No Time At All

Um, the Olympics are on, plus I am supposed to read both "Hamlet" and "King Lear" this week, (a virtual impossibility in and of itself) plus I need to go grocery shopping, plus we are still far from being completely unpacked,  plus I am leaving tomorrow night on a trip out of town* for the weekend. There is literally not enough time to do all of the things that I need/want to do. (Side note: I am much more concerned about fitting in the things I want to do than I am the things I need to do. As far as I'm concerned, King Lear and Hamlet will just have to wait because I am not missing the gold medal beach volleyball match tonight. That probably already happened. But don't tell me who won.)

Can't wait to finish Shakespeare. And hopefully get the blog caught up. Also I can't wait until 7:00 so I can turn my thermostat to a decent temperature. (Got our air fixed yesterday. Blessed relief. Too bad we can barely run it from 12 to 7).

Stand by for Greatness.

*Mentioning my weekend trip reminded me of something funny. Vanna was sitting with me while I was watching the Olympics/perusing "Hamlet" and she saw a bunch of Decathlon athletes leaving the field with roller suitcases (presumably carrying some of their decathlon gear...shot puts? Warm-up clothes? Who really knows?) She got really excited at the sight of the luggage and said, "Oh! They're going out of town?"

P.S.

This is me washing dishes at our new house. 

We hadn't gotten our sunscreens yet and the

 blinding afternoon sun streaming through 

our large family room windows was making

 the task even more fun than usual.

JustSoYa Know...

Time to crack my knuckles and pretend like I have enough core strength to sit up straight and let everyone know what's happening on our street.

1. It's a new street! We finally closed on a beautiful home that is 10 minutes away from Craig's mom and dad, and 15 minutes away from mine. Overkill? We don't know the meaning of the word.

2. You know how when you're facing a problem and you think that everything will be better once that particular problem is resolved, but you kind of forget that every problem's resolutions actually lead into a whole new set of problems? That happened to us. We thought that after the incredibly stressful, nail-biting, excruciating, tear-jerking experience of buying a house in the current economy was over that we could sit back and relax. Nope. Dog-pee-saturated stinky carpet, a stove that doesn't light, and a broken upstairs air conditioning unit (that the home warranty was supposed to cover but really doesn't) were on the horizon for us. The second and third of those problems have yet to be resolved. In another 24 hours I'll know if the pee smell is gone for good. Blind-sided? Why yes, yes we were. Still suffering from the nerve damage caused by the impact.

3. Still plugging along in my Shakespeare class. After a painful tutoring experience with my (college English teacher) sister in which she helped me to realize that my writing approach needed a serious overhaul (and in which I whined and complained like she was my mom and I was her seven-year-old who didn't want to do her homework) I think I am finally on the right track. (Thanks, La. Sorry again for being such a brat.)

4. School starts on Monday. I'll miss my girls. (A lot.) But this will keep me from killing them.

5. We still don't have any windows or blinds, but we did get some fabulous sun screens installed today. You should drive by at night and spy on us some time.

6. Our new electricity provider has told us that we have to be on the "time of use" plan. This means that kilowatt hours from 12 pm to 7 pm (the hottest hours of the day here on the planet of the sun) cost about four times as much as they do any other time. (Of course, this happened right after an exorbitantly high electric bill at my parents house led us to wonder if they were on the same plan but had neglected to mention it to us. They were, and they had.) This (along with my confession from number 4) is making me re-think my not so lucrative position as a stay-at-home mom.

7. A much-needed trip to Flagstaff this evening will get us away from our hot-hole for a couple days.
Halle-freaking-lujah.

That's it. May the force be with us.

Dang Distractions

Today I visited sparknotes.com to get a better handle on a Shakespeare play that I need to write a huge paper on in a few weeks. The content of the website was pretty helpful, I must say.

Want to know what wasn't helpful? All of the tantalizing links up and down the side of the page that were begging me to click on them instead of remaining studious and focused.

"The 5 All-Time grossest Bug Stories"
"What's Your English Gentry Name?"
"2 Pairs of shoes for the Price of 1"
"Top 5 Most Bad-A Presidents"

I mean, seriously, how is a girl supposed to get any work done around here?

I know, I know, websites like this have to use advertising to off-set the costs of providing free information to students who can't get through Shakespeare without a quick little cheat sheet....a.k.a. Me. But really? Is tempting someone with a quick way to find out their English Gentry name really the way to get people to concentrate on their homework?

The answer is no.

And it's Lady Guinevere Wood of Longford, in case you were wondering.

Invisible Me

Have you noticed that I like to disappear completely from the blogosphere every few weeks, and then show back up, rattle off some excuses, post a few times and then go back into hiding? Well, even if you haven't noticed, now you know. It's my M.O.

Last time, my excuse was that I was totally stressed about  life-changing events: moving, in particular. (Which is only one word, but really stands for so many handfuls of stress and exhaustion that they don't even all fit into the largest Uhaul box you can buy.)

This time, I am still stressed out (though slightly less so since most of our stuff is already packed) because we are supposed to be moving (again). And I'm still tired from the last time. (Don't worry, this is veryveryvery good news. If everything goes as planned, it will resolve more than many concerns that I have had since we started this grand adventure. But sometimes good news makes my head spin, too).

Oh, and also because of a little something called English 450: Shakespeare. (The closest thing to the Achilles heel of my college career since the much dreaded grammar class.) So much Shakespeare, in fact, that my head hurts from the mere task of having to read and understand a Shakespeare play in approximately 3 days (in order to answer the discussion questions) and then write a comprehensive paper on said play by day 7. All told, we are reading and/or watching 11 Shakespeare plays and writing 10 substantial papers in 8 weeks. Does that sound excessive to you? It sure does to me. I think even William himself might think so. Maybe I should ask him to talk to the curriculum development folks at GCU.

So, there you have it: my July 2012 Justification for Not Blogging. I know that this, too, shall pass, but by then I will have come up with a whole new reason for not blogging to take its place. In the meantime, I am still lurking in blog space and keeping up with everyone else's blogs while lamenting the fact that I have neither the time nor the brain power to post anything of substance...besides my monthly excuse, of course.

{Exeunt}.

Starving Child

In an effort to get Savanna to eat a little bit more at meals, I am trying something new today. Instead of giving her a snack 15 minutes after lunch (which is pretty much the norm because she never eats enough at mealtime) I am having her wait a couple hours.

So far, it's gone this well:

"Mommy when can I eat?"
"Can I eat yet because I'm so starving!"
"My mouth is so super dry because I need something to eat!"
"Is it time for me to eat yet?"

...accompanied by lots and lots (and lots) of whining.

I figure two things will come of this.

1. She'll remember, in the future, that she needs to eat more at meals because she won't get a snack right away afterwards anymore.

2. She'll remember how mean I am.

Not to be a pessimist, but I'm banking on number 2.