I'm up to 7 pages on the ESL paper and I'm not even halfway done.

It's not that I'm particularly verbose. (Okay, I *am*.) It's just that this professor gives the impression that he wants you to dissect everything thoroughly. So here I am at 7 pages and not halfway through, wishing I could sleep, because Lord knows, that last night, I didn't sleep much at all, as I processed this stupid paper in my head. In retrospect, it might have been better to not have sought afternoon delight with my delicious husband and ground away at this paper, but he is way too yummy for that.

Tonight, I have my first graduate student meeting at the Uni, so I have to figure out if there is some way I can lose consciousness between 5-7 because from 4-5, I'll be resolving the issue of my enrollment. I was supposed to be enrolled in 6 units this semester and I was apparently enrolled by computer error in only 3. However, without 6 units in the system, I cannot get my in school deferment which I need for my loans. In addition, the uni wants to charge me for a class I never attended and which I added and dropped in the course of the same half hour. I'm having to get letters signed by the chair and people I don't know just to say that yes, I was in the ESL class and doing all the very fucking hard work and that No, I never attended the Trends in Special Education class.

The next week is the last week before finals, so naturally I have big nasty projects abounding for which I am responsible and while the room painting thing is calling to me, in a good angel/bad devil on my shoulder kinda way, I'm going to remain buried in schoolwork for the next week, at which point, I am simply going to send children to daycare for the day and sleep like a log.

Right now, I want and need some caffeine .... intravenously, please.

I am a slave to academia for the moment, which is good because in a week, I paint.

I'm supposed to be working on the ESL paper, but I am faced with a clueless moment...is case work the same as writing process? I dunno. I don't care, and I need to care for about 3 more pages.

It's 1030 and I'm at the computer lab and freaking out about walking to my car at midnight. I'm old and female and that whole "Take Back the Night" thing only works when you're walking with others. I feel very apart as most of the students in the lab are about half my age.

I supposed that's enough distraction, so I'm back to beat my head on my original thought line about how process writing is antithetical to multiculturalism and is a perfectly lousy way to teach ESL students how to write, though I think you can have it both ways, but I can certainly see how project work is also very useful.

Genny's room is nearly painted -- except for a couple of small spots under the tape. She was thrilled to see that it was pink. There was a lot of hunter green on the top of the room and on one wall, so I had to run to town to buy one more bucket of paint because even with the primer I had to use two coats. It's all done, thank GOD!

I don't think I'll be able to get to my room this weekend. I think it will depend on Mike's willingness to prep the room while I work on my paper for my ESL class and come up with a unit to teach. I picked colors for my bedroom at least, but I have to make one more stinking trip to town to get one of the colors because they didn't have the base they needed for the one I needed them to mix. I found one color in the Oops! pile and because I've been there so damned much, the guy gave it to me free.

Lately, I've been loving my doctor because he prescribed some vioxx for the agony. After painting all day, everything aches, but mostly my right shoulder is pinched and sore. Well, and I fall asleep in my chair.

I'm just pitiful is all, but lord, I'm well-decorated and drugged, oh and covered in three different colors of paint.

The best part of the painting is that I will never have to forget Mike wearing my pants...my girly pants covered in paint. Heh.

Remember the first of the year at Mike's mom's wedding? Well, I got the apology, albeit one of those, "I've apologized to you, won't you apologize to me" kind of apologies, to which I said,"I do appreciate your apology and I am sorry that you feel you should be apologized to. I felt that everything I said was in response to what was being said to me in an inappropriate circumstance, i.e., in front of my family, your family and people I don't even know after I had spent several hours in the emergency room in a great deal of pain. As far as I can see, I will not be putting myself nor my children in that position again."

What was really cool though was this was after my husband went swinging for me. He basically told his mom and stepfather that we wouldn't have much to do with them if they didn't apologize to his wife.

We're having his brother and girlfriend up for a post-graduation celebration, which I can't wait for. I love them both and he's the brother that got up mid-battle and said he wouldn't be a party to the "take down Wendy" fest, so he has a special fondness in my heart.

Nonetheless, my wonderful husband is getting a lot of affection for being such a great guy.

I am a landowner, which is a class distinction of old. I own an acre of land with an enormous boulder which my children can climb on and from which I can watch the lake and valley below, and the mountains across the way. I own fruit trees and sage brush and little yellow plants which will become tumbleweeds if I don't rototill them away. I own a big pile of sheep shit, which I will use to fertilize my garden. I own a bevy of wild rabbits and the holes they live in. I own the yard that the robin visits each morning and the front window where the sun sets each evening.

I am a landowner, paying the property taxes inherent in such a title. I can now go be the gardener of Pablo Neruda's poem, "Ode to a Woman Gardening."

This earth sign is putting down roots deep into the soil, where she will be nourished and kept close to those things she loves.

So now we are waiting to hear that the money is where it is supposed to and that they have recorded our deed. We have the U-Haul half-filled in the front yard and that's just the house stuff. We have a garage full of crap, too. Ladawn is helping me clean. The kids' bathroom is spotless from her efforts. Our bathroom is about halfway. We have cleaned and washed all the bedroom windows.

Genny misses all her toys and I feel sorry for her. Russell was doing okay and then when he came home to his empty room he seemed sad. Change causes upset, I guess.

I got all my paint selected and mixed today. I bought some retail and bought some on sale. Tomorrow, between packing and everything, I'm hoping to get some of the masking done. The paint guy said the paint should be dry enough within a couple hours depending on how thick we coat it. At the paint store, though, I had some guy about Mike's age, a really cute Latino guy hitting on me a little. It was weird, because I used to feel complimented by stuff like that and I just felt creeped out a bit.

Genny's getting her pink room, I'm getting a green room, Russell is getting beige and yellow, the kitchen will be light orange with a dark feathered glaze, the livingroom will be pale yellow. The bathrooms, I'm still making my mind up about, but I'll take pictures when we're done.

I got my ten page paper done on time, which was rather astounding. I didn't get my lab done, but some day soon, I'm sure.

Everything hurts, so I'm going to bed.

Dear Eggman,

Escrow is coming to a close on Tuesday or Wednesday, which means we are up to our butts in packin'. I'm supposed to write an annotated bibliography on 20 books for ESL students on Monday, but I suspect it will be late.

It's 1010pm and my daughter is still on my lap, which goes to show you how screwed up our schedules all are. Tomorrow will be another death-defying day of packing and there's not a thing I can do about it.

This morning I got up around 6 because I simply couldn't sleep. I got several loads of laundry done and breakfast going. I have everything each family member needs for a week packed into their own suitcase, while we tear down the house.

Oh, and it's snowing. Again.

I forgot how long winter can be, especially when it's still showing it's ugly face in April and May. I'd peel grapes and handfeed that motherfucking groundhog if he'd guarantee me only 6 more weeks of winter.

I have all these dreams in my head about how to paint rooms. I keep finding bargain deals on paint, which is nice because I can then paint my new house for much less money than buying it full price. I'm going to buy a few things at full price -- I bought a new toilet for example. I have the bathroom floors tiled, but I got the tile on sale and got a friend of a friend to do the work. I am beginning to understand why so many people find places like Home Depot a money-sucking love hole.

I wish Mike knew how to organize stuff well. Because I know how, I'm sort of the unspoken house organizer, though I'd rather chew glass. We only have our bedroom and the kitchen left to pack. The kids's rooms are strangely bare. I keep finding things, beautiful things, like the stickers we got for Genny's weight and height when she was a baby, Russell's lost teeth, a fragile crumbly rose from my wedding bouquet, old ribbons and awards for Russell. No matter how hard I try to steel my heart against it, there are baby clothes I can simply not part with because I remember fondly the small now much larger child that inhabited them once.

I found good Chinese food in town tonight. I didn't think it was possible. And good Chinese food made me think of San Francisco. San Francisco made me think of you. Your email made me write to you, when I am barely intelligible just because I love you and email from dear friends is invariably inspiring despite my exhaustion level on any given day or late night.

How's it hangin', M?

Luurrve,
Wendy

We're still waiting on the gubment to do their part of the loan approval. We had been told it would take up to 48 hours. It has now been 72 and we're heading toward 96. I'm in an awful bind because if I have to have the floor work done in the bathroom, and I think I do, I have to have 3 days to do it because we have to have the property reinspected by the pest guy and cleared. We have already bought the supplies (with cash and I've kept the receipt), but I can't hire anyone until I hear from the realtor regarding who's shouldering the cost. Specifically, I'm not doing the work if I have no assurances that the owners will either split the costs in good faith or reimburse me if something happens and escrow falls through. I have people lined up to do the work, who are charging me way too much. I'm having a hard time particularly because I could do this myself, but I can't because of liability issues.

Yesterday, on the way home from class, I started to bawl. I feel so helpless, overwrought, and stupid. It makes no sense, but that's how I feel.

I'm at the end of my rope. If this loan doesn't go through on time and escrow closes late, we risk losing the house, which causes a cascade of other issues in terms of landlords, u-hauls, friends lined up to help us, and the most obvious of all, my sanity.

The icing on the cake? Last night at midnight, my husband looked at me and said,"Happy Anniversary!" and I realized I'd forgotten about it in the melee. I've been thinking about it, but knew we were too broke to do anything about it. The straw that broke the camel's back is that this morning, my sweet husband, who never gives out cards, gave me a card because "you always give me one and I always forget to get you one."

Welcome to Pity Party 2003, would you like a drink?

Well, we've passed through pass 1 of the 2 pass approval process for the house and nobody said a thing about the windows. I checked yesterday on window estimates, utilizing the good ole boy network that cubscouts can be if you are willing to look somewhat self-sufficient because lord knows your computer geek of a husband can't run powertools. (Nor should he.) I can get the whole house windowed with high-quality vinyl at $1500, plus $300 more for E-glass, which is considerably less than the $2200 I was originally quoted for them (sans E-glass). It will take 3 weeks to get said windows in, so escrow will be closed before I get them and install them, which means I am in good shape, I hope. I'll know officially tomorrow.

And my sugars, while I deserve absolutely hideous sugars for my food the past two days, have been super. I'm going to be good this morning, however and eat my bowl of cottage cheese with fruit. Yesterday, breakfast wasn't so bad, but the meals got progressively worse as time passed. I ate a balance bar and a bottle of spicy V8 for breakfast, two cheapy hamburgers for lunch, a pizza with salad for dinner. Dessert was what got me yesterday -- cookies and ice cream. It wouldn't have been bad if I had done one cookie and a small dish of sugar free ice cream, but I didn't. I think I was feeling worried, so I ate and worried, which was a dumb thing to do. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had taken the opportunity to actually enjoy the food, but I didn't. I just kind of shoveled it in, which frankly, was a perfect waste of good cookies and ice cream. I think if I had stopped to enjoy them, I would have been more reasonable about my servings.

That emotional eating thing is rough on me, too, because then I feel kind of guilty, but what I mostly regret today, is that I didn't stop to enjoy what I was doing and that would have been a lot more prayerful for me.

Spring sprang back to winter -- we've got two inches of snow on the ground and we are expecting more snow later tonight and tomorrow, which means we're screwed on the whole cherry blossom thing. I was all excited for blossoms on some fruit trees in the backyard of the new house, but with the snow, I'm doubting we'll see fruit to be able to identify said trees. *sigh*

I'm planning my xeriscape front yard. It's part of a project at school, where I am supposed to do something strictly from books, so that's what I'm doing. It's a lot of fun and adds to the dreamability of my house. I have a great eye, so I read this stuff and start extrapolating immediately. I keep seeing my motivation in the matter and geesh, that matters a lot. That gets me to thinking about how to motivate LD kids and then I get overwhelmed at the enormity of teaching special education.

I should hear about my grad program within the week, by the way. Apparently, they are making their selections now. I have to go get inoculated for my MMR because I don't have my immunization records and that's required for registration and all. That should be next week. I should also hear about a grad assistantship, which would mean my money was defined or not for school. If not, then I know how much I have to save. Dear God, I want a grad assistantship.

Okay, food and shower...next on the agenda because I'm hungry and stinky.

I'm feeling kind of bummed. The appraiser's report was supposed to come in on Monday and then I got an email saying we'd have it tomorrow. The problem with that is that if I do have to put windows in, I won't have enough time to order the damned things, much less install them.

I have the feeling we will be stuck with the original loans, not the good one, but I don't know.

God does what he does and I am just around for the ride.