  I had to practice saying all the steps outloud while dancing though because I’m usually only a wall leader (letting my feet do the talking!), and the real teacher announces all the steps.  So last night, in my apartment, I’m dancing and saying, “Heel taps!  Now hips, left, left, right, right, left, right, left, right.  Rock forward and back, forward and back.  Grapevine!”  If my neighbors heard me, they probably wondered what in the world I’m up to now!  Crazy lady.

My students were eager learners, and they did really well.  They said how fun that dance is (it is fun!) and that it’s a good workout (it is!).  And I didn’t completely lose my breath having to talk and dance at the same time, so that was good too.  It was just all incredibly fun.  What a great way to end the week! 

Grad School #26

My classmates take it upon themselves to make snacks for our Tuesday afternoon class as well as our occasional Friday morning seminars.  So, they bring cupcakes and cookies and an assortment of treats, and there is a feast to be had!

All of them know that I have a lot of food restrictions.  One of my best friends in my cohort makes peanut butter cookies that I can have by using rice milk and margarine and leaving out some other ingredients.  Last week, another classmate brought fresh fruit (yummy apples!) along with baked goods so that I could join everyone in the snacks.  And this week, yet another classmate checked with me on Monday about whether I can have rice krispie treats — I asked her about the ingredients and determined that I might be able to eat them, if she used margarine, though I wasn’t completely sure about marshmallows.  So she made rice krispie treats and brought the marshmallow bag with her so I could read the ingredients!  And I had my first rice krispie treat in some 17+ years on Tuesday.

My dear classmates take good care of me. 

High and lows

So, in the past week, I’ve had a leaking water heater, a power outage lasting nine hours, a nosebleed that was unprovoked and no nosebleed when I got kicked in the nose!  I also overslept this morning, which was especially bad timing since this was the first of three days that I had to lead discussion in a class at school.

But on the other hand… I got to visit with old teaching colleagues, and I saw my gymnasts rise to a challenge and pull out a win in the last rotation!  I read “Green Eggs and Ham” outloud and snuggled with a three year old.  I’ve had pleasant surprises in my e-mailbox with messages and pictures from friends, and I got to see a real live 9 day old baby!  I got to sing one of my favorite hymns in church.  And, I caught my bus this morning despite oversleeping (phew!).

Ah, life.

That’s more like it!

Our workload this semester is so ridiculously heavy, and I’ve been tending to run last minute on a lot of things (which I hate — I am so not a last minute person!).  But I finally feel like…maybe…I’m getting my feet under me this semester.

I just turned in my first huge paper for one of my classes (25 pages, single spaced!), and I was 26 hours early in getting it e-mailed in.  That’s more like it!  So, I can actually breathe and sleep well tonight with that finished!  I have to prepare a presentation and start another paper tomorrow, but all is well with this bigger paper finished tonight.  What a relief.  *falls over*

St. Valentine

Since I’m still online past midnight, let me be the first to wish you all a very

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

Grad School #25

Sometime today or maybe tomorrow, the next cohort of doctoral students will get their letters offering them admission to our graduate programs.  I can imagine all the flurry of e-mails and phone calls that will go out when students get the news!  I remember back to a year ago (for us, the news came on Valentine’s Day, making it especially sweet!), and I remember that I literally felt like I could not breathe when I got the e-mail saying I’d been admitted with full funding.  My heart was pounding so incredibly hard!  Such pure JOY!  Such a feeling of disbelief, of gratitude, of fear!  That was a big day.

In about a month, our incoming students will visit campus and all of us are expected to be there for the visit, to tell them about the program, to welcome them.  All of us are expected to be there, but I would have been there regardless because I know how much it meant to me last year to see the first-year students, who looked weary but were surviving and could say it was worth it despite some rough weeks now and then.  All of last year’s first-year students seemed to know each other so well, and I wondered then if I’d ever know my cohort that well and if everyone in my cohort would know my name.  Ha!  They know my name, my obsession with gymnastics, my food allergies, and so many other things.  So, all semester, I’ve been looking forward to being a surviving example for the new students and to, in some sense, pass the baton on to them because we’re not new anymore.  At that point, when the new students come, we will be five weeks short of finishing our first year, with 3-4 years to go for most of us.  We aren’t new anymore.  That’s a good thing.