Daylight Savings

It always catches my by surprise. Here I thought I was awake an hour early, with a little time to spend just for myself, when Bruce's cell phone alarm told us we had to be to choir practice in half an hour.

Like I said . . .

I do like the extra sunlight, but this time-changing business is nothing but annoying!

The Most Important Meal

Everyone says it: Don't skip breakfast! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

Well, I often skip breakfast. Not because I'm not hungry; I usually wake up starved! But I look in the fridge and in the pantry and my body says, "Bleh." After about 45 minutes—the amount of time it takes to get the kids up and ready for our daily drive to school—I'm not starving any more, but I do feel ready to eat. So when I get home I can eat something in a nice, leisurely fashion, and stave off my hunger for another few hours. It's good.

Bleh.

Except on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I go straight from the kids' school to my school for Cardio Fitness Class (aka Play Like a Hamster on a Wheel Class). Then I feel a little guilty because not only did I skip the most important meal of the day, but now I'm exercising after having gone my entire night with no food to energize me or get my metabolism going. But it's still not too bad, because the class is only an hour and then I go home and have something to eat in a nice, leisurely fashion, staving off my hunger for a few hours.

But Wednesdays are terrible! On Wednesday mornings I go through the usual routine: Wake up ravenous; peer into the fridge, "Bleh;" get the kids up, get ready for school, etc. But this time I have to go straight from the kids' school to the train station and head up town for six hours of classes. By the time I've made it to my first class I know I could eat something. About an hour into class I am truly starved. After another hour my body quiets down and stops complaining to me, and I can finish the first three-hour class in peace.

But then I have to go to Patterns, the class that requires the most brain work. And the five minute walk from Tailoring to Patterns reminds me that I am starving, and that I have three hours of mind-intensive class to finish, and that the classroom is fiendishly hot. And then the afternoon blahs hit. It makes for a tough class.

Things might be different if this was in my fridge

or my pantry in the morning

Well, yesterday morning was kind of awful. I'd stayed up Tuesday night until 1 a.m. finishing a whole lot of hand-sewing for Tailoring class because I'd missed two weeks in a row due to strep-throaty kids, and was falling behind. This late-night sewing got me almost caught up with the class (and, as a bonus, I got to "watch" BBC's Sense and Sensibility while I sewed). At 1 a.m. I carefully laid my coat-fronts on the ironing board, so as not to wrinkle them, and then headed to bed.

Wednesday morning: I wake up about half an hour early, but still starved; look in the fridge, "Bleh." I think, "Maybe I can work on that late project for Patterns." But instead I start packing my school bags. Between my preparations and getting the kids up and ready for school I spend the entire hour and a half just getting myself ready to go. And now I'm really starving! But it's time to hop in the van and drive off. I throw a few granola bars and a bottle of water in my bag and we leave. As I'm pulling up to Entheos it suddenly hits me: I left my coat pieces lying on the ironing board! After some choice expletives (shoot! dang-it!) I drive back home. And then, thinking that I'm late anyway, I make myself a sandwich—which was kind of bleh, but quick and easy to do. At least I won't be hungry through the first class. I get my stuff together and drive for the train station. I get there just as the train does, and I have to RUN to make it (I am too old for this kind of adrenaline rush!) This gives me a headache and nausea that make me regret the turkey-pastrami sandwich for the next hour.

And then, a miracle happened! I didn't feel hungry throughout my Tailoring class! I didn't get hungry in Patterns until the last 30 minutes or so of class! I didn't feel like I'd rather go to sleep than draw another pattern all afternoon! I felt pleasant all day!

Could it be that I'd jump-started my metabolism for the day? Maybe breakfast really is the most important meal of the day! Whaddaya know?

Of course right now, first thing in the morning, having woke up (woken up? awakened?) feeling starved, and having looked around and gone, "Bleh," I am blogging about breakfast instead of eating it.

February's Good News

Uh-oh! February got short-changed because of all the tons of homework that was causing me fits.

But here's February's good news anyway:

Here's the good news of the day:

February 1

Got the bodice drafted and sewn for Patterns 2. Tomorrow I can try this stylish outfit on my dressform.

February 2

Yummy dinner, fell asleep in front of one of my favorite movies, to bed early. When did 10 p.m. become early?

February 3

Not much to tell today. I got all my "body drafts" made in P by M tonight.

February 4

Melanie dropped by to visit tonight. :-)

February 5

Bruce and I went window shopping this morning. Actually, bathtub shopping.

February 6

I don't remember. Lindsey says we talked and laughed together.

February 7

Umm. Stressful day.

February 8

Oh! Super stressful day!

February 9

Tailoring wasn't as bad as I anticipated. I feel a little lost in that class. But Helen (teacher) "held my hand" and I got through it happily.

February 10

Got my workout. Does walking the treadmill remind you of a hamster on a wheel? Bruce and I bought cookies on the way home. Yum!

February 11

I bought a year's supply—or what should be a year's supply—of cinnamon hot cocoa today. :-)

February 12

OK. I just re-read Feb. 10 and it made me laugh. I worked out and then bought cookies. Yay, me!

Bus Adventure

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I get out of school too late to go pick my kids up from school. So Bruce rides the bus to work, I leave the van at the train station and take the train into town; in the afternoon Bruce buses over to the train station and then goes to get the kids.

Today, on the bus, I was just sitting there minding my own business and playing Sudoku on my phone. At one stop a man got on and, even though there were lots of empty seats, he sat right next to me. He glances at my phone and says, "How do you text on that thing?"

I say, "I go to my 'contacts' list and enter the name/number that I want." and go on playing my game.

He says, "Text me."

Well, that was unexpected! I say, "I can't; I don't have your name and number in my phone."

He tells me his name and waits for me to do something. I say, "I don't have your number." and play my game.

He says he doesn't know if he can remember his number. He thinks for a minute and then slowly gives me his number. I nod, and keep playing my game, wondering— what's the deal here? Is he just friendly? is he simple? does he think I'm cute? (I wasn't this afternoon), is he looking for a friend? I don't know what to say, so I say nothing. I am very rude, I suppose. After a few seconds he says, "Give me your phone number."

!?!

I say, "I don't give out my phone number." And I wonder how long I will be sitting next to this man. But he got off at the very next stop.

And this little adventure is the most unusual thing that has ever happened to me on the bus.

Awake . . .

. . . at 4:30 a.m. Initially I woke up to at 3:50 to go to the bathroom. But then I couldn't get back to sleep because my unfinished homework looms over me, watching me toss in my bed. So I got up to work on it, only to find that there is no space for me to work on it. I can clean the kitchen from 4:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. so that I can work on school stuff that I still won't have time to finish, or I can sit here being super-tired and blog about it.

So here's a little whine for you.

My Pattern class is making me crazy. Now, I do like patterns, and I still "get it." But I spend every spare minute I have pretty much ignoring my kids, and my house, and almost not even preparing meals, so I can draft, cut out, and sew new patterns instead. This week I've only had time for the drafting of patterns; no sewing got done—a major, HUGE part of the grade each week. And between that class and the mom stuff I have to do I'm not getting any of my other homework done. I'm about three weeks behind in Tailoring—another reason I can't sleep, because that's my first class this morning. I don't have my Pattern by Measurement assignment done; I will scramble to do it tomorrow before class in the evening. I am staying up too late and getting up too early, and am generally stressed-out and unhappy.

Add to all that: one son who aimlessly stays up all night every night, even though he doesn't seem to like it and frequently complains about going nowhere; another son who dropped his core classes in school, opting to take charge of his own education instead (meaning he will study English, math, and history on his own—pretty much unsupervised, since I'm not really able to keep track of what he's doing while I'm in school myself); a husband working three part-time jobs; plans to go to graduate school (Bruce, not me, obviously) and possibly move; and all the normal craziness of life.

I ask myself, "Why am I going to school anyway?" I don't think I've ever been entirely clear about that.

I rationalize, "If we do move I'll be forced to drop the program anyway and I can learn most of it from reading the textbooks. This is what's happening in Patterns, anyway." (True enough.)

I think, "Maybe I should just quit going to classes, and fail them all, and forget about school."

Dropping out sounds like a very relieving thing to do; but this option, I think, would make me feel sad. I don't want to be a quitter—never mind the lovely example this would give my kids.

But I am drowning, drowning, drowning. I should be sleeping now, at 5 a.m. I should gently and kindly tell myself that I can't get the work finished anyway—not before I have to get the kids up, and ready for, and to school—and that another two hours of sleep would serve me better. But my over-excitable brain won't let me sleep.

So, instead, I guess I'd better go get the kitchen clean enough for me to start working.