dreaming of a time soon to come

today is one of my last (oh please oh please) big dissertation-writing days. to kick it off i'm doing all my internet stuff now so that i'm not tempted later :) putting out a blog post was on my list. so here it is.

i have lots on my mind right now. i'm 9 pgs in on my diss. conclusion, and expect it to be about 15 total. i have 3 days this week to do it, and then plan to send it onto my adviser. i will keep all toes and fingers crossed that she thinks it good enough to send onto the rest of my committee. to graduate in may, i have to have her sign and submit an application for graduation by feb. 25th, so time is of the essence on this draft. here's hoping!! and let me say, when i graduate in may, i plan to have a G I A N T graduation/house-warming party at the new place in early summer. i'm thinking catering. big cake. good food. lots of alcohol. and you are all invited.

i've allowed myself to start thinking lately of all the things i'd like to do once i have the dissertation monkey off my back. contrary to what most people do, which is graduate and start applying for jobs, i plan to keep being a full-time parent for another year, at least. so this means that when i have downtime, i could potentially use it as guilt-free downtime for ME, instead of dissertation time. i have a whole list of things i'd like to do but have been saying i can't take time for until i graduate. i think i need to start a running list, so that i can get to it once i have the "extra" time :)

1) digitize my recipes. i have a huge stack of recipes cards that are rubber-banded, which i use for everything. while there is a certain charm to recipe cards that have been stained and spilled on, and are written in the hand-writing of loved ones who offered them to us, i've always thought it would be more efficient to have them all typed up and categorized for easy searching. mike hates looking for a recipe. i know the color of each card, whose handwriting it is, etc., so i find things easy. but he finds it frustrating. in the new place, we want to have a laptop and get rid of the desktop. the laptop will be in the kitchen at a little hutch we've designed to be our central "desk" space. so it will be right there where i need it for cooking purposes. i can even search allrecipes.com and other sites for recipe variations, and maybe even dowload digital cards right into my existing collection. have any of you ever used or seen a recipe filing software that you like? i was going to use word, but am interested in software designed for this purpose.

2) scan in all the old photos i want to keep and add it to my digital photo collection. this requires purchasing a new scanner since our's broke. or using one at the library.

3) finally get back to a regular work-out schedule at farrell's.

4) READ. i have countless books sitting on my shelf (okay, in boxes) that i really and truly want to read. parenting books, fiction, ideas for new hobbies, self-help...tons of them. but i feel guilty reading anything unrelated to puerto rico or dissertation writing. once this thing is done, i want to read again.

5) start planning a trip for our 10-yr anniversary. i have a huge list of places. california, fiji, hawaii, vermont, back to NYC, ireland... this year we will celebrate our 9th anniversary (hopefully 2 weeks after GRADUATION), so by next year, i think gavin will be old enough for me to feel okay about leaving for a 5-7 day vacation sans kids. california is probably #1 on the list.

6) start planning some getaway trips with the kids. we have shyed away from this since traveling with kids is hard. but we have a lot of friends who have come to us and it's time to return the favor. i'd like to do a weekend trip to minnesota, and see my great aunt and uncle, as well as friends in rochester (who will have their fourth baby in may). i have a good friend in oklahoma who has been urging us to come for a visit to her new home with a pool. and alicia, you know we want to come again to kansas city if you're willing to deal with us carting the kiddos along (maybe asia can come that same week? :) ha!) and there will be lots of little fun trips to iowa city to see uncle adam and all our friends there.

7) buy my first standing mixer and indulge in my love of cooking again.

8) consider working on my black thumb by trying out composting again and planting a garden at the new place. this time i think we'll go with a raised bed, since the crappy west des moines soil at our last house did not allow anything to grow.

9) take a pottery class.

10) get back into volunteering at the animal shelter again; maybe take jack if he's old enough.

11) really, really work on being PRESENT as a family. right now mike and i are constantly tag-teaming, and rarely spending time doing things together with the kids. on weekends, if he isn't working, i am. we take turns with the kids rather than go at it together. once the diss. is done, i'd like to focus more on weekends as time when we both spend time with the kids, as a whole family. i'd like to concentrate less on getting things done and more on learning to just "be."

i think a list of 11 is a good place to start. i'll keep it at 11 in honor of the year 2011. it gives me hope and inspiration to have things to look forward to once the diss is out of the way.

other things i'm looking forward to.... living in a house again! i can't wait to have a garage again, so that i can skip the car-warming and scraping portion of my morning. i can't wait to have an upstairs where i can lay gavin down for naps, and have the relief of knowing the louder brothers won't easily wake him up if they are down a floor or two. i miss having a garbage disposal. i miss being able to host playdates. i visited the house yesterday for the first time in awhile. we took mike's dad over to walk through it for the first time. since our garage doors were special ordered, they put up funny temporary garage doors to keep the heat in while they mud drywall-- they are multi-colored :) i took some photos to document the newest steps:

1-14-2011


hey, drywall! it's actually starting to look like a house!




dude, this guy on stilts blew my mind. i watched him walk up the basement steps while wearing them. my tummy was jumping with vertigo the whole time.




temporary furnace to keep things warm so drywall mudding will dry, and drywall can be painted (the geothermal won't go in till trim is done, since apparently all that sawing and dust is hard on its system). we figured out while standing here that our current apartment fits into this basement, with room to spare. yikes.


this propane heater is warming the garage temporarily. i think we should keep it after we move in--imagine the winter smores!


life at the apartment is still chugging along. we find new ways to keep ourselves busy every day:


jack decided to practice his amateur photography skills (gavin got a haircut recently that is on the WAY too short side of things. he looks like a 6-month-old again, before his hair grew in!):





then benj gave it a try: