Life
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Burnout… Already?
I’m… …feeling: exhausted. Beyond exhausted. Utterly annihilated. My schedule is turning out to be a lot more brutal time-wise than I had expected it to be. I keep thinking to myself, “What’s the matter with me? I had this kind of 7 am to 10 pm schedule in high school, and it seemed so easy then!” I suppose everyone was right: it really does get harder the older you get. So anyway, that’s why it’s been a bit quiet. I’m hoping I’ll have adjusted a bit better by the time this coming week is over though. We’ll see. …working on: getting the apartment in order. What free time I have…
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Arts on the Square
Saturday me and the boys drove down to Scranton (NEPA’s largest major city center) to attend the 2nd annual Arts on the Square, which is essentially a gigantic craft fair that wraps all the way around Scranton’s Courthouse Square. The event is organized by ScrantonMade, a group that does an amazing job promoting the arts in the area and which has made some amazing strides in the last couple years. I hadn’t known about the event before a few weeks ago when my favorite etsy store, Tiny Galaxies (who’s owner I just happen to know and love to pieces – I promise the fact that it’s my favorite is unrelated…
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Motivation
Just a (very) quick update to let everyone know what I’ve been up to. This week I’ve been… …planning: for the semester! I’ve let myself get very caught up in course planning this past week. My schedule is a little different this semester – one of my courses is a longer class period than I’m used to, so I’ve got quite a lot of lecture shuffling and schedule adjusting to do on top of the usual revising I do every year. …working on: a few more text-heavy posts for here. They always take me a little bit longer to write because of the obsessive compulsive drive to revise anything eight…
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Mani Monday: Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe
So last week I helped my mom take our big galoot of a labrador, Rusalka, to the vet for her annual check-up. She’s a lab, and she’s highly excitable and STRONG. It always helps to have an extra body on hand for these things, particularly if the vet ends up with an emergency and we end up having to wait a little bit longer than our usual five minutes. Well, guess what happened? The vet ended up with not one but TWO emergencies around our appointment time and we ended up waiting for almost an hour with our big, strong, and by that point completely cracked out blonde lab. She…
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Torn…
So yesterday I went grocery shopping, and as I was passing by the book section in our Wegman’s (love Wegman’s) I ended up spending literally 10 minutes fighting with myself about whether to buy and read The Fault in Our Stars. I kept picking it up, and putting it down again. Picking it up, reading the back cover, and putting it down again. Picking it back up, putting it in my cart, walking three steps before shaking my head and putting it back. In the end I ended up leaving without it because I remembered my no-book pledge and forced myself to just walk away. But I’m still torn about…
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Mid-year New Years’ Resolution Check-in
Well, we’re officially in July. Six months have passed; I’m not really sure where the time went. It feels like it was only yesterday when I was making my New Years’ Resolutions, and already we’re halfway to new ones. So I guess it’s about time to check in and see how I’ve been doing. Let’s start with #1: (I’m going to do this from least successful to most, so ignore the numbers in the images.) So far, not so good. I did a great job in January, but as soon as the semester hit, that was the end of that. That said, I’ve decided to be realistic and just accept…
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I Have a Sweater Problem…
…A very big sweater problem. And it’s just a tad out of hand, as you can see. While I must admit that some things are a little tighter around the middle area than they used to be, I’ve been relatively the same size on top for about a decade now and my taste really hasn’t changed that much. I’ve never been really daring when it comes to trends, so most of the items I go for are pretty classic (or as more than one person has put it “boring”… I like classic better) kinds of styles. As a result, nothing really gets purged unless it shrinks or felts in the…
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What I’ve Been…
…planning: Pysanky designs. The easter season is over, yes, but I plan to keep making them year-round this year. I really need to start honing my skills and getting creative if I ever plan on using this to drum up some extra income. …working on: grading. And more grading. It’s crunch time, and of course, as I always do, I ended up planning tests and papers too close to one another. Every single semester I say to myself, “I’ll plan this out better next semester…” And I try – I really do try – but no matter what, somehow it never works out. Right now I’m plodding my way through…
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What’s Up, Wednesday?
I’m… Working on: making my way through a stack of paper topic proposals for class. Looks like Prohibition, the Great Depression, and the JFK assassination are well on track to remain the 3 most popular research paper topics, for the 4th year running. Reading: First into Nagasaki still… I’ve been really bad about keeping up with my resolution. I went from 6 books in January to a whopping 1/4 of a book in February. But now that the semester is in full swing, and I’m used to the hectic schedule again, I’m sort of adjusting a bit better and beginning to make some progress. I’m hoping for at least three…
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The First Accurate Mani Monday
Happy Monday everyone! It’s been a difficult few days here at Magpie Making Do – my grandmother had some surgery (it was minor and went well, but there’s always anxiety when she has to be put under and stay in the hospital now that she’s past 80 years of age) and one of my parents’ cats, Genghis Khan (who really been “my” cat since we got him as a kitten 13 years ago. I was in 8th grade and he immediately attached himself to me and hasn’t let go since – and neither have I for that matter) is not doing well at all. My mom and I had a…