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It looks nice out there in the real world…
#lifebeforebebe

one large iced tea, one ham/cheddar/nut butter sandwich, one bag of chips, one chocolate dipped shortbread cookie, one chai latte, a whole lot of daft punk and queen, and many pomodoro tomatoes later…and we have a revised qualifying exam.

tomorrow i plan to give it one last read through/tuning up and write my accompanying letter. then i will finally submit the darn thing. WOOHOO!!

now off to meet with our awesome wedding coordinator at the brewery to nail down some day-of details.

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may has been absolutely nuts. here are all the things that need to happen, schoolwise, this month:

• revise my qualifying exam (my summer funding depends on it and i am so very late on this)
• three Hierarchical Linear Models assignments and one Hierarchical Linear Models final (believe me, i am just as confused by HLM as one might imagine)
• write a conference paper
• design a continuation of the research i’ve been conducting this year and write new protocol so i can push it through irb and get my application in to cps in time to be there for the important events over the summer

and on top of that…

• we have the wedding in two and a half weeks! which means wrapping up all the little things that need to happen like thinking up and making all the decorations, dealing with all the vendors, getting headcounts for this or that event, figuring out hair and makeup, buying last minute things, calming down worried relatives about this or that thing, and all those other little random miscellany that keep popping up.
• oh yeah, and i’m pregnant. which comes with all the unpredictable day-to-day energy levels and mood swings. this had made an already hectic month especially…interesting.

not much of the school stuff has budged on that list. not surprisingly (and with no regret), wedding and baby have taken priority the past few weeks. so today, i’m sequestering myself in one of my favorite coffee shops and am not leaving until my revisions on my exam are done. i have six uninterrupted hours in front of me, the new daft punk album to listen to, and a few playlists loaded up to get me through. god help me.

(at Red June Cafe)

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Iced chai break by the lake. #lifebeforebebe

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My makeshift desktop and I are absolutely buried in work for the foreseeable future. (at Home)

dinner this week:

during my first trimester, cooking was the absolute last thing i wanted to do. but i’m feeling much better about the whole thing now and have been happily returning back to the kitchen.

• monday - tozi w/ allison and jonny. they will be our photographers at our rehearsal dinner and wanted to check out the space.
• tuesday - quinoa with black beans, chicken breast, lime, and avocado
• wednesday - crisped brown rice with beef, vegetables, and eggs
• thursday - dinner with some visiting faculty

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Wedding suit shopping and lunch date w/ Matt (at Michigan Avenue)

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Finally planted greens in the garden. Two kinds of kale and rainbow chard. (at Home)

i think i’m going to try something new. when we first found out we were expecting, i tried to take a picture a day to document life before the baby. since i’m forgetful about taking my camera places and am also generally bad about keeping stuff like this up, it lasted about two weeks and quickly stopped. so now i’m going to use instagram/tumblr to give it another shot. consider yourself warned.