Back to the Books

Today I'm going to make a real effort to get back to my schoolwork.

Starting up again after a break has always been difficult for me, but it's become even more so since getting married, moving west, and experiencing home ownership. Actually, it has more to do with the latter than the former. Small Town, Washington, is much different than the Greater Cincinnati area where I grew up, and this change- leaving family, friends, and everything else familiar- has brought about some semi-serious depression and some very serious pouting. This fall when I got tired enough of sitting at home, alone, either trying to do schoolwork or avoiding it with too much CSI, I started inventing errands for myself. Being out and about was much more fun than sitting alone in my house, and it helped me get involved in my life again. I started decorating my home, cooking, and baking; these activities, not my schoolwork, got me through each day.

Now I have a deadline looming. I need to start producing scholarship, not snickerdoodles, and stat! This will certainly help my waistline, but my gosh... how unfun. Except it's not! I somehow made huge strides in my schoolwork in the short burst of activity I managed before Christmas, and my idea for my dissertation is really coming together. I'm impressed with myself and really happy with my project for the first time, like, ever. It feels good to produce good work, and when I'm in the groove I'm really in it... except when I'm not.

My quandry is this: if snickerdoodles = fun and scholarship = fun, how do I make snickerdoodles = scholarship? (Besides enrolling at the CIA, that is...) Cookies in the a.m. and writing in the p.m.? Maybe. But when would the dishes get washed?

Today I'm going to start with coffee and a lemon poppyseed muffin, yet to be purchased at Safeway. Then I'll read your blogs and play seventeen games of spider solitaire per usual while I work up the courage to start. Something.

*image from marthastewart.com