Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 223

Today's Daily 5:

1. A quiet Sunday morning
2. getting an errand that had been on my list for several weeks accomplished
3. the satisfied feeling of printing off two completed assignments to be handed in tomorrow
4. the first hot-crossed-bun of the season
5. a fascinating evening of teaching and questions about Islam

What Not to Wear?

I'm having the sort of day where I ignore the famous Stacey & Clinton rules.

I plan to wear my workout clothes - yoga pants, a t-shirt, and a hoody for pretty much the whole day.

I know, I know.  Don't wear workout clothes except to workout.

Who cares?!

Today I'm shooting for comfortable, so I'm curled up in my comfy clothes, in the recliner, with a blanket and my neck pillow, and magic bags.  And this is pretty much my plan for the morning.

And it's beautiful!

Much needed comfort and rest.

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 222

Today's Daily 5:

1. Fun numbers like 222.
2. a great yoga class this morning.  I went in really stiff and sore and thought I was going to pass out a couple times during the class, but left in much less pain (in parts of me anyway) and feeling warm and relaxed and a bit more ready to face the day ahead.
3. A perspective shift - I was quite frustrated to have to take 2 hours out of a busy day to make a trip to the university library to pick up a book that had arrived for me.  I'm so glad I did, though, since the book ended up being an incredibly useful source for the term paper that I had to write today.
4. The way taking a long shower nearly always works some sort of magic and makes you feel better
5. breaking an overwhelming challenge into manageable chunks and then slowing accomplishing each one
6. finding ways to break up the challenges - supper breaks, play Angry Birds for a few minute breaks, a massage break, and oreo cookie breaks.
7. getting a massage/natural health treatment from my mom.  I was feeling pretty crummy today, and between yoga and the massage (and some painkillers) I'm doing quite a bit better now
8. Getting the major portion of the term paper I was most concerned about written.  It's due Monday, but it's done.  All I have to do tomorrow is a quick edit, check one citation, and create the references page.  Maybe an hour of work, tops!
9. The huge sense of accomplishment (and relief!) that comes from plowing through a fairly challenging task in a relatively short and intense period of time
10. Knowing that tomorrow I can actually fully enjoy my Sunday morning time at home alone, without having this paper hanging over my head.

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.