Gimmesanity

For the past three weeks, my evenings have looked like this:

It’s 3 am. Do you know where my brain is?

And this:

That’s me working on my thesis well into the wee hours of the night. I have this inability to work during the day. It’s this little problem called Havingtwokids Syndrome. Be careful, I hear it can be contagious. Basically, the only time I was able to get any work done was well after everyone else had gone to bed. I’d sit on the couch for a while, then move to the table, then move Bean’s Boppy pillow to the chair to protect my bony butt from hours upon hours of thesis writing.

So. many. hours.

So, yeah, this went on for many weeks and nights and I went to bed ohsopainfullylate and woke up at ungodly hours and survived off of gallons of caffeine and was such a grouch and damn, did I crave a nap, and then, one day, it was done.

Poof! Just like that.

And I realized, “Holy crap, I’m done.” So, I packed up my girls and hoofed it uptown to drop this monster paper off to my adviser and that was it, no going back after that.

Then it dawned on me, “Holy crap, I’m really, really done.”

So, I looked at the Monkey and I asked her, “Hey, wanna go look at a big Christmas tree and pick up Mamita from work and invite her out to dinner and celebrate? Mommy just finished her thesis.”
And Monkey replied, “Yeah! Does the tree have presents for me?”

Sorry, no.

But, we did go look at the big tree at that little-known center and stood in awe over all the lights and OMG! There’s ELMO!!!

We saw Elmo and Monkey ran up to him and gave him the biggest hug and everyone “awwwww’d” because, seriously, sometimes you could just eat up the Monkey with a spoon.

We picked up my mom and took her to dinner.
Over dinner, we had the following conversation:

Monkey: “Mommy, what’s inside Elmo?”
Me: “What do you mean? Elmo has the same stuff we do - heart, lungs, stomach…”
Monkey: “No, I want to look inside Elmo.”
Me: “What? Why?”
Monkey: (lowering her eyes and in a very serious voice) “Because I think there are people inside him.”

And, now, I’m sitting here and it’s past midnight and I have insomnia because my body thinks I’m supposed to be writing. So, I am. I’m going to bed now.

I’ve got a paper due tomorrow.
And another next week.
And a midterm on Monday.
I should be working on them.
I should be busting my ass on them.
Instead, I’ve been procrastinating.

First, Monkey and I baked some cookies:

“Aaaarrrggghhh!” goes Monkey’s monster cookie

Then, I flew the coop with Bean and met up with Alan in Minneapolis. He was there all week for work, and I tagged along for the weekend. Can I just say how lucky I am to have two little girls who happen to be such fabulous travelers? The Bean was a total doll on the plane, both ways, even through a 30-minute delay here in NY. She rocks.

While I was in Minneapolis, I met up with two kick-ass ladies who I’ve known for years via the innernets.

Look! It’s Michele! Squee!

Michele and I went out to dinner and a night of bowling where I ‘bowled’ (ha!) my competition over with my amazing ball-hurling skillz.

The following day, I had lunch with this fantastic chica:

Patty!

It was great finally getting to meet these friends in ‘real life.’ Hopefully, we’ll get to meet up again soon!

After a yummy lunch with Patty, I thought, “Man, I seriously need to get cracking on my papers…”
Instead, I walked up the street to the museum, grabbed a coffee at the cafe, and stared at this for a while:

Oooh, Chihuly, you made me sit all open-mouthed in awe while in public.

Then, I get home and think, “OK, now, fer reals, let’s get to work.”
Instead, I made this:

And, after all that was out of my system, Monkey reminded me that I had promised to bake bread with her. How could I say no?

And, now, dammit, I’m going to seriously, fer reals, no playing now, get to work once I’m done writing this post. Oy.

Like one of those sweet little abuelitas who insist on stuffing you with one more plate of rice and beans, I’ve managed to stuff my poor macbook with one too many photos/pdf files/songs. He’s full. Like, bursting at the seams full. (My macbook is a ‘he’, complete with his own Everyone Poops sticker.) Reinforcements are on their way. Until then, I can’t empty the crapload of pictures that are residing in my camera (I may or may not have a problem with taking too many pictures.)

In lieu of photos, a list of what I’ve been up to.

- My BSJ is done and in need of a button and blocking.
- A few little gifties for some expecting friends are off the needles.
- Classes are over. I just have two papers to write and I’m done for the summer (one 10-pg, one 5-pg. Neither of which is a big deal.)
- Our family threw us a baby shower this weekend. We still have balloons haunting the corners of the apartment.
- Today is Monkey’s last day of school. We’ll be spending some quality Monkey-and-Mommy time these next few weeks before she heads out to California with her daddy for a few days.
- I’m going to try and be good and do my homework today instead of giving in and making some of these.

Oh, and a question: I downloaded the new Firefox, and now my blog is all wonky on my screen. The column on the right is now at the bottom of the page. Anyone else have this problem when they see my blog? Just wondering. I need to sit down and play with the code to figure out how to fix it. Any suggestions?

…OK, maybe just one picture. Just because she’s so damn adorable:

Dear fetus residing in my uterus,

This is a quick note to ask a small favor…please, pleeeeaaaase stop eating my brains. See, finals are coming up on me real quick and I’ve been trying my hardest to not have the shit hit the fan again like I do each and every damn semester. So, I’ve been sitting here diligently each night trying to get work done. Only, it’s not really doing me much good because, more often than not, I sit and stare at the computer and, next thing I know, three hours have passed and it’s way past my bedtime and I’m wondering why the hell there isn’t anything to show for all my laptop-screen-staring shenanigans.

So, seriously, cut it out and let mommy write her term papers in an orderly, non-nervous-breakdown-inducing manner. If you do, I promise to buy you a pony.

Love,
Mommy.

Spring is here, and it’s been in the 70’s the past few days. The high for today is 76. You know what that means, right?

I’ve been working on a wool sweater!

This is my DROPS jacket, in pieces. I decided to do the sleeves top-down and seamless, which meant that I had to do some homework to figure out how to do it without messing it up. Thanks to Barbara Walker and this article, I now haz sleevecap.

I’m not super crazy about the way the pick-up edge looks, though. I may just rip it out and start over, which sucks because this seriously took me a whole day. Ah, well. Anyone know of a good resource on how to pick up wonky edges? Or, better yet, anyone want to come over and do it for me?

I’ve also been working on a little sweater for the bean:

Yes, I know both of my current projects are purple, thanks.

and spending free afternoons in the park working on my thesis. Reading about child soldiers and all sorts of war-time atrocities seems a little less horrific when you’re doing it in the warm sun.