I made copies of the interviews yet to transcribe, and backed up my computer, organized my client file, so I could find stuff when she called, put away the stuff for the class I am not teaching...  and generally got myself organized.  Yeah it feels good. Luckily I looked at my bills to make sure that none were due... and I had a major bill due today... whew!!!  I called the payment in it in....  saved myself some time and agervation.  Late charges muck up everything and change the low interest rate I get on this card... soon I will stop living off of credit cards and have a real job that will pay me good money.  I balanced my check book, wow...  I did do a lot.  I just finished revising the test for my class on Monday... Yeah another thing crossed off my list...
 
Oh I have my first interview being set up as we speak, well as I write, at Eastern Michigan University.  
 
I could not face working on my dissertation today, still too frazzeled... Although this afternoon I think my hormones are starting to wear off.  I feel a lot calmer.  I am getting some acupuncture again tonight (did it Sunday too) to try to calm me down, balance me, and help dispell the warm heat in my belly (that is what Chinese medicine calls what I have).  Hey, I am up for what ever works.. the Western medicine sure screwed me over the last few weeks... with their fake hormones... here throw a pill at it... I don't know how women stand this.  Okay enough about my plumbing and feminine parts...  See I am feeling better because I can let this go more quickly and am getting my sense of humor back. 
 
I am off to the pool in a few minutes... last night after swimming I met up with Kristin and she and Noelle and I went to El Rods for dinner.   It was really good on multiple levels... I really love these women in a friendship way.  It was relaxing and fun even with no margarettias. 
 
Hope your day was good, too.  Love and kisses, Marilyn  

Well at a crawl anyway... Had another of those awake for a long time nights... I hate those...  So I am up and crawling... anyway.

 

Yesterday I talked to my client and we decided what I would work on before I came down to Florida some time next month.  I graded the last of the projects for my fashion drawing class, and went swimming...

 

Still feel like I am crawling out of my skin... but since I stopped taking the hormones two nights ago... I spent my awake time rehersing what I was going to tell the doctor on Thursday morning...  over and over and over again... that is not like me... usally I just go over and over stuff again...   I am hoping I will settle down soon... I don't like not being myself.    

 

Hope your day is good.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Says it all... this is me the last three weeks... I think it is party hormornal and partly situational... needless to say a couple of days off the hornmone and with out my crazy schedule... I should be back to my almost well balanced more normal self...  

 

You'll have to expect a few disturbances in the harmony that has reigned in the past few days, Marilyn. For example, your needs may not match those of your mate or your close friends, or you may feel restless. Minor worries about the future may intrude on people's good mood. In short, this will not be a good day to look to emotional harmony as a source of satisfaction.

I spent the morning going over to the county building... picking up a blank W--2 and W--3 and finished filling them out... wrote checks for the 94-1 and 94-0 and dropped the whole sebang into the mail... It feels good to get that part done... I still need to do my travel expenses and finish balancing my books... but another day and my tax stuff for my business should be in good shape. 

 

Swam last night... did 2 kick, 2 pull, to swim five or six times for my harder set... I don't know whether I did five or six because I stopped to talk to my editor, transcriber, and APA expert and all around great gal... who is helping me with my dissertation... she was asking if I had set a defending date... I told her no... my hope still May but I have only been able to work on it two days out of the last ten... my client, taxes, grading, and life seem to have gotten in the way.  I cannot tell you how much better I feel now that I am not teaching fash-ion draw-ing.  I just have to grade their projects they handed in yesterday and l am done. 

 

Hope you day will be good.  Love and kisses, Marilyn  

Well this has been an interesting couple of days.  Today I dropped teaching the fashion design class I can't say all of the things that led to this situation, but part of it was the need to prepare to teach the three other classes for Julie. Sometimes when you are trying to do something that is impossible it is better to give it up rather than sacrificing yourself from something that is unwinnable.  That was the situation I found my self in... I am really proud of myself to say that I cannot do this. The department had to suffle people around, but were understanding because in two weeks I will now be teaching five classes.  Six classes is almost impossible and with the situation I was going to have to teach under made it too hard to do. 

 

I feel much better for backing out of the class. 

 

When I got home my client called and we reviewed the placement of the data, cable and phone placements in the house.  Now I can spend more time on this and my writing again... It gives me six hours a week to write... before I start teaching the additional classes. 

 

I keep telling my students that as women we have to learn to take care of yourself because no one else will.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Can you hear my groan when I say that...  Off to school in a couple of minutes.  Had a good day yesterday.  Saw the Chin-ese Med-icine Man he gave me some seeds that he put in my ear that will help me calm down.  These hormones seem to be exerzasbating everything so I took my last pill last night.  I am not going to get a refill... The seeds seemed to help. 

 

Worked on taxes most of the day.  Got my business taxes done... almost... for the year.  Still need to balance the books, do my year to date, and figure the expenses for all my trips for clients, school, and teaching.  Hmmmm  But I did get the forms filled out that I needed to do for the end of the forth quarter...

 

Took a bath and got in bed by 8:30.  Finished reading another Janet Eva-novich book in the Staphanie... Yes Kristine there is another short one out with Die-sel about Val-entines Day...  Turned off the light at 11:00.  Hope your day is good.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Hey Carole, I didn't find anything at Pe-nny's, but B. Mo-ss got some of my money.  I bought a pair of a pair of slacks, they were blue tealish houndstooth they out of wool... Then I got three tops.  Green t-shirt with beads around the neck line, a brown cross over sweater with built in cami, and then a black cross over schedule.  All for $51.  Not bad...  Pictures to follow... I also bought a cool jean jacket from New-port Ne-ws...  so I photographed at that.

 

We started our shopping by walking four miles along the walking the trail that starts right outside of the mall (it goes all the way to VT campus).  Kristin, Elizabeth, and Katya and I walked four miles... it was a beautiful day with the sun shining and cold air is coming back today.  So we make the most of our walk.  Pictures to follow.  

 

Today I am going to do my books for my business, so that I can do my taxes and write my W-2s. Hmmm Then I will work on my clients project.  See if I can get the stuff we talked about complete at our last meeting and order samples so I am ready to go to Florida in the first couple of weeks of February.   I am going to Florida to meet with my client, the architect, and the builder.  When I get back from Florida I will be teaching six classes so will not be able to do much other stuff, so inow I am trying to get ahead on what I can... hmmmmm 

 

I have learned over the years to conserve energy and plan ahead in preparation of the hard push... when things would get crazy.  Because life is full of hard pushes.  Unfortunately I have two hard pushes right now... my dissertation and teaching six classes for four weeks.  I have learned the hard way ... that it is important protect yourself sometimes from yourself and my own over commitments.   That is me right now. And that is why it was so important to give myself permission to not graduate by May.  My life is truely going to be challenging for the next six weeks.  But at the end of that is spring break.... wow a light at the end of the tunnel.  Hope your day is good.  Love and kisses, Marilyn     

Sitting on the sofa with coffee.  Hmmmm  I actually slept in until 10:00 this morning, which was good since I got home from Luke and Ellens I had to let the two glasses of red wine wear off before I came home... and I took a nap in the afternoon so could stay awake.  I left their house at 11:00pm.  After checking my email I hit the bed... woke up in the middle of the night and was a wake for a while... greeehhh so I was really happy to sleep in. I have to get up at 7:00 three days a week so I seem to wake up at 7:00 on the other days and feel lucky when I can get back to sleep.   

 

I am beginnning to feel better about my work load.  Even though I continued to work on my dissertation... giving up on a May graduation really helped take the self imposed pressure off of my writing.  I am not feeling as stressed once I gave up on an unrealistic schedule. 

 

Once again I have taken on too much other work... teaching three classes (instead of two), and working on a client, and helping a colleague with her classes by teaching for four weeks her classes while her husband is in the hospital... hasn't left much time to do my actual un paid job of finishing my dissertation.  

 

I think I took on this extra work because I am really tired of getting in more debt as a student.... so the extra paychecks of teaching an additional class and the glory of being able to work with a client again...  with the extra money coming in is worth the stress of trying to get everything else done.   In addition, I think that writing so much over Christmas as burned my brain out and it needs a break to finish the push.  I am still writing each week, but my client took two writing days this week... but I will get a pay check on the first of the month... which helps out my budget which is a good thing. So life is so full of compromises...  

 

Kristin and I are going shopping at the Mall today... Carole planted the thought of the sales with her mall walking exercising program this week.  Thanks, I think.  Hope you have a nice day...the sun is out here what a relief from the drearyness of the last week.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

I can access this easily... don't know what is going on... finally it is easy again to access my friends sights... but I can't get in my own to write.  Then today I have no problems getting to my edit mode... Hope it is cleaned up because it is a real pain to they five different ways to get into my own space.  But now I can access my friends really easily (like when MSN added the friends list to this sight... it messed every thing up for months)... could not just flip back and forth between sights like you can now.   

 

I got back to my state of inte-rior des-ign as of 2007.  Elizabeth really helped me Tuesday night by discussing how to organize it.  Sometimes you are so close to something you can't figure it out.  This morning I took the high lights from eight interviews and organized them by different topics... wow what a difference. Thanks again... I feel better moving forward on this.  

 

I taugh the drafting class this afternoon for Julie... she had to go to Richmond.  It was hard yet eventually fun.  She has a large number of assignments... and I had to lecture about floor plans, roof plans, elevations, and learn how to project other drawings from other elevations and plans... they built a model and did four exercises on how to do orthographic (sp) projected drawings... and I even had to give a quiz.  I was tired when I got home. 

 

Went swimming with Noelle which was fun and had dinner with Elizabeth and Katya...  Which is always fun.  Katya made a sentence of five words... she is changing so fast. 

 

Hope all is fine.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Well I woke up at 7:00 this morning (the time I have to get up on M, W, and F).  After trying to go back to sleep, NOT. I got up and checked out my friends here.  Now I am ready to start writing.  I have to teach one of the drafting classes this afternoon for Julie... so I guess I better get to work.  Hope you have a good one.  Marilyn     

Of not getting into my space easily... It took five different trys to finally get in...  Hey Carole, I teach at 8:20 on Monday, Wed, and Friday so won't write probably until evenings...  It is all I can do to make coffee, gather my lunch and get out the door...

 

I decided today that I will not be able to graduate in May.  I just have too much writing left to do and too many other commitments... I should not have agreed to teach this fashion drawing class on top of the two sections of the materials class (I agreed when I didn't think I was going to have to teach on Friday.  WRONG!  

 

My client is also taking a lot of time, but I am getting paid for that... school does not pay for the first six weeks so I would rather work on something that I can get a paycheck by Feb 1st or there abouts.  I really need that money, so I am not complaining.... much.  In addition, it is a fantastic project and I am learning all kinds of new things.   

 

It has been a crappy week since I got my evaluations and I can't seem to get out of my funk.  I think working every minute I could to get my writing done... and not making as much progress as I had hoped has not added to my over all mood.  I am just plain tired. And not going with the flow as much as I usually do because of that.  I think working so much over Christmas break used up my energy... and I started the term intellectually depleted, so little things that would not normally bother me much are bugging me.

 

Giving myself permission to not finish by May is a big step toward restoring some balance in my life... it is only an artificial timeline anyway. But it is hard for me to come off of it.  I so much wanted to finish in four years. 

 

By the way, I set my last necessary interview for tomorrow afternoon.  So that is nice.  Have a great day... I wish the sun would come out it would help me feel sunnier... This is not like me to be in a crappy mood for more than three days.  Cheers, Marilyn

Well this morning I worked on my clients project... sent the selections of appliances to the architect and need to send the same thing to the builder. 

 

Then I got back on to that interview... I have worked on it for about three hours and not even a third of the way throug... I decided to give it over to my transcriber... I am taking too long for me to fix it. 

 

Then I went swimming at the rec. center and to the chiropractor, came home and changed my clothes to go to dinner with Gisele who just passed her preliminary exam this week... She lives in Chicago now... so it was great seeing her and celebrating.  Then I went over to Elizabeth's house to see them... it has been much too long.  Katya had a green ballet outfit on and her ruby slippers... Elizabeth helped me to figure out how to do this chapter I am doing the interview that I was working on the transcription. 

 

Hope that your day was good.  Love and kisses, Marilyn 

Okay... I just tried to get in here seven times... I tried the front door, the back door that worked last week.  I don't even know how I got in... this morning.  I got in by signing in... but that didn't work just now... I am really getting tired of it taking ten minutes to get in here.

 

I did one of my hardest lectures today... it was okay.  I was talking about testing agencies for inter-ior materials...  Could be deadly, not really exciting but I tried to add application information.  School started two hours late, the ice was off the roads before daybreak. I was able to pick up my students assignments and give them their first assignment back.  I also got the notebooks for the classes organized and attendence sheets and grading sheet done.  I came home did my grading.  Then I headed off to the pool, and my client called, so I turned around and came home and talked to them on the phone for 45 minutes.  They were interacting on my drawings I did yesterday. 

 

I went swimming after we got off of the phone... then came home and had pea soup wiht lots of ham Carole.  And now I a writing... My formere student, former intern and friend Kristine told me this weekend that she is coming to the states with her husband in March.  She lives in Lativa.   I can't wait to see her.

 

Hope your day was great.  Love and kisses, Marilyn    

But it melted on the roads before day break... School was delayed until 10:00... so I will be setting out soon.  Hope your day is good.  Marilyn   

I fiddled around this morning and finally got working on the goofie interview about 12:30...  By two my client from Michigan called and I got diverted from my dissertation to her project.  She has a meeting tomorrow... so I went up stairs to my drafting board. and drew the floorplan, 4 elevations, and two custom cabinet pieces.  I faxed the plans off at 7:30... Hmmm For some reason I am tired tonight. 

 

Still freezing and sleet mix... so ground is not a sheer sheet of ice, but crumbly... Hope your day is good.  Love and kisses, Marilyn  

Okay snow changed over to freezing rain... and they expect it to comtinue until midnight... hmmmmm  Just went over to my neighbor to tell him he should move his car up to the top of the hill.  Hope you have a safe and warm Sunday.  Marilyn

Sunday morning on the sofa with coffee. 

 

We are expecting snow, sleet, ice, and I parked my car up the hill so that I can get out in the morning... but I still have to get down the hill when I leave tomorrow morning... We will see what happens throughout the day and tonight.

 

I work up with a small sinus headache so I may spend my day on the sofa sleeping instead of writing... I need to take decongestant and see how I feel after Sun-day Mo-rning. 

 

I have finally put my student evaluations behind me.  Until they come out at the end of next term...

 

Kristin and I went to Sa-m's Cl-ub yesterday, and stocked up on paper products and coffee, and anything esle we could find.  Also got my laundry done.  But I didn't cut my hair.  Think I will make pea soup today... Hope your day was good.   Love and kisses, Marilyn

Before the storm... we have one coming tomorrow... I am from Michigan so I don't worry about snow... But it is the ice I worry about especially

My plans for today include relaxing... Saturday is my day off... I would like to go to Sa-ms Club in Ronoake.  I already slept in and changed the bed... started my first load of laundry and tonight I want to cut my hair before I take a bubble bath... 

 

Yesterday was amazingly busy.  I did two field trips for my class, looking at code issues in buildings on campus... Then I had lunch and then  judged the regional design competition for the ID-EC conference I will be attending in March.  By the time I did that (four hours) I only had time to get my back cracked and get my message...

 

Fabiola I and in your corner... I weighed myself yesterday morning and in addition to the 3 pounds I put on at Christmas... in the last two weeks I put on 7 pounds... I am now two pound more than when I started my diet last spring... greeehhhhh!  When I went to my massage therapist... she said that my skin has plumped... I am taking hormones to adjust my feminie parts and it has plumped me up like a ball park frank... I jeans don't fit... and other clothes are tight... hmmm how do I say this.... part of me come in the door before it did two weeks ago... might be a good thing but they itch too... tee hee... hmmmm 

 

I was blaming myself for the weight gain although I did not go crazy with eating, but I didn't swim as much as I should because the pool was closed a lot so I walked but... I couldn't figure it out.. and seven pounds in two weeks is crazy...   Alright back to the diet... but then my massage therapist told me it is probably the hormones... The first five days I was on them I drank almost a gallon fo water a day I was to thirsty and didn't get rid of as much as I was drinking... so she may be right, which  makes me feel better...       

 

Hope you have a great day... Marilyn

Yesterday was a skip around day...

 

I started by finalizing my application to U-NCG, it went in the mail. 

 

Then I had used up brain power on preparing that application... and didn't want to work on my writing, so I paid bills... and as I did that I also cleaned those piles of papers on the kitchen counter that get put in with the piled bills... all those little pieces of paper that you can't throw out but don't know what to do with... I only has one pile left, until the next mail delivery.   Over the weekend I had organzied and filed all the paid bills for last year, in preparations for working on my taxes.  Lakota inspired me with her rant on drowning in papers. 

 

Then I needed to get back to my dissertation, but I could not bring myself to write.  So I pulled some more quotations from the transcribed interviews for my state of the profession chapter... I had worked on that at the airport on my way to Michigan last weekend.  When I tried to do that for one of the last interviews and It was not transcribed very well.  So I spent about an hour and a half  trying to fix it.. 

 

Then Kristin called, she has a cold again... and then I went swimming came home ate spaghetti and watched TV. 

 

This morning I am up early to check out the building that I am going to tour with my students. Hope your day will be good.  It is cold and blustery here... and very cloudy.  Love and kisses, Marilyn   

It took me five times to get in here... even trying to go in the back door three times by going in through the comments window.... greehhhh for a week two weeks ago that is the only way I could get in ... then it was okay now I am back to backing into my own blog.

 

This week I called Cor-nell to see if it was worth me apllying for the job since they required pulbished articles... they said that I probably would not make the cut because of my lack of them because they had multiple applicants with the qualifications... So I won't apply.  I wouldn't mind doing it myself but they require letters of recommation from three people and other school just seem to want email addresses and phone numbers... So I hated to ask busy people to write letters for a job I won't get because I don't have the qualifications. 

 

So this week I am getting my application into U-NCG and thank you again Elizabeth for editing my letter... I couldn't do this without you.  I think I will leave my applications to four schools any of which I would like to work at....

 

Hope your day will be good, I am going to work on my dissertation as soon as I get the letter to UN-CG printed...  Love and kisses, Marilyn