Gobble Gobble and Ho Ho Ho

I miss blogging. There probably isn't a day that goes by that I don't have at least one if not two or three thoughts that could each inspire a reasonable blog post - and I didn't even write Nate's 2 1/2 year post yet... but time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping... into the future? No, not so much. Into my job, my second job, and I would say grad school but I've been neglecting that entirely. (Bad, bad, bad.) It's my day job, my online tutoring 2nd job, and housework. Ridiculous.

My job has been busy and frustrating in a lot of ways, but I'm strongly committed to not talking about work in a disparaging way online since I think it's not a very smart thing to do. Everyone has complaints about their jobs and in some jobs some complaints are standard (meetings suck, travel can be annoying, grading papers or writing lesson plans is time-consuming and frustrating) but complaining about those things rarely feels constructive to me. Two days ago I read an old post I wrote when I first got this job and all the hopefulness I had, all the potential I believed there was - it made me break down and sob because none of it has come to pass. All the things I thought would be great have either turned out to be false or have changed since I first started my job four years ago. I haven't ever held a job this long without any type of advancement/promotion and it's beginning to crush my soul.

I adore grad school and continue to feel sad that my second run through isn't as lovely as my first was, where I was in school full-time and working as a TA. That sort of life wouldn't be feasible for me now (hello bills, child, etc) but the way in which I was allowed to focus on grad school AS my job then was just beautiful and there isn't a week that goes by that I don't miss it. I pretty much suck as a student now because I just cannot put in the time my work deserves/requires. I feel like the grad school equivalent of the students I tutor at work and I don't like it.

I just need more time... or less to do. Not having my weekends 100% free for grad school work doesn't help. My weekends are 100% Nate - and while I love it, it doesn't get my work done. And this spring I'm supposed to finish my final paper for my Ed.M., which is in essence my dissertation proposal - so, you know, no small potatoes. I'm going to have to figure out some kind of miracle this spring in order to pull this off.

The nice thing is, though, that I've been able to put all of this stress aside a lot of the time and enjoy the here-and-now when it presents itself. Thanksgiving was really enjoyable yesterday - just sitting with my family and eating and talking and laughing and playing with the kids. And I'm excited for Christmas this year, more so than I have been the last two years. We're no better off financially than the past two years, so maybe I'm just getting used to it, I don't know. But I'm feeling Christmas-y and looking forward to putting up our tree this weekend, especially since it's the first year Nate will really enjoy it AND (hopefully) not have the impetus to wreck it.

And I just really need to write more. I have this tiny little dusty corner of the Intarwebz for myself; I should make use of it.

You must change your life.

Tonight is the last evening of school for me for this semester and I am truly looking forward to it, mostly because one of the two classes I took this semester was frustrating in ways that I have not been frustrated by a class in probably over fifteen years. Also, while I love school, the time it requires puts stress on my family schedule and I'm looking forward to having fewer things pulling me away from Nate for a few months.

But I'm already missing the other class I took and it's not even over until tonight.

This semester I took a visual arts research methods course and it is not an understatement to say that it has possibly changed my life.

Being a writer in a community of artists has been enlightening. My academic pursuits have always been near the art world since writers often interact with artists in the larger cultural world, but it's been a while since I've even been in the world of writers. I was a literature student and college instructor after I finished my creative writing work and now I'm an education student and tutoring supervisor - roles that don't provide much (any) creative support.

My classmates in this research class are an amazing group. They actually create art. Maybe some of you know people who create art regularly and who consider themselves artists as an essential part of their being. Or maybe you even are one of these people. I don't interact with many artists in my day-to-day (non-online) life.

Sure, I know artists online, as well as musicians and bloggers and people who create things like invitations or photographs for a living. But for me, being with people who do this other kind of art - stuff involving paper and paint and sculpture and metal - has been life changing.

I had forgotten. I used to write poetry regularly. I have a B.A. in creative writing, for which I produced what would be a chapbook of poetry. I lived and breathed poetry every day because I was in constant production.

Today I produce family meals and emails and presentations and occasional blog posts. I find joy in all of this, but it's not the same. Other people produce poetry in cooking or baking; I do not. I enjoy it, but it's a little like paint-by-numbers for me - I'm just following what someone else designed before me. I'm not inventing.

But this class has lit (re-lit) the invention flame and even possibly altered the course and focus of my future dissertation. As I finished up my final projects for this class, I found myself feeling like it was all really a beginning, not an end in the slightest.

For class tonight, I made Joy the Baker's Lemon, Lime and Thyme sugar cookies and Chamomile Mini Cakes (cupcakes) with honey frosting (both from her cookbook). They seem like just sort of precious, delicate, to-be-savored-with-a-smile type of treats appropriate for tonight. I know I'm going to want to cry and hug my professor when I leave class tonight, but I'll just make sure she and everyone else has the sweet treats instead.

This poem pops up a lot in my life and in my head. It's one of those pieces that I get something different from every time I read it and this week is no different.

Archaic Torso of Apollo
~Rainer Maria Rilke

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Why I love Tuesday nights

Tuesday, you see, is my Hump Day.

(For the record, I actually hate the phrase "Hump Day" but that's mainly because of all the usually dumb and gross jokes people make about the phrase. The concept itself - the day of the week that feels like once you cross it, you're closer to the end - is fine by me.)

For most people, Wednesday is Hump Day. It's the middle of the week and once you're done with it, you're closer to Friday than you are to Monday. Makes perfect sense to me. And my Wednesdays are long days; I usually go to bed late the night before and then work 9am to 8pm on Wednesday. So it's not that Wednesday is a light day.

It's just that Tuesday carries more weight. I have a short work day, and in my opinion, those are actually harder than long days. I do much better when I have a long list of stuff to do, but ten hours to do it in than a shorter or even moderate list of things to do and only a six hour day to work it all in. On Tuesday I work from 9am to 3pm and then dash into the city for grad school.

So not only do I tend to have a crunched Tuesday schedule at work, I need to be prepared for my own classes. My homework must be done and I need to be on top of any research I should have done. Up until last week, I was doing well. This week I'm a bit behind, but not in any way that's terrible. But it's a lot to juggle in my mind and after I leave school Tuesday night, I have a whole week until I need to face another Tuesday, so Wednesday always feels so much lighter.

Also, the hubby has off Wednesdays and Thursdays, so I know he's home with Nate and those are two days I don't have to worry as much about what Nate's eating, his naptime, etc. I also don't have to drive him to my mother-in-law's or worry about getting to work late or running out of work in order to pick him up and feed him dinner. In short, Wednesdays and Thursdays involve a lot less running around and mental juggling than the other days of the week and, so, heading into them after the mentally full days that Tuesdays are is always relaxing (relatively speaking, of course).

And I refuse to do any work when I get home on Tuesdays (which is usually between 9:30pm and 10pm). I eat a light dinner, catch up on a little TV, and go to bed.

... and then start the whole roller-coaster week again the next day. Wednesdays and Thursdays are lighter, but Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are all busy days, full of work and full-time parenting as the hubby works. Tuesday night between 10pm and bedtime is the closest thing I get to a little weekend and I look forward to it every week.

Monday Five Countdown

Happy Monday! (Now that's an oxymoron if I ever saw one...)

"You're an ox AND a moron!" 10 points to you if you know what movie that's from.

And, moving along now...

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. It's the first day of tutoring for this quarter (I supervise the tutoring center at the school I work at) and we already have three appointments scheduled today. This is GREAT great great because we are under a lot of pressure to get more students in for tutoring.

2. I joined the "Biggest Winner" competition at work. I'm pretty sure I'll be sorry I did this, but I thought a little external motivation to drop some pounds and generally be a bit healthier would be good. This morning was the initial weigh-in and I weighed two pounds less than I did at home yesterday (even with the fluffernutter sandwich I ate at 11:30pm last night).

3. Yesterday was my nephew TJ's 3rd birthday party at a local bouncy-house place and Nate had a good time. He's too little to do any of the bouncing and seemed overwhelmed by all the big structures and the 8,472 screaming kids running around, but he did really well considering all of that. He played with some smaller stuff and had fun in his own little way. (And everyone always says he's so cute, which I will never, ever get tired of hearing.)

4. We took Nate to see the Easter bunny on Saturday and he was SO good. We got a nice smiley picture that we'll be sending out on an Easter card later this week. I'm always so grateful that he's so happy and smiley and generally content.

5. The hubby and I had a really good weekend, for us. There's so much going on lately that our fuses - okay, my fuse - is short and I'm just kind of constantly overwhelmed. But this weekend we had some fun as a family and some good couple time.

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. Nate's birthday party. One month from this Thursday!

2. Over the weekend, we went to a local outlet center and I saw a black trench at GAP for $42. I need a new trench because my current one could fit two of me in it and my older GAP trench is too small for me. I hate this in-between size thing.

3. Dinner tonight: pork chops, yum!

4. All the stuff we have to get done in the house. SO. MUCH. TO. DO. (Cleaning, organizing, rearranging, etc.)

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. Significant amounts of work on the two research projects I'm supposed to be working on for school. See, that good family and couple time this weekend? It came at the expense of my homework. Something always has to give.

2. Tasks at work that I wanted to complete last week.

3. Keep up the positive mood I'm in today.

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. The hubby's job prospects. We really need him to find something soon.

2. Bills/expenses. (See #1.)

One Random Thing

1. This Saturday we have plans to go out to dinner with a bunch of friends. We have a babysitter lined up and everything. I always have mixed feelings about this because I know it's good for us, but I hate leaving Nate. But it's just dinner, not a nine hour night on the town, so I think we'll all be good. :)

Do you do the Monday Five Countdown? Link up below! I want to read them :-)

May I write you a list?

I used to carry around a DayPlanner. I LOVED that thing. It was so useful for keeping all kinds of information that I might need. I kept the names and contact information of former employers, references, and college details that I might need for a job application. I kept the addresses, phone numbers, and birthdays of everyone I knew. I wrote down appointments, holidays, random thoughts, to-do lists - just about everything.

Then it became kind of tacky to carry those. And THEN... then everyone went electronic. I got a Palm Pilot. Remember those?

I tried. I really, really tried - but I just couldn't love it. I missed paper.

The hubby loves Google Calendar. I accept the things he sends me (appointment reminders, etc) . . . and then I write them in my paper calendar. Every time a new device comes out I think, "A ha! This! This will be the one that makes electronic work for me." But nope. Nothing yet. (I wonder about the iPad but I'm not about to spend $500 to find out.)

So I'm on paper - and these days, boy, am I on paper. I printed out two paper calendars today to compliment the personal calendar I keep, the Google calendar I keep for certain reminders, and the new "family" calendar I just created to start keeping track of our "family" activities and responsibilities.

Oh, the paper. But why all the paper?

Nate's first birthday is seven weeks away and we're going to have a party for him at our house - our house that is an utter disaster at times, does not have anything hanging on the walls, has permanent soap scum in the shower, dust bunnies hopping in every corner, and no sofa in the living room.

You'd want to party there, right? Right? No, right.

So we need to get the house in order. If the hubby was the one working and I was the one home, we wouldn't need a list. I would just do things until it was all done. But he needs lists - so, boy, is he getting one. More like a calendar. With weekly and daily tasks.

So there's the "what we're going to do in the house, step by step, week by week, for the next seven weeks" list. Then, as I was considering catering for this party and realized that one catered lasagna tray costs anywhere from $60 - $95 and nearly had a heart attack, I realized that I don't need catering. The party is going to be simple and relatively small so the food will be manageable - lasagna, chicken fingers, salad, cold cuts - that kind of thing. So we're doing it ourselves. (See: food list and cooking time-frame list.)

Then there's my job. I really have to buckle down and do some big programming this upcoming quarter so I have a 12 week schedule printed out and I will basically be planning out the next three months of my working life. There's a separate, huge list just for next week, which is the break week between quarters. It's quiet because there are no students here but I have a lot to do to prepare for the upcoming quarter and a conference I'm presenting at the following week.

Then there's school. I didn't write this list yet, but I need to write out a list of everything that's due this Tuesday and next Tuesday (both of my classes are on Tuesday) so I can visually take it in. Otherwise I'm left with a vague mental idea of what I need to do and then when I sit down to do it, I'm surprised at how much there really is. That's never a good moment. I'm doing well in both of my classes but as we approach the end of the semester, it will be far too easy to fall behind and screw up my final assignments.

I feel like I'm juggling two dozen things at once.

source

But as long as I have lists, I feel okay. I feel in control. I feel like nothing major is going to get past me if I'm hyper-aware of everything that needs to get done.

Are you a list maker?

Monday Five Countdown

It's funny how a few days can make something change. Last week I was hating the rain. Today, I'm not minding it. AND today is the last day of February - 21 days until Spring! AND it's payday! So, yeah, feeling okay today.

And awaaaay we go...

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. Our landlord spent Saturday putting insulation in our kitchen ceiling (it appears there were huge holes/spaces with zero insulation so I'm pretty sure we were heating the upstairs apartment and that's partially why our gas bill is so huge). He also put sweeps under all the exterior doors to help prevent drafts. I'm really hoping it makes a difference.

2. We get a new dryer this Wednesday! Finally! Not sure when it's getting hooked up, but at least the process is in motion. I cannot wait to stop air-drying my clothes.

3. I had a few hours to sit in a bake shop and do homework on Sunday. This worked out really well and I think it might be something I'll try to do weekly as a way to get homework done.

4. Yesterday my brother and I went to see The King's Speech, just in time before it won a handful of Oscars. (I adore Colin Firth.) I love that my and my brother's interests intersect so often. It's been ages since I saw a movie in a theater - like, nine months? It was great.

5. Nate continues to be wonderful and the little smiley, drooly love of my life.

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. The hubby had a job interview on Friday and should hear something this week. Fingers crossed so hard they hurt.

2. I have an important meeting later this week and I keep running through agenda items in my head.

3. My car. I just need it to hold out until the hubby has a regular paycheck coming in. I don't want to sign us up for more car payments without him having steady income.

4. Cooking. I love thinking ahead about meals I want to make.

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. Finish all my homework for school. I'm SO close this week - closer than I've been any other week this semester! I already finished all my work for my online class so now I just have to finish the work for tomorrow's on-campus class.

2. Clean the bathroom. It's a horror.

3. Complete my FAFSA for the 2011-2012 academic year. Hoping for a scholarship.

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. Buster. Most days I just want to stab him. BUT there are small signs of improvement. Today, for the first day in two weeks, he did not pee in his crate overnight. Hallelujah! And he's been barking and whining a tiny bit less. I think as the weather improves and we can start going to the dog park on the weekend, everything may fall into place.

2. Our gas and electric bill. I really, really hope it becomes manageable immediately because I do not want to think about having to move AGAIN.

One Random Thing

1. I had an important email to send this morning. This email required an attachment. I sent the email without the attachment, something I almost never do. Gah. And, of course, I do it when it counts - not just when it's a picture I'm sending to my parents or something. Why mess up if you can't do it when it counts? Ugh. I caught it immediately, though, so hopefully that counts for something.

Aaaaaand... links are back! Do you do the Monday Five Countdown? Link up below! I want to read them :-)

The not really hidden library

Setting: library at a prestigious university in upper Manhattan

Scene: a graduate student weighed down by two sweaters, a heavy winter coat, a full backpack and a purse is clutching a small square of white paper that has five call numbers scribbled on it. She walks to the back of the library and then up to the front, looks around, and then finally approaches the main desk.

Student (trying to will herself not to sweat): Um, this will probably be the dumbest question you get all day but, um, are all the books at the main library?

Librarian (looks confused): No.... ??

Student: Okay, so, um... (leans in and lowers voice) Where are all the books?

This Tuesday, I went into my school's library for the first time, even though this is my third semester there as a student. Shameful, right? I just hadn't needed to go before. I was able to complete my work with books I had at home and articles I accessed online.

But now - now I needed/wanted specific books. And I couldn't find them!

Librarian: If you go out the door there, there's a stairwell to your right and you can head up to the other four floors of -

Student Me: Four?

Librarian: Yes, the library has five floors. The books are in the lofts.

Me: The lofts?

Long story short, these books are in a wacky system. It's like having two floors of books for every one floor of library. So I did a lot of running up and down stairs and by the time I got back to the main desk, four books in hand, I was completely sweating. I took off my coat and threw it on the floor. I took off my second sweater (what, I'm always cold) and stuffed it in my backpack. I took off my scarf (see: always cold) and stuffed it in my purse. I put my purse and backpack on the floor and put the books on the table.

(Other) librarian: Ooookay, let's see. These three are due back June 1st and this one is due at ... 6:48.

Me: Huh?

Librarian: This is a reserve book so you can only take it out for two hours. So it's due back at 6:48.

Me: Uh, well, I get out of class at 6:50 so is that okay?

Librarian (typing): Okay, it's due back at 7:00.

And scene.

Monday Five Countdown

I love when life forces me to feel happy when I really, really want to wallow. Well, that's not entirely true. Sometimes I get peeved because when I want to wallow, I really want to wallow. But that doesn't make for good blog reading and throughout most of last week I didn't post anything because I was in just too miserable of a mood. And I wondered, how would I do my countdown on Monday? What in the world could I be grateful for, much less what five things, ugh!

But life can be surprising, in the simplest, most pleasant ways.

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. A reader of this blog sent me a Barnes and Noble gift card so that I could buy Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. Just typing that sentence is making me tear up. I am so astounded and grateful for this act of generosity and really cannot believe that someone that I don't actually "know" in the real-life sense cares enough to do something so remarkably nice. Thank you, Rebecca - thank you so very, very much. I cannot wait to post about the book and I promise to pay this kind deed forward.

2. The whole weekend was warm, if a bit rainy at times. But what this means is that the crazy ice and snow melted a bit. There are still two, three, four foot mounds of snow on every available patch of grass, but the sidewalks around my house are 98% ice free, which makes walking the dogs significantly easier.

3. Which brings me to the third thing I'm grateful for, which is the hubby's general attitude. We have had a rough week with the dogs, Buster in particular. And I always find myself fighting the urge to punt Buster to the moon. He seriously makes me want to throttle him. Well, last night we came home from a lovely SuperBowl watching evening at my parents' house to find quite the doggy mess. The hubby, while extremely pissed off, didn't yell, didn't physically threaten either dog. He just muttered and swore quietly while he cleaned. I think most other people may have blown their top, but he was so remarkably calm. One of us has to be and I'm glad it's him.

4. My mom made all sorts of yummy food for the SuperBowl and sent us home with all the leftovers. Yum!

5. Saturday we went to see Kate so she could take Nate's Valentine's card pictures. It was really good to see her for the first time in two months, to get out of the house and out of the immediate area for a few hours, to take a drive with my two guys, and to have Kate get to see how much Nate has grown in the past two months. It was a really great afternoon.

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. My student loan check. It should come in the mail any day now. Please let that day be today.

2. The dogs. Well, mainly Buster. Oreo is twelve years old, so when she has an incident in the house, I know why it is and there's usually something I could have done differently. But with Buster, there's just no pattern, no predicting, no correcting. I don't know what to do.

3. Homework. I did NOT finish my homework this weekend. School is tomorrow. I'm at work today. The hubby has errands to run tonight. Gah. I really, really need to figure out how to fit in my schoolwork to our new life. It's so hard to leave Nate with the hubby in the other room after a long day of work and go do homework. I'd much, much rather play with Nate.

4. Pants. Have I mentioned I need new pants? Once we have a little bit of funds, I have to buy maybe two pairs of inexpensive work pants. (And did I ever mention that when I dress Nate, I sing, "Pants pants pants pants" to the tune of that really awful "Shots" song? Ha. So now every time I even type the word pants, I hear that in my head.)

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. FINISH MY FRIGGIN HOMEWORK BEFORE MONDAY MORNING. Must figure this out (and next weekend is buuuuusy so this will be a really good week to figure out how to do this).

2. Actually complete the laundry. Because we are still living without a working dryer, we machine wash and then air-dry all our clothes, so it takes a full day to do a load of laundry or two because of the drying time. So we haven't actually done all the laundry in over a month and there are things at the bottom of the hamper that I'd like to wear again at some point.

3. Get a new student ID. Turns out that taking a semester off from grad school made my ID "dead" so I have to go get a new one.

(Note: Notice I did not say I wanted to move the Christmas decorations and supplies to my parents' house - because it got done! Finally!! Hurrah!)

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. Buster. I want to punt him. But more than that, I want to figure out how to help him become a good dog. I just can't figure it out.

2. The hubby's job prospects. This job market is truly frightening and without a four year degree, he's at an additional disadvantage. I just want him to find something and not knowing when that'll happen is scary.

One Random Thing

1. My bloggy (ha, blahggy) friend Liza from Blahggy is a panelist on Momversation! Her first video posted today. I absolutely adore Momversation (and have since before I was even pregnant, when they first began) so I am so incredibly proud of Liza and so remarkably jealous. What an awesome opportunity. Check out her first video.

So, what's going on with your five this week? Please share - I do love to read your lists. Linky Tools now charges for links so no more Linky, boo. But please leave a link in the comments if you do the Monday Five, okay? I really love to see your lists. :)

Fill in the Blank Friday

I can do this late in the day on Friday, right??

courtesy

1. Blogging is a way for me to feel like the writer I used to feel like and a way for me to work through the things in my head so they don't overwhelm me when I can't express them.

2. A current fashion trend I wish I was brave enough to wear is skinny jeans, but they look horrible on me. I'm already pear shaped and they make me look like I'm super pear shaped. But I love how they look tucked into knee high boots. (Note: I am NOT talking about jeggings. I hate those.)

3. My greatest accomplishment in life thus far is finishing my master's degree with high honors. It took a lot of hard work and dedication and is probably the thing I am most proud of. However, if Nate turns out to be a good person, then I will feel that is my greatest accomplishment then because I don't think there's anything better than adding a good, decent, kind human being to the planet.

4. If I had to choose between a mountain or a beach vacation I'd choose a mountain. I'm sitting in my living right now with a fire in the fireplace (yes, our new place has a working fireplace!) and I would just love to be in a log cabin somewhere in the woods, watching a fire, leaning up against the hubby, and reading a book.

5. A talent I wish I had is interior decorating. I just do not have the mind for figuring out beautiful and creative ways to decorate. I need to spend more time looking at decorating inspiration.

6. A talent I do have is perceptiveness. I'm really good at reading people's moods. I'm not 100% great at adjusting to them, but I try and can often tell before other people when someone is upset about something.

7. This week has been an emotional roller coaster. We moved (yay!) but are having trouble paying our new bills (boo). My car broke down (boo!) but is now fixed (yay!) but is going to cost us $640 (boo). I have more to do at work so I'm not bored (yay!) but now I'm finding myself really short on time and rushing around (boo). My head has been constantly spinning this week and I have been a wreck about our financial situation. But it's Friday and my home is completely quiet except for the sound of Nate's swing (which he dozed off in for the first time in a couple of months) and I have internet at home (yay!). So I'm sitting and relaxing, happy to close this week out (yay) even though I have to work tomorrow (boo).

Hopefully next week is less of a roller coaster. (Yay?)

Have a great weekend! (Yay!)

7 Quick Tuesday Takes - randomized for a change

These Tuesday posts have frequently taken on themes recently. I'm happy to have one that isn't so narrowly focused for a change.

1. Check out my latest post, "Keeping It Real or Minding Our Business," about plastic surgery, Hollywood, and what exactly is our business or not over at WeAreTheRealDeal. As I head closer to birthing The Force, I can't help but keep thinking about how my choice to have elective plastic surgery is now affecting the birth of my son. (I didn't write about that aspect of it on WATRD, but I think I might write about it here.)

2. After today, I only have one more "Time and Learning" class session and two more "Diversity" class sessions (the grad classes I'm taking this semester). Depending on how I feel, I might not even go to that last Diversity class. I'm really excited to think that I only have to deal with the guilt over how long Buster is home alone on Tuesday for just one more week.

3. On Sunday, my sister, her husband, and their two kids came over with the crib that was TJ's (he's now in a toddler bed). Before that, the crib was used by my cousins Max and Erik, so it's becoming this family heirloom type of thing - there are even plaques on it with Max, Erik, and TJ's names... and soon there'll be our son's (as-yet-undetermined) name on there, too. I love it. After I put the sheets on and set up the mobile, I sat down and just stared at it for a few minutes. I really can't believe that in a few weeks (if all goes according to schedule), I'm going to have a little baby boy to put in there. As real as it is, it's still so unreal.

4. Murphy's Law: you decide to not use any hair products or make-up on Sunday since, well, it's Sunday. It's a day of rest for your follicles and pores. With a sweatshirt on to fight the slight chill outside (so, truly inhabiting slobdom), you proceed to your local Friday's for dinner, only to be greeted by one of your students, who works there as a host. To boot, you never put on your wedding rings that day, but your husband put his ring on, so now it looks like you're out to dinner with someone else's husband. Love it.

5. I got a new title at work effective yesterday. Since I was hired, I've hated my title. It was... "Assistant." Ew, right? I always thought it should be Coordinator or Supervisor since that more accurately described what I do (I supervise the tutoring center at a campus of a school that has several campuses; the tutors there report to me directly, so I really am a supervisor, and I also teach classes sometimes). Well, as of yesterday I am now a "Learning Coordinator." Much better. Small things can make a difference. (Although, no, no extra money is involved with the title upgrade.)

6. I currently hate wearing socks and shoes because even the teeny bit my feet and ankles have swollen is noticeable and annoying. Let's bring on maternity leave and flip-flops, please!

7. The wonderful Lori at I Can Grow People has bestowed the Kreative Blogger Award upon me.

Ooooh, pretty

Here are the award rules:

1. Post the award on your blog. (Done.)

2. Give a thank you shout out to the lovely person who bestowed the Major Award upon you.

Thanks again to Lori at I Can Grow People (and also at Wife.Mom.Artist.Geek!) for this spiffy award. :)

3. Pass the award on to seven people who you think deserve the title of Kreativ Blogger.

I've given out awards before and since I can't remember who I gave what to and I don't want to give too many awards to my same fave people over and over again, I'm just listing five folks here. In no particular order, I happily pass this along to:

4. Name seven things about yourself that others don’t know.

This is hard because I can never keep track of what I've mentioned and what I haven't, but here's a go at trying to find seven unknown things:

1. I remember the exact time and circumstance under which I received my first "F". It was a fourth grade math test where I thought nine times seven (9x7) was 62 instead of 63.

2. I have terrible spatial intelligence. I can never look at something unassembled and have any accurate idea what it should look like assembled. I don't even like cooking without a picture of what it should look like at the end.

3. I'm totally not into most of the music on my iPod right now and I don't know what to do about this.

4. I want to move. I really really really want to move. We seriously need more space. I look at real estate rental listings every day and try to figure out how it is that people our age can afford to buy homes.

5. I get super nervous when the hubby jokes about how since I've only gained 6 lbs during this pregnancy, I'm going to lose 30 lbs like nothing after the baby is born. I fear losing nothing and being a total disappointment.

6. I can figure out a restaurant tip in two seconds but sometimes still need to count on my fingers for other things.

7. I played Frau Schmidt in our high school production of The Sound of Music (my faaaave musical ever).

5. Don’t forget to notify your seven bloggers about their award and post a link to their blog.

Toodle-oo 'til Wednesday!