Started working on the comparison of the accreditation for Arch and ID programs... worked with students on their projects.  Came home and collasped on the sofa.  Hope your day is fine.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

I did not work this morning.   I did pay bills... but I relaxed and  then I went to class and taught... graded, taught my second class and then went swimming... so I feel pretty good tonight.  Tomorrow I will get back to my dissertation... HOpe your day is grand.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

My horoscope says... and stay home... NOT!  Oh well.  I have been working hard and at least took the morning off to pay bills.  Hope your day is grand.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

I just got home all safe and sound.  I had to stop writing quickly to go to the airport... so couldn't finish my story...

It is pretty late but I will tell you about the moving we watched this morning... it was called Ac*ross the Unive*rse... it was all Bea*tles songs sung to a story line about the time I was a junior and senior in high school and my first year or two at college (the first time)... I was almost sobbing uncontrollably by the end of it... it stirred up so many old feelings of those oh so turbulent times... V*iet Nam, the race riots all over the United States, Ma*rtin Luth*er Kin*g being killed, Bo*bby Ken*nedy getting shot on the day I graduated from high school and dying on my 18th birthday... the draft, anti war protesters, student strikes, and over riding it all... the free love, drugs and rock and roll culture... Boy what an amazing movie...

It reminds me why I am so opposed to our curr*ent engage*ment.  The hopelessness I felt then, I feel now... my government is doing so much that is counter to everything that I believe in.... and young people young beautiful people are going off to a war that we cannot win.  This time we are not blaming them... tonight at the airport we applauded a wounded young soldier coming back from war... we didn't do that in the 1960s and 70s much to my regret. 

I didn't strike, I didn't do drugs, but I was so opposed to the war... And in this amazing movie... captures it all...  it is all embodied in this amazing music...  What a tour de force!   Hope your day was good.  I am off to shower and to bed.  Love and kisses, Marilyn   

Yesterday we had a relaxing day.  I got up late... it was almost 10:00 Cindy fixed me a couple of eggs for breakfast and we decided to go to the mall.  Cindy forgot some of her cooking utensils in Michigan and wanted to get more.  We went to the Interna*tional Mall in Tam*pa... as we left home the sky darkened and we got caught in a amazing down pour... it was hard to even see the road.  Once we found the mall we cruised around in the parking garage looking for an open space since it was still pouring.... Cindy has lost her umbrellas and so we needed covered parking... but there were at least a dozen cars looking for spaces in the parking garage, like vultures hovering over a corpse.  After ten minutes... we went back out into the pouring rain to see if we could find the valet parking area.... after a few minutes Cindy saw a space close to a door and she let me out... she parked and made a dash for the door with the sun-guard as her umbrella.  We walked around the mall and found some things at Willi*am Son*oma.  We then had lunch at The Cheese*cake Factory it was so yummy.... and went to a movie The Spid*erwick Chronicles at an IM*AX theater.  It was wonderful.  Hope your day is great.  I fly home tonight.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Last night I had dinner alone.  Cindy needed to go to an awards ceremony for her builder.  They invited me, but I (hopefully) graciously declined.  An evening alone on the beach in Treasure Island was just what I needed. 

I walked down the beach to Slo*py Jo*es  Restaurant.  The restaurant was busy with people enjoying their holidays.  The booze was flowing and the food piled high.  There was a buzz around the restaurant of people on enjoying themselves on vacation.  Light revelry because this was mostly a family place... For example at the table to the right there were three generations of one (or maybe two) families... Mother, father, daughter and baby... mother father and daughter.. I overheard that the youngest four weeks old.  On the left of me a women my age with two friends and her mother... They also were enjoying the warm night...

I had a Cuban sandwich and a bag of dough for dessert... maybe it was the giant margarita that had me so mellow. It all tasted really good.

It was slightly cloudy and I went... oh well I will miss a pretty sunset... but as the sun went down, although the sun itself was hidden... it reflected up on to the clouds made the cloud cover awash with bright pink light.  It was amazing to sit there and watch Mother Natures show... it was a really beautiful five or ten
minutes... I took pictures with my phone... maybe I can figure out how to transfer them here.  

Anyway it was just what I needed and I had to share...  Hope your day is great.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Well I was able to get internet down here.  Cindy's house looks great.  The second floor decking is in but the rook is a ways to be on... I guess they are having problems with the trusses.   We had good meetings today after my great early morning flights.  Up at four fifteen in Tampa by 10:00.  I am amazingly not tired... After being tired all week... I don't understand, but I don't have to.  I hope that your day is great.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

I am going to Florida this weekend to work with my client that is building a sustainable house... I am looking forward to seeing it I think the shell is close to being ready to be enclosed.  Hope your weekend will be great... Don't know if I will have access to internet. 

My new sofa and loveseat are being delivered this morning.  I will put photos up soon.  Talk to you on Monday.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

What is it about Mother Nature that is so overwhelming... The lunar eclipse is amazing.  Mother Nature at her best.  Thanks Kathy for telling me about it... I might have missed seeing it.  Working away...  

I have been editing this week.  3.5 hours Monday, 4 Tuesday... am on page 39.... hmmmm have not gotten back to my committee yet.. with if I think I can get this done.  Weather is nice down here, coolish yet sunny.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Perseverance... I got back on my dissertation today, but my brain is really tired..  It made teaching this afternoon hard and this is Monday.  I am also trying to get my syllabi done for classes next term.  I will give it a couple of more day... as see.  I am not superwoman... like my younger colleagues.  Hope your day was great.  Love and kisses, Marilyn 

I am trying to relax today and not "have to do" anything today. 

Part of me wants to play with the new wall paint I bought for my living room, dining room and kitchen.  It is peach and I painted my little hall last week to see if the color was right.  Sometimes it looks very peachy sometimes it is beigie... I am thinking it is exactly what I want, but I need to make sure it is not too much peach.  With my cherry floor I don't want the room to be too warm.  I want to bring the walls in a little and make the large space more intimate... I did buy cooler color rugs and furniture to balance the warm.  With the white trim I think that it will be beautiful, but it tows the line....  which will help balance the color. I am concerned that it may be too peachy.  I need to paint a large wall and look at it in day light and night time.  Anyway I am trying to resist getting the paint brush out and playing.    

I am planning to cut my hair and go for a walk on the Ogeechee Canal trail.  Then at 5:00 we are getting together at Scott's for dinner.

I just watched a move called In His Fa*thers Shoes, with Lo*u Gos*sett Jr.  It was about the 11 year old kid who put on his recently passed away father's shoes and time traveled to when his dad was a kid.  To learn lessons to help the present.  It was very good and poignant... ended up with tears in my eyes a couple of times especially at the end... if you have lost someone close to you it is really wonderful in that there is a certain continuity in life...

I hope that your day is terrific... Love and kisses, Marilyn  

Saturday and working... today was my turn to do SC*AD Day promoting our program to possible future students.

Yesterday I graded my lighting assignments... it was funny.  I gave my students a footcandle calculation problem that my colleague had prepared.  I spent about two hours working to come up the correct answer.  I knew what it needed to be, but needed to figure out how to get there.  Then I could give my students partial credit for understanding the method even when they did not calculate it right.   I had to laugh at myself, trying to understand her assignment when I was missing the page that included the steps to get there.  I will review the correct answers with them.  I finally got caught up on my grading in my lighting class. 

This morning I graded my rendering assignment for one class.  Most of the students did really well. Two were not real successful.  I still have the other class to grade... I will try to do that in a few minutes.

It was a nice day here today.  I enjoy the sun shining... Hope your day is wonderful.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Wow I actually made it through the week.  I really was not sure I would.... I was so tired when the week began, but here I am Thursday night celebrating Valentine's Day.  I made half home made pizza... half because I had ready made crust, pre made sauce and onions and pepperoni and pre-grated cheese... combined into one yummy pizza... with a glass of wine... it was great dinner. 

I told Kristin that I stopped at Kro*ger to get the pizza and ended up spending $100.00 ... Kristin wanted to know how much money that meant that I saved by making it myself.. hmmmm I guess I should say I also brought enough groceries for the week... hmmm not $100. semi home made pizza.

My students are really responding really well in my classes today.  I hope that your day was great.  I am getting caught up on my grading. 

Happy Valentine's Day.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

My lighting class went pretty well with our getting started on projects designing light.  I worked with three students and they were really excited about their projects.  It was fun. 

I had a doctors appointment this morning so was up early.  I am really tired tonight.  I hope that your day went well.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

No weather from Savannah... I will activate it again when things warm up in Blacksb*urg.

I am beginning to recover from the last month of working 10 hours a day.  I am still tired and wired as I try to go to sleep, but at least I am not waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to go back to sleep for a while. (knock on wood)

I took my students to the mall last night.  We looked at retail lighting because that is going to be their big project for the term... they have 3.5 weeks to work on the lighting for a store they are designing in another class.  They do so much better when they can see the lights and I point out stuff for them to look at.  I am going to start to finish my grading this morning.  I am still behind, but feel that I can get caught up before I move back to my dissertation on Friday.

I have been processing the information and getting comfortable about what I have yet to do.  I just need to work my way through the whole 250 pages aligning it with my new direction.  We flipped my direction of my paper from looking at licensing for interior designers and how that made us into a profession to the professionalization of interior design has been accomplished by the licensing effort... I cannot tell you how intimidating it is to reverse that lens.  Now I am becoming the expert on the professionalization of my profession... not just on licensing.  Intellectually I know that I am there and this really is what my dissertation is about... but boy... it is scary on a personal level, because this broadens my work and makes it so much more important... but it will be up for criticism... and being the perfectionist that I am trying not to be, I don't take criticism well.  And there will be a lot of educators and practitioner resisting all of this.... because it is a new way of thinking about our profession from positive light rather than a subservient one... I was getting resistance from a colleague in my office at school yesterday.  She was a practitioner for 25 years and knows all about licensing...

Again... you will all hear about it over and over again as I try to process all of this and get my mind in this new position and begin to build walls of protection to be able to accept the criticism. After all that is part of what this blog is for...

Hope your day is grand.  Love and kisses, Marilyn        

I got home last night from Virginia and wrote a short note here and published it... but it is not here?!?   Oh well.  I said that I had a good time with my friends in  Virginia and that my committee wants me to do some more work on my dissertation.... I know, I want this paper to be done too... but I also want it right. 

Last night as I lay in bed having problems getting to sleep, I think I finally realized what it is they want me to do.  My previous chair told me to not put myself into my scholarly writing... and my current co-chair said don't put my experiences in the writing, but asked me to conclude at the end of each chapter what I found.  Now my committee is asking me to interpolate what I have found at the end of each section and stitch together my whole dissertation with this common thread.  We changed the name of my dissertation from the Politics of the Licensing of the Profession of Interior Design: Three Case Studies to the History of the Professionalization of Interior Design with a special emphasis on Licensing.  Then Joe suggested I weave that title back into the beginning and ending of every section.  How all of my work responds to this title.  Finally in bed last night... when I couldn't sleep, I finally understood how I can do that... The change in title really reverses the view point.  Before I was looking at licensing and oh look professionalization happened ...  Now I am examining the professionalization of my profession through the process of licensure.... hmmm  I can do that.

It is scary because it makes my dissertation more global, which means it really will affect my profession more than before.  I finally realized this week... this is the first work done examining the professionalization of my profession and that scares the sh*t out of me.  I knew this work was important but this new viewpoint is much more important to my profession than I originally thought... 

I am sorry Carole I will be whining about my writing for another couple of months...

The hardest thing about all of this was I had to give up on graduating in May with my friends Ceylon and Nancy... but I hope to defend by May, so I will be Dr. then and walk in graduation in December (once every one else has walked, I probably won't walk).  If I don't get done my May I will have to pay another $1,400 for tuition and I don't want to do that.  But I am really tired from this last push to get done.  

I am taking the rest of this week off from working on my dissertation (I still have to teach classes) to let my brain rest and come back to me and getting as much sleep as I can... with all the stress my hot flashes are waking me multiple times in the night and two or three times a week I have major problems going back to sleep after the one at 3:00 AM... which of course only makes everything worse.  

I hope that your day will be terrific.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Says go into my fantasy world... hmmmmm I think I will... so that so my fear of my pre-defense doesn't cloud my mind.... Friday we will know...

I will be gone so probably will not be able to up date this.. Love and kisses, Marilyn

I had a moment last night of clarity that everything is going to be fine.  I was still restless sleeping...  but I knew that I will get through this next weekend well and will be able to handle the next three week of fixes just fine.  And the end of the school term, the two weeks after that... Interesting that that clarity came after I was thankful in my prayers for all of the energy, smarts, faith, and dogged perseverance, I have been given through this process of getting my Ph.D.  And I was thankful for my friends who have been with me every step of this process.  Including my blogging buddies.  I am so blessed and I know it.  Love and kisses, Marilyn

Kristine was right... my lighting class went really well tonight.  We finally did the exercise part of photometrics in class and finally they understand how to do it.  Yes... No crash and burn tonight!  I am going to the dentist tomorrow morning and then voting... and then going to school... I also need to stop at the IRS to pick up W-2 and W-3 forms, I forgot to do them last week.  It is only for me.. but anyway. 

Hope your day is fine.  Love and kisses, Marilyn