Thursday week three and all is well

Routine is your friend.

I keep telling myself that.

Over Christmas break, Himself was ever lovely, gallant and helpful as I rearranged furniture and tried to get the house in better odor (meant to type order but odor came out, and I hadn't the heart to strike it after it took all the pains of showing up, so odor it is) before school commenced.  I felt, rightly so, that getting things better organized would be key to my sanity this semester.  Turns out, that was prescient, indeed.  Things look better and stay tidy easier, and I don't walk in the door and have a Bette Davis moment-- that is a great mental boost. Got a $75 sofa at a resale shop that is better for working on my laptop with at the coffee table, and the broke-down overstuffed behemoth of a sofa-- dear as it was-- has ferried to its eternal Somewhere Else.

Classes are Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, giving me the broad expanse of 4 days to get my mud in a ball before the following Monday. Work squeezes its demanding arse in hither and yon, but generally there are 4 broad days to work with.  New routine is getting up about 10 on Thursday, putting laundry on the line and doing another load for hanging out to dry, coffee, yogurt and I'll try to make a habit of Thursday morning blogging.  I'm about to study for 2 hours, and then I'm off for an artist's date to see a movie.  I have a mini quilting project going -- quilting little jackets for the pups-- but at this rate, my goal will be to have these done in time for cold weather in the Fall. I also have a lot of projects fully formed in my mind, but starting new projects is third-tier in relevance.  Summer may be the time I really tackle those things.  But when I do, it's going to be awesome! I feel the urge to make things, but I have to channel that to studies.

Going to see August: Osage County this afternoon, primarily because two of my favorites are in the film - Ewan MacGregor and Benedict Cumberbatch.   Cumberbitch? Guilty as charged.  Oddly compelling, that one.  I LOVE the BBC's Sherlock-- no one else would have been able to convince me he is actually Sherlock in the modern realm. Marvelously done. Tonight I'll make a cheapie spaghetti, open a red wine (RIOJA!) and watch an episode of Sherlock on the sofa with Himself and my darling pups. I suppose that makes my Thursday my Friday night, yeah?

Fridays will be nearly entirely study, and necessarily so.  I do some study on Monday and Tuesday evenings, but Friday and Saturday will be primary study days, but with the goal of completing all assignments for the coming week on Friday at the latest. Going to try to see at least one movie a week to clear my head and take a break from things. Saw Catching Fire with my sweetheart last week, and I liked it even more than The Hunger Games.

And speaking of assignments-- they are like teeth of the Hydra - slay one and two more of the beggars spring up. Gnashing of teeth, indeed!  It's okay.  It's the volume that's overwhelming, but I also understand these function to make these processes routine.  It has a purpose. Eyes on the prize, and all that.  I am meeting with a study group tomorrow, 6 or 7 of us, and we will do each others' vital signs for a project due on Monday, as well as other study and review.  Himself says the problem is the volume of information is staggering and very like trying to drink from a fire hydrant. How true.

I'm every day more convinced I want to be a nurse, in spite of the difficulty of everything.  I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to be in school and studying and doing this. So, yeah.  Routine.  Habits.  Good processes that give me rails to run on when I'm too tired to think as the semester grinds on.  For now, though, my smalls are drying on the line, I've got my ducks in a row and a good game plan for the next 4 days, and life is good.  Off to study now.