Housekeeping

This term is (knock on wood) starting off swimmingly – just like my last term was seeming to go, before I broke my back and knocked my karma out of whack (not to mention my spine!)  I just cleaned and organized pretty much the whole house (except my own closet) .  It doesn’t last long, but I love it when all of the boys’ trains and track are in one basket, their Play Doh in another, all their animal figurines in the crate where I keep them.  It all gets mixed up eventually, but my organized, OCD little heart pitter pats to see it all neat and properly organized.  I did all of that as a way to comb through and integrate the Christmas toys.  I donated/tossed enough stuff that we seem to have kept our Volume O’ Plastic Crap at a constant, which is all I want.  (That and some kind of warning that gives a loud screech when you’re about to step on something wheeled and sharp.  Those two things would make my interaction with my children’s toys absolutely perfect.)

I’m also focusing on wellness for myself.  That is to say, I’m trying to lose this pesky twenty pounds.  I’ve been eating either a Slim Fast or a green smoothie or a bowl of plain Cream of Wheat with dried cherries for breakfast every day, I have fruit or veggies and hummus and maybe a bit of cheese for lunch, and I’ve stuck with vegetarian dinners (for the most part) that are delicious and healthy.  I occasionally cheat – we had waffles for breakfast the other day – but not as often as I used to.  In fact, the other day I walked down to a nearby Whole Foods to get Jack and myself a slice of spinach pizza for dinner – and I resisted!  I got him pizza and a salad without dressing for myself.  That was a feat, people, and I will be proud of myself for a while for that one.  It helps that Whole Foods’s salad bar is the bomb.  Edamame, peas, corn, cooked egg, a smidge of cheese, red cabbage, carrot shavings, radishes . . . on and on with the fresh deliciousness.

*All this said, I am eating too much King Cake.  Damn you, Mardi Gras!  Damn you, New Orleans!*

In addition to eating well, I’ve been exercising pretty regularly since December.  I was running about 40 minutes (so 4-ish miles), 4-5 days a week, and I’ve since added in some gym time.  So the frustrating thing is that it’s been a few weeks now and the scale hasn’t budged, and nor has my body changed (at least as far as I can tell by the way my clothes fit).  But I’m giving it lots and lots of time.  It helps that Liam sleeps a little better these days.  I actually have some energy to devote to this.

My classes are all set.  I’m investigating that bad grade.  I really feel like maybe he missed a page or something, or mixed up my confidential exam number.  But if not – if he got my whole exam, and he graded it, and that’s what I got, then I’m not going to argue.  I just need to make sure it wasn’t a clerical error of some kind – because every one in my study group got As, and even a couple of people who attended ONE LOUSY CLASS all term and didn’t study for the exam til the night before got some flavor of B.  It’s odd.  We’ll see.  If I keep that grade, then it’s almost a blessing, because I did the calculations and there’s no way I can get summa cum laude.  However, I’d have to do extremely poorly to lose magna cum laude.  That would mean that this term would be EXTREMELY low pressure.  That wouldn’t be a bad thing.

The boys are great.  I took them to the aquarium on MLKJ day, and they ran around the fishes holding hands the whole time.  It was adorbs.  Also, we got there right when it opened, and I took them straight up to a new free flying bird aviary, where you go in and feed the birds peanut butter off of sticks, while they land on your head and walk all over your arms.  It’s pretty awesome, and for a while we were the only ones in there.  The boys lost their minds with glee, and I almost took a bird home in the diaper bag as a stowaway, til I noticed the little dude was in there making a nest out of Liam’s precious Puppy.

The Professor is great, too.  He’s teaching a grad level class this term, which makes a nice change from undergrads.  (He likes teaching undergrads, too, but it’s a whole different animal when they’re grad students.)

So, knock on wood once more, and again for good measure, but things are going ok in the RG household.  I hope it stays that way!