Things I am going to do when school is over

1. Hang out with my family. A lot.
2. Get a pedicure.
3. Read books for fun.
4. Go out for sushi.
5. Catch up on all my magazines.
6. Catch up on Go Fug Yourself.
7. Clean our house.
8. Eat lunch away from my desk.
9. Bake cookies with my daughter. Maybe even complicated ones that require cookie cutters. :)
10. Go back to kickboxing class.
11. Rejoice that I (wisely) decided not to take summer classes. Sure, it'll take me longer to get through school...but I am so burned out, and so stressed, and so generally disagreeable that I think it's the smartest thing right now!!

It is a sad state of affairs when "clean our house" is a more fun option than what I have to do, which is work on my ethics paper.

Organization

I am in the midst of final project prep. I will eventually also be in the midst of studying for my one in-class final exam (the other one's just a short paper, and really has no right to be called an "exam" in my opinion), but I can't think about that until the big projects are in the can.

In an effort to keep myself from having a nervous breakdown, last Friday I printed out nice, clean calendars and filled in which tasks I thought I needed to complete for each class each day until everything is due. I even color-coded it. And then I blew it on day 2 by switching everything around. Still, it makes me feel better to have some kind of list of what I have to get done, even if it is now in a not-as-useful format.

Instead of trying to attack both major papers at once, I decided to power through the one I actually had something done on...that way, I reasoned, it would be "out of the way" and I could focus on the other paper, on which I have done nothing but kill trees (ironically, for a paper on greenwashing) by printing out mountains of research I have not begun to read.

Tonight, dear readers, I am happy to report that I have a draft of the first paper done. It's the one about the blog reading survey I conducted. So if you took the survey, thank you - your responses became a crucial part of the 20-page masterpiece I've just drafted. :)

Of course, now I've stayed up too late for two nights in a row, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to hate myself for it tomorrow. But I have a draft done! Wahoo!

Which I guess means I am now out of procrastination techniques for reading that mountain of greenwashing research...wish me luck!

Tire update

Yesterday I had a major "girl power" day, because I solved my tire problem (almost) all by myself.

I called around several places to find out if they had my tire in stock. Here's what I found out:

• My tire model is extra-special because it is really hard to find, and my car is the only model that currently ships with it.


• It is also one of the most expensive tires you can buy for that size.


• Nobody stocks it.


• Sears wasn't all that helpful (one Sears I called never even answered the phone, which I thought was sort of pathetic). NOTE: If I ever apply for a job at Sears, I am going to edit this part out.


• I'm now a big fan of National Tire & Battery (NTB).

The NTB guy I talked to, Chris, was extremely helpful. (And, in person, he turned out to be very cute.) I liked NTB because, even though I walked in ready to drop $300 on ONE tire, they said they really wanted to try to fix the other one first. And they did! They were able to fix it for $30. So that's one less zero than I thought I was going to have to spend. They promised me numerous times that my tire would not blow up and they said the repair would last the life of the tire.

They also showed me what was in my tire. I asked if I could keep it because I just had to be able to show people:

It's not a super-great photo, because I took it with my phone, but you can still tell that was a seriously big spike of something that was in my tire. No wonder it went flat.

But I took care of it on my own! Hooray for me!

It's always something

So I'm stressed, right? And today one of the tires on my car went flat. My NEW car. I mean, I know I probably ran over a nail or something, and it happens, but who expects to have to fix/replace a tire on a 4-month-old car?

The truly excellent thing, though, is that my car TOLD me the tire was low. I started the car after work, and it said, "CHECK TIRE PRESSURE" in bright orange letters, with a helpful little diagram showing me it was concerned about the rear passenger-side tire. Very handy.

I already have an appointment for an oil change at the dealership on Monday, so I'm going to call tomorrow and ask them if they can take care of the tire while I'm there. And then just not drive my car all weekend. We figure the dealership might be the best bet, since this car has so many sensors and things that have to be reset (or whatever...I'm baffled by how this car knows so much).

Why did I think this was a good idea?

So, work is crazy. Mostly the challenging-in-a-good-way kind of crazy, but it is causing me stress.

I have a 15-page paper due in less than 3 weeks, for which I have only begun research...meaning, I downloaded/requested a bunch of articles whose titles looked promising. I have not yet reviewed any of these articles. There's also a 10-minute presentation to prepare on the paper I haven't written yet. I'm actually not even 100% sure what I'm supposed to be talking about in the paper.

I have a rather large research project due in less than three weeks, as well, for which I have only just gotten my survey results. (THANKS if you took my survey!!) Again, I need to prepare a presentation based on the research report I haven't written yet.

My fantastic kid is potty training, which is a weird roller coaster of really HIGH highs (hooray, you did it!) and really LOW lows (accidents in the bathtub). It also involves spending a lot of time sitting in the bathroom.

My husband is probably going to have to take another business trip soon. I told him I really didn't mind this (and I don't) because, while he is wonderful and was very concerned about having to leave when I am in the throes of school/work insanity (not to mention the potty training), I don't think I would get any work done any faster if he were here vs. not here.

Luckily, I'm done traveling for awhile...and if I can just get a plan in place for the school stuff, I will feel a lot better. But right now it all has the feel of, "Jeez, I should have started all this crap six weeks ago, even though I didn't have all the information I really needed to be able to do it then."

I had a major stomach ache this afternoon/evening...which I was afraid might be stomach flu, but I think might have actually been from stress. That is NOT cool.

I need it to be May 12. Then I have the whole summer off from school and I can bank some sanity for the fall semester. It's going to take me longer to get through school, but I am SO glad I am taking the summer off.

Life is a highway...

...and mine has been traffic-filled lately.

I went to California for work last week, which was difficult because Hannah is finally old enough to really miss me, understand that she misses me, and make me feel bad about it without even really trying. She was really excited to see me when I came home, though. :)

Our lives have become quite focused on the challenges of potty training a three-year-old. We seem to be making some progress. I got a manicure & pedicure before I left for California, and the women doing my nails gave me a hard time because my daughter isn't potty-trained yet. Seriously - what is it about having a kid that makes total strangers assume they can tell you what they think about the job you're doing? Meh on them.

Work has been insane, but I am not stupid enough to publicly write about why. Let's just say that I am "between bosses." Work has been really busy for Brock, too...he's had to work quite a few late evenings lately. I don't know how he does it; I just wear out at a certain point and can't think anymore, but he can keep plugging on something until he gets it completed/fixed/updated/whatever. It's impressive.

I only have a month of school left, and I haven't really started rocking either of my final projects. I should be doing that instead of this (or at least cleaning the bathroom instead of doing this), but I lack motivation. But...please take my survey if you haven't already! I am taking the summer off, which I'm sure I'll regret when I'm stuck in school and everyone I started with is finished, but I need a break.

I went for a nice walk with Robin on Sunday, which was good...we hadn't done that in awhile and it was nice to catch up. We walked around my neighborhood, and it made me think about how my mind is shifting into "move" mode. We've always known we'd want to try to move before Hannah starts school. Hopefully the market will recover a bit before then...but our stroll around the neighborhood made me realize that I never want to live anywhere with chain link fences ever again. I love our house so much, but I'm starting to hate the chain link fences around here.

The weekend was beautiful here, which was refreshing after so many cold, awful winter months. We broke 60 degrees for the first time! Wahoo! There's hope for us all.

Okay, enough procrastinating. My ethics paper is calling me...

If you're reading this, you should take my survey!

It is time for me to beg shamelessly for your help (yes, you - stop trying to hide behind your monitor. I know you're there).

You see, I am but a poor student in a graduate-level marketing research class...a class in which I must learn the basics of marketing research, ostensibly so that I will one day be able to intelligently hire a marketing research firm to do high-quality work for my company without ripping me off. So, my big learning experience is that I have to do my own research project and then write a paper about it.

I'm doing my research project to determine demographics, attitudes and habits of people who read blogs. YOU read blogs. At least this one. So I am asking you to PLEASE, PLEASE take my survey. I need lots of responses so I can write a good paper.

Click Here to take survey

It won't take you very long, your responses will be completely anonymous AND you get the wonderful feeling that can only being achieved when helping a desperate grad student complete her major project.

Thanks for your help!