Saturday Morning, Full Speed Ahead

I'm still in bed, but I just swallowed the handful of my morning vitamins, and I'm munching on a banana while sitting in the blue glow of the light from my SAD lamp.

In 40 minutes a friend will arrive to pick me up.  30 minutes after that, the 90 minute yoga class we're taking together will begin.  And when that's over, I'll come home, clean up and change clothes and head to the university library to pick up a book that I wasn't expecting to arrive, but am glad for, since it will help immensely with the paper I need to write this weekend.  After the university trip, I will be burying myself in research on diagnostic testing and labels for people with disabilities.  The pros and cons.  Are they helpful or harmful? What are the implications (practically and ethically) for working with people with disabilities?  I'll be compiling all of this research into an 8-10 page paper, figuring out APA style citation which I haven't used in probably a decade (why, oh why, must every discipline have their own style of citation???), and hopefully managing to accomplish the vast majority of this paper by the end of the night tonight, since tomorrow also holds a few commitments on my time, and I'd really like to protect my few hours of Sunday morning sanity and alone time from being infringed upon by term paper writing.

To be honest, I botched my schedule and created this rush of paper writing frenzy.  I knew about the project that was due yesterday, but forgot to look past the Friday to realize that there was a paper due Monday as well.  I built my schedule for the last week around the Friday project and the week was half-way over when I realized there was also the Monday paper.  And so, I'm scrambling, just a little.

Moments like that make me thankful that papers have always been easy for me.  Writing comes fairly naturally, and, while I'm worried about this paper the most of all the papers I have to write this term, because it is on the topic I have the least familiarity with, I am not overly worried.  There will be a paper by the time it needs to be handed in on Monday.  Really, there will be a paper by Sunday night, since it needs to be printed before I go to school early on Monday morning.

So.  It's Saturday morning, and today will be one of those full speed ahead kinds of days.

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 221

Today's Daily 5:

1. The comfort of my own pillow.  I sleep in a fabulously comfortable bed the nights I stay at mom and dad's, but there is just something so great about having your own pillow.
2. A new system with the university library catalogue where you can hit a button and have the call number for the book you need texted to your phone.  You can even include which floor of the library it is that you'll have to hunt on to find that call number (essential since the building has 9 floors.)
3. A cancelled class in the midst of a very full day.  The second day in a row where I've had about an hour or so of much needed, very unexpected breathing space
4. the satisfaction of marking even just a few very small things off of lists
5. I hate the cold, but we had a hoar frost overnight that turned trees and bushes and chainlink fences into beautiful white lacy things.
6. those moments when tears are cathartic instead of just painful
7. a steak sandwich
8. spending the evening with my friend J, from high school.
9. laughing as we read goofy quotes outloud to each other from these fabulous journals we discovered in Chapters tonight
10. a funny and timely fortune in a fortune cookie.

Cuddling a Baby

My dear friends A and B welcomed their daughter (Baby N) to the world early in January, and yesterday I finally managed to spend some time with A and get to meet N.

She's adorable!  She has her momma's latina head of lots of dark hair, and olive complexion, and her daddy's blue eyes, which make for a surprising and striking combination.  I think this little one is going to be a knock-out when she gets older!

A and I spent several hours visiting, catching up and chatting about how the last time I saw her, mommy-hood hadn't arrived and now, now she's a mommy!  We talked about everything and anything, and interspersed it with cuddling N, and cooking (A is Colombian and taught me how to make a sort of corn cake called arepas that's a traditional Colombian dish).

So, this is me, cuddling N.

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 220

Today's Daily 5:

1. 1 year, 220 days of making these lists - I'm getting close to the two year mark, y'all! (also, I do very occasionally say "y'all".  and yesterday I said a word and the friend I was with cracked up and told me I sounded like an American!  Good thing I have that dual citizenship to make it legit for me to sound that way!)
2. Being the first to dip into a new jar of peanut butter, ruining that perfect smooth finish with a big knife full of yummy goodness
3. A postponement that gave me a bit of much needed time to breathe this morning
4. moments of quiet thought
5. google reader on my iphone
6. Arepas - a traditional Colombian dish that a friend taught me to make today.  
7. Cuddling a three month old baby (pictures coming tomorrow!)
8. a great, wide-ranging conversation with a very dear friend - probably the only friend who I can have that sort of conversation with who lives locally.
9. we ended up having a laid back night at house church too, just hanging out because only a couple people showed up, and calling it a night early.  That was so great for me too.
10. I finished up one of my term projects and it feels great!  It's ready for submission tomorrow morning, and I'm gearing up for the next one that is due on Monday.

Stuck

I'm sitting on a train that's delayed.

It has been a full and lovely day and I'm off to house church and just wanted to atop in here and say hi!

See you in several hours for the daily five!