potpourri.

i have looked in the mirror the past few days and seen good things.  that may sound weird, but it's been rare to happen the last few months.  instead of seeing my hips as too big, i see them as proportional to the rest of my body. instead of seeing larger-than-i'd-like arms, i see the definition behind the little extra padding.

i see good things, and that's a good thing.

this especially happened while we were in the moving truck. perhaps it was a combination of exertion and the determination to get things done, but i saw the person i used to see when i used to be pleasantly surprised by the mirror.

that was a nice thing.

that said, i tried on my dream jeans, the ones that only fit in the dressing room for about a minute and a half on some dream day in which i entered old navy and my hips shrunk at least six inches, and they don't even come close to fitting.  so, it's time to get back at it, i think.

i'm thinking of letting jillian michaels back into my life because, much as i love combat for many reasons, jillian was what was working last time i was consistently losing weight. i don't know why, and she bugs the crap out me, but shred might be my answer.

this seems ironic, but possibly it's because it's only 20 minutes and it combines strength and cardio. possibly, that's all i need right now. 

it's worth a shot, i think.

--

i wake up every morning at 7 now.  most of the time i go back to sleep, because i don't have to get up at 7 to do my life.  i think it's because the morning light pours through our new windows and i am very, very aware of light.  that's not a bad thing--i'm actually quite pleased--because i'd like to get in the habit of getting up much earlier.

fall classes alternate between 7:25 and 8:00.  i will not be sleeping in for four months.

which is too bad, really, because i don't think i've ever been so tired.  i think i say that a lot, but yesterday i was so tired that i wanted to cry. i had slept pretty well the night before, but...i felt like i had done one hundred million heavy exertion things when really all i did was grade papers, do laundry, and run errands. then i made cookies (which turned out terribly), muffins (which turned out worse), and different muffins (which, because they were from a mix, weren't bad at all) for the people who helped us move.

--

i've been having dreams again. last night's was superelaborate and strange but not, and i woke up thinking something was true that wasn't.  it featured basically all of the people from musicboy's family and mine as well, and it was realistic enough for me to think it was real. 

i like that my brain is working but sometimes i don't like dreams like that. i'm never sure if they're a sign of something or if they are just me being me.

--

i went to target yesterday and there were hordes of people there.  all i wanted to get was a baby gift for a friend and something for the house (i hadn't yet decided what--i just gave myself permission to spend a tiny bit of money to get something off of my list of things i want but don't really NEED).  there were little children everywhere, as if they had been sprinkled with water or fed after midnight.  some of them were more like the demon guy with the pointed ears; some were cute and cuddly. but there were just so many of them.

i found myself thinking it must be august with all of this aisle traffic. but it's not. it's the second to last weekend in july. 

WHEN DOES SCHOOL START?!?

when i was little, we didn't buy my school supplies until right before school started. that was probably because i was obsessive and wanted to USE THEM right then.  but i also remember having oodles of fun putting my binders together with my little dividers and zip-up pencil cases.

it was good times.

i can't wait to do it this year too.  but good grief--there's like a month!

let's slow it down, shall we?

--

i read about what's going to happen at graduation. i got an email from the Provost (don't get excited--it was a form letter) expressing that i needed to read about it, so being the obedient soul that i am, i did.

and i cried a little with the magnitude of the fact that i am graduating.

i did it.

i really did it.

pretty cool.

now if i could just figure out what to decorate my cap with, and how to be clever in such a small space, i would be GOLDEN.

because i have no idea.

--

i also did exit loan counseling. i didn't cry then, though i possibly could have for entirely different reasons. instead, i just thought--if we can pay them off early, awesome. if not, i'll just keep working to make these payments and it will be fine. 

that was also nice.

--

i'll leave you with this one final word: blueberry muffin frosted mini-wheats.  delightful.