All the food + lots of emotions + a Go Girl fun run!

Poor Lu was having a hard time waiting to be fed breakfast. I’m mean and won’t feed them right when we get up (usually around 4:30 AM). I don’t want them getting used to eating that early, especially when we want to sleep in or our parents watch them. Lu sulks from the time we get back from our runs until I feed her. it’s pitiful. She fell asleep while sulking yesterday morning. She sits in the kitchen and stares out our garage door, which is where their food is kept.

More eggs, bacon, and a Superhero Muffin!

When Mom and Dad have bacon but won’t share any with you…two sad girls.

Jake left for work after breakfast and I got started on my own work. I tried to do hour increments today (following a new scheduling system), but that was just too long for what I was doing. I think 30 minutes is about perfect for me right now! I will work for 30 minutes and take a 15 minute break to grade or answer emails, then work for 30 more minutes. I follow that schedule from 8 AM to 3 or 4 PM – it’s working really well!

Here comes the huge food portion of this post…for lunch, I had a leftover veggie and lamb burger, half a pita, and sweet potato fries. It was delicious! ​

The PERFECT bite. Anyone else get excited about having the perfect bite? I LOVE it.

I took a snack break – More bugs bunny carrots! I feel like these big carrots are even sweeter than baby carrots…maybe I’m making that up, but I really think it’s true.

Then I needed a Netflix and cereal break – my brain was pretty fried yesterday. I have EVERYTHING finished except edits for chapter 4, which I don’t have back yet, and I need to write the entire fifth chapter. I still want to read the 3 chapters I have finished all together, but I need to do that on a day when I can just focus on that.

Thennnn a beef jerky stick…I think at this point I was procrastinating my work…

I’m trying to hide the glare that was coming in from the sun, but I did microblading on my eyebrows! They’re VERY fresh and still healing, but I wanted to share what they look like. I have to keep a gel on them for the first few days, so that’s why they look shiny. My eyebrows are super patchy, so I thought this would help – I love it! I had them done 4 weeks ago, but did a touch-up this past Tuesday. I’m really happy with how they turned out. I’m not a huge make-up fan, but I hated how patchy my brows were, so I was always filling them in. I’m not super great with make-up, either, so this solves all my problems! It definitely hurt, but it wasn’t terrible.

Jake was meeting some guy friends for drinks after work, so I was on my own for dinner. I saved my smoothie for dinner time! If I could do a smoothie for dinner every night I would! I’m never super hungry at night, but I am hungry ALL day. I like having something small for dinner and a smoothie is perfect.

Okay, guys, I definitely got emotional over this. Like I mentioned, I have everything “finished” but chapter 5, which is the LAST chapter of my dissertation. My advisor sent me a little cheat sheet the other day for what to include in each chapter (that would’ve been helpful LAST May, but whatever…) Well, I sat down to start planning out chapter 5 and this first sentence about the chapter is all I saw, “This is often the most difficult and formidable task in writing your research report…”

My heart sunk a little. I know this is just writing, but my brain really does hurt at the end of the day. I’m not complaining, though! I love what I’m doing, but it’s definitely challenging me. So, after working all day and then reading that, I felt a little discouraged. I took 3 seconds to be bummed that this last chapter was going to be so tough, then I put my big girl pants on and continued to read. Um, I must’ve been extra brain dead last night because my FINDINGS chapter, the chapter that is so difficult, is chapter 4. Which I wrote two weekends ago! I have already completed the hardest chapter. I started to tear up as that realization hit me. I stopped to think about why I was so emotional about that and I think it’s for a couple of reasons.
1. I am almost finished. I cannot even describe to you how thrilled that makes me.
2. But I still have a lot of work to do before I am totally finished.
3. This dissertation has been my life for the past year. My PhD has been my life for the past 4.5 years, and I have been a graduate student for the past 6.5 years. That’s a huge chunk of my adult life and it’s almost over. Part of me is sad about that.
4. I am going to have free time. And like REAL free time. Not free time that I make myself take; legitimate free time where I’m not feeling guilty about not doing something, free time where I’m not having anxiety about planning around time spent not working. Real. Freaking. Free. Time.  Since I graduated high school, I’ve been going to school non-stop for over 10 years. I have never taken a break. I am so ready.A lot of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into this dissertation thus far. I still have a lot of work ahead of me, but man, I’m getting close.

More good news – I’m hosting another Go Girl Fun Run on Sunday!! Come join us at Galloway Grill at 3PM! I’ll post this on Facebook and Instagram, too!

Jake and I have a date tonight! We are running Saturday, but that’s really all I know at this point! I would like to knock out part of chapter 5 this weekend, so that’s definitely going to happen, but that’s about it! I still can’t believe it’s March…

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!