Saturday morning

I'm awake. The sun is shining and it looks just beautiful outside. I suspect it's one of those days where the sunlight is actually a warning for the bitter ass cold you will encounter upon exiting the building. The puppy is cuddled up next to me. I'm not sure what's going on. All last night and now this morning, it's as if I have no personal bubble. Or I just share it with Tuck. It's cute but starting to become annoying.

I have to leave the house in about 30 minutes to go to WW. I skipped last week. It's not going to be good news. But as much as I love junk food and gorging my face, I am jumping back onto the WW train. Because the way I figure it, I have 11 weeks to hit my birthday goal. And in order to do that, I am going to need to lose over 2 lbs per week. Oy. Of course, I need to start training for that damn 5k so that should help but we are now at the point of aggressive weight loss. I can do it!!!!

I have to go to the grocery store this morning too. Stock up for the coming week and whatnot. Ice cream is on sale. :) And don't worry, this doesn't fly in the face of the aggressive weight loss...it's fat free ice cream that is probably the most divine thing I have ever tasted.

I just covered my dog up because he was shivering next to me. Perhaps shaving him last week was a little early in the season.

I need to write a pre-proposal for my dissertation. Only 1-2 pages but it requires me to actually nail down a topic and a methodology. I want to do this soon seeing as how I'm giving myself five months to write the damn thing. I should probably set aside some time to work on that.

There's a lot of laundry that needs to be done. Adam has his pile on the closet floor (love you but ARGH!) and I have filled the hamper. I'm sure Dante's hamper is full too. I should work on that today too.

What IS it about Saturdays? It's not a day to go with the flow and do whatever you want. It is a day to try and catch up from the previous 6. If you're lucky, you can get it all done on Saturday so that Sunday's can be a little bit more fun. Of course they'll always be tainted with the knowledge that you have to go back to work tomorrow.

The dog is still shivering. I'm a mean mommy.

This afternoon we head to St. Cloud to have dinner at the Stenman household! Eli's cooking for us and I'm super pumped. Sounds like it should be amazing!!! We never do stuff like this with my family whereas we do it with Adam's nearly weekly. I'm glad we're getting the chance.

More concerns with Adam's niece. I think we'll end up with her sooner or later. Sometimes I wonder if Gusby is chuckling and wondering how we haven't gotten the hint yet.

So there you have it. A blog that was my very own Seinfeld. You got it...a blog about nothing.

10 Things I Would Like to Say to 10 Different People

Okay, so I saw someone do this via a note on Facebook and I thought it looked like fun. But the fact remains that a note is just a glorified bulletin (a la Myspace) and I'm convinced no one really wants to read that crap. So what better place to put it than on my blog?

1. That doesn't match.

2. You slept with your Driver's Ed instructor, didn't you?

3. Excuse me, but I believe my paycheck is missing a zero.

4. BINGO!

5. Suddenly, without any effort, I wear a size 4.

6. Andrew McCarthy knows the meaning of life and I know where to find him.

7. I finished my dissertation.

8. Your baby is fugly.

9. Are you sure that's not cancerous?

10. That's what she said!

Boredom

I wish my friends wrote blogs more often.

And they call her ABD!

That's right folks! I have passed the comprehensive examination! No rewrites. I am moving forward to the dissertation and because of that, I am now considered ABD - all but dissertation. So for those of you counting, that's another list item completed...we're trucking along. I would write more but I have the attention span of a 10 week old puppy right now. WEEEEEEEE!

For Funsies

Because it's fun to write a blog when you have a meeting starting in 5 minutes. Correction, two meetings. Which one should I go to? It's like the Russian Roulette of the cube universe.

However, I have already digressed.

The purpose of this blog is only to highlight what my dear coworker wore to work yesterday. It happens often and it is like a train wreck in that any sane person cannot simply look away. And without any further ado:

• Baby blue and white striped velour collared top. (No, it wasn't really velour but it was that material you can't find anymore that hit it's height of popularity in the late 70's and early 80's and for which I have no name.)
• Peach corduroy jeans. (Yes, they really come in peach. Who knew?)
• Navy blue or black nylons/tights. I'm not sure of the color. I lean towards navy blue because in said coworkers world, that would tie in the baby blue of the shirt.
• Orange strappy sandals. On February 18th. Because that's how she rolls.

I don't write it (figuratively speaking), I just report it.

Phew! One minute to spare!

Things I think are dumb

There is no real reason for this blog other than the fact that my dear, sweet husband is watching "Max Payne" and I'm finding it to be a little on the boring side.

It seems to me that there is a rash of stupidity running rampant and there's nothing that can be done to stop it. Sure, it would probably help if we stopped talking about it and ceased to give the perpetrators the attention they so obviously crave, however, that's no fun.

In no particular order:

1. OctoMom. Seriously this woman is everything that is wrong with people. 14 children? Sure, ya know, everyone has the right to have as many children as they want. Even if I and the majority of the world thinks they're insane. However, I believe that the number of children you have should be constrained by the number you can afford. How many can Nadya afford? None.

2. Chris Brown. You decide to kick Rhianna's ass and you run the risk of Jay-Z coming after you. That's just stupid.

3. Joaquin Phoenix. That guy is crizaaaaazy! I don't know why he think his hip-hop career is worth pursuing (he allegedly fell off the stage at his first show) but he apparently feels as though acting isn't what truly makes him shine. I hope the hip-hop makes me laugh as hard as his appearance on Letterman.

4. Winter. Why does it never end? Why is it still chilly and overcast? It does not instill happiness in my heart. Instead, it makes me grumpy and generally displeased with life.

5. Comps readers. WHY AREN'T THEY DONE READING YET? Is it that hard? Just give me the pass and let's move along! *sigh*

The Questions

It has been killing me. Ever since I received my comprehensive exam questions, I've wanted to share them with all of you. However, since it's an exam, I was prohibited from sharing and/or discussing them with anyone. Today I submitted my paper and received confirmation that it was received by my comps mentor so I felt as though I was free to share them now. Hopefully I will find out within the next week that I passed. So without any further ado, here they are:

1. Researchers use a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed framework to research premises, ideas and theories (Creswell, 2001). Describe the benefits and limitations of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed research. Analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each approach for conducting research in critical thinking as it relates to teaching adult learners.

2. In the preface to "The New Update on Adult Learning Theory" (2001), Merriam states: Adult learning is probably the most studied topic in adult education. The learner, the learning process, and the context of learning form the cornerstone of the field of adult education. Whether one is planning or administering programs or counseling adults, or is directly involved in the teaching-learning transaction, adult learning is at the heart of our practice. (p. 1) Describe, compare and contrast three foundational theories of adult learning. Evaluate the effectiveness of each of these theories in developing successful strategies for teaching adult learners.

3. Leading change in adult learning programs in higher education is a primary function of administrators (Caffarella, 1994). From adult learning research, develop a synthesis of commonly-used ways higher education administrators prepare stakeholders for implementing and carrying out policy and program change. Using a case example of implementing change in a higher education policy or program, evaluate the effectiveness of a leadership change process and outcome.

T - 24 Hours

At this time tomorrow night, my comps responses are due. Pair together my penchant for procrastination and a work project that appears to require all of my time and my first born, and you may see why I have been writing non-stop for the past few days. Yes, I started before that. I had a lot of research and outlines done for two of the three questions but there was about 75% more to do. So now on the eve of their submission, I'm in pretty good shape. Two of the responses are done (although that doesn't include editing and clean-up) and the third one is close. I have a list of the things I want to do with that one that I can totally handle tomorrow.

Right now, my biggest problem is length (that's what she said!). My responses (not counting my title page or my references) are supposed to equal 50 pages. I can distribute those pages however I like across the three responses but they should be relatively equal. Well, that means we're looking at about 16 pages per response, give or take. Response three is currently at 14, response two is currently at 12 (and those are the two that are done). Response one is currently at 12 and I'm thinking I'll had 3 or so more pages than that one. That leaves me at 41. That seems too far away from 50 to be acceptable so I'll do the regular "wordy dance" tomorrow night before I submit. I hate that. I get page limits but in practice, they're BS.

Anywho, I'm not exactly tired but I am fried so I'm calling it quits for the night. In a perfect world, I'd be done by dinner time tomorrow but I'm not holding my breath.

Kids

So what's the story with kids? They're cute as buttons and hell on wheels. Dante is a good kid. He's a great kid, actually! He's smart, he's funny, and he's always been extremely well-behaved. Of course he has his moments but he's never been an embarrassment to bring out in public, nor do we have more than a handful of stories of home-based wars.

Lately, he's pushing his boundaries. It's annoying (to be quite honest) but even I have to admit that he's not obnoxious about it. He tries to argue his point but I have yet to hear a solid, coherent basis for his arguments. He doesn't throw temper tantrums anymore. He's actually sulking less. Essentially, he just...argues.

Take for example something that happened earlier this evening. Adam was telling me what time it was and then converted it to military time...although, incorrectly. He said 9:44 pm was equivalent to 17:44. When I correct him and said it was actually 21:44, he agreed, we laughed, and I thought were ready to move on. Except that Dante decided that this was worth his new found assertiveness and proceeded to argue that it was, indeed, 17:44.

Now with it being bedtime we frequently hear "But it's Friday!" or "My Mom lets me stay up later than this!" or my personal favorite "I'm not making promises but I could maybe take a nap tomorrow." After Adam sent him to bed, he came back downstairs to dig his bionicle out of his jacket. When I asked him if he was going to bed like he was supposed to, he shook his head no. This stuff sends me through the roof quick but I chose to let this be their war. It took two trips of Adam going upstairs to get him to go to bed and I'm not overly convinced that a third trip isn't in the future. Dante, both times, was sitting in bed getting ready to watch some late night cartoon action.

He's getting older. That much is obvious. But man....these phases suck!