Congratulations Lisa & Sean!

My best pal Lisa had a baby today! Congratulations to her and her husband, Sean, on beautiful little (er, kind of big, 9-lb.) Cameron Delaney!

CaffeineWatch Update

You know, I might kick this caffeine thing.

Day one went very well. Day two (Wednesday) was awful. I got a raging headache in the afternoon and, as anyone who's ever had a caffeine headache knows, there is nothing you can do for a caffeine headache. I really wanted a Coke. But I soldiered on, and I was headache-free for Thursday, Friday and today - and I stuck to my "one caffeinated drink per day" self-imposed rule.

I'm not sure I'm ready to cut back further, though...gotta take this slowly. :)

Alice Cooper had it right

Sing it with me:

Schoooooool's out for summer!

I've been singing that all day, because today was my last day of class! Wahoo! And while I am already sort of regretting the extra time it will take me to finish school because I'm not taking summer classes, I am SO HAPPY I get three and a half months off.

So, congratulations to me (and Brock and Hannah, who had a vested interest) for getting through my first year of grad school. I am 1/3 finished!

And...Saturday we all went to pick up my research report on blog readers (Hannah was excited to see my school). I got 100% on the paper, and my professor encouraged me to submit it for publication to our department's journal. Who knows if it'll get accepted, but I was really excited that she thought it was that good. So...thanks again if you took my survey!

I am pretty sure I'm going to get an A in both of my classes. The research class is a definite, and unless I completely bombed my short final paper and presentation in ethics, I should be okay there too. I was a little miffed that the prof took 4% off my greenwashing paper, because she wrote zero comments on anything other than that I should have used section headings. She never told us we had to have section headings, and anyway, I don't particularly think a lack of section headings is worth 4%. But...I still got an A, after all the heartache (and headaches, and heartburn), so I should probably just be happy, stop trying to be a perfectionist, and get over it. *chuckle*

This means I can start on my list of things to do when school's out. I already ate lunch away from my desk, have been hanging out with my family more, and started making a dent in my magazine pile. Tomorrow I'm going out for sushi (spicy tuna rolls...mmmm). Tomorrow is also going to be the first day of what I'm calling CaffeineWatch 2008, where I try to wean myself off my reliance on caffeinated beverages. For week one of CaffeineWatch 2008, I am going to try to limit myself to one caffeinated drink per day. We'll see how I do.

Also, I might be getting a cold, but I don't even care because...

Schoooooool's out for summer!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there...including me. :) (I don't think there's anything wrong with giving yourself props for raising a pretty fantastic kid.) Thanks, especially, to my mom for raising me, and to Brock's mom for raising him. You made us both just wacky enough to be perfect for each other. :)

And, especially if you're a mom, check out this blog post on the Cookie magazine website. I just found this one last week, and it does a really good job of explaining why one of my Mother's Day gifts - a day at the spa - is absolutely perfect. Sometimes, moms need to not have to take care of anybody or anything. Time that's all about you becomes this magical reset button that lets you go back to making it all about somebody else with renewed energy.

My family rocks. I'm so glad I get to be a mom, and that I have a husband who appreciates the job I do. He made me a really complicated breakfast just because it's my favorite. How awesome is that?

Damn-delions

This afternoon, after Hannah got up from her nap (bless her for taking one), we went outside. I got it in my head that I wanted to dig up some of the dandelions around the patio. Our yard (front and back) is completely overrun with dandelions. We easily have 8,000 dandelions more than our closest competitor, but we have had zero chance to do anything about our yard this whole spring. It has been hectic. It's really not our fault. Really.

So, I gave Hannah a trowel and set her to work digging in the dirt in the flower bed, which she loved, and I dug up dandelions:

This (one 5-gallon bucket and two 10-inch pots) is just from immediately around our patio. I hate dandelions. But the view from the back door is significantly better now, and I do think it helped clear my head a bit to attack dandelions for an hour or so.

Maybe it's time to re-brand dandelions as a "bright-flowered, vigorous and hardy groundcover" rather than a weed. Then our yard would be the best one on the block rather than the weediest. :)

My new lucky number

14 1/2. That's how many pages are in the draft of my ethics paper. Which is, frankly, close enough to 15 for me.

Breathing again

Okay, because my last post was really whiny and depressing and I don't want everyone to worry about me, I wanted to post again to let everyone know that I got my "second wind" this evening (sans caffeine, even, but probably helped along by the pizza I ordered for dinner - is fat better or worse than caffeine?). I have 11 pages of my paper typed, and only two sections left to go. I am easily going to hit the required 15 pages, and probably even have time to edit the thing so it makes some kind of sense. (I am concerned about the sensibility factor, as most of my work on this has happened after 9 p.m., and let's just say that's not really when I do my best thinking.)

So...I will live. And I will try not to be so dramatic and Sarah Bernhardt-like.

And now, I'm going to bed. At 10:30! Woo!