One thing, and then another

I have written a few blogs in the last couple of weeks but I am trying to follow the adage "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all." Not an easy task. Especially when some others do say not nice things. Apparently I said something not nice, in a moment or five of anger about a month ago that will continue to cause me problems for a while. But maybe we will get to that in a future post, maybe not.

My grandmother died on March 27 which is somewhat ironic since my grandfather (opposite side) died on September 27, 2008. In six months I lost two grandparents or 50% of my grandparents (oooh, yeah too much statistics and data analysis lately). That sucks. Now, this may be difficult to understand or some might find it harsh, but my grandma dying was a good thing in a bad way. Different people experience death and the resulting mourning in different ways and I think anger was the most prominent stage in my mourning process for my grandmother. She was old and she was in bad health. But she didn't do much of anything to fight her dissintigration into bad health and instead sat in her house and did not much of anything. A crossword, some reading, ordered stuff from catalogs, and waited for people to come visit her when she could have been hanging out at the senior center or with her great grandchildren or daughter and son-in-law. But after grandpa died and she moved to Bishop, she just seemed to have lost her desire to live and for this I am angry. But I think I am getting over it. I guess she got what she wanted... the chance to be with grandpa again. I just wish that her family had not had to experience her giving up on life as a result.

Tomorrow is Easter and this means that I can eat meat again. I was doing pretty good on this vegetarian thing until Wednesday and then I was over it and wanted some meat. A little chicken, fish, a good taco- come on!! Hopefully eating meat again will not make me sick. Eating vegetarian wasn't all bad, I just got a bit tired of all the beans I was eating in order to get some protein. I didn't eat as many eggs as I thought I might and really it was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. Eric was pretty supportive in that he ate what I fixed, but when we went out he always got something with meat in it. Yesterday I really wanted some of his pasta with chicken in it!!! I am hoping as I merge back into omnivore status that I will not overdo the meat consumption just to make up for lost time. One thing I learned from my experience is that there are plenty of meatless meals that are good and so I plan to keep some of these foods in my diet. I was disappointed that I did not seem to have lost much weight. In that way I kinda wish I had observed Passover instead as I always seem to lose weight when carbs are removed from my diet. It is clear I love carbs.

I am working away on my thesis. Right now I am in problem solution mode as I am trying to maximize the number of cases on which my analysis is based by dealing with missing data issues. Somehow my analysis is down to 9000 some cases from 16000 cases so I need to see where all the cases went. Then I need to get on my horse and analyze this data. Then revise what I already have written, get it reviewed by the profs on my committee, revise, and put a bow on this hog! (Midwest humor?) Hopefully I will graduate on time. My dad told me yesterday that my parents have not bought their plane tickets yet.... oh, I just shake my head at that. Maybe they think I won't graduate and somehow we will know that in a reasonable amount of time before, or maybe they are just procrastinating like I did in making my reservations for the hotel in Vancouver where I will stay for Kim's wedding this coming weekend. Yikes! Kim will be married in seven days!!!

Both Eric and I have been applying for jobs. I think he really did apply for a job in Antarctica. If he goes without me I will be sad and maybe a little ticked off. But on the other hand I am cold here in Wisconsin and do you know how much the coats they suggest you have for being in Antarctica cost? Over $500. And I am tired of being inside here and hate the cold wind, how much worse will it be there? So maybe I should be happy the Norseman may go without me.

Tonight, another basketball game (go Bucks!) night. Keeping a positive attitude about it.

Limbo

I completed the second draft of my thesis proposal today so I feel somewhat elated but am fully aware that there will probably some additional revisions and it probably is not yet to defensible quality- which sucks. I need to get the proposal done and defended so I can get on with the analysis. But for now I am going to enjoy an opportunity to feel a little bit good about things and get some things done that I have let slip. I did a bunch of laundry but my apartment could use some TLC and I haven't done much baking lately so I might try a little of that.

I went vegetarian for Lent and it has been... okay. Eric and I went to Woodman's to grocery shop on Sunday. It was an interesting shopping trip. There is, of course, plenty of food available for vegetarians but making this change in my diet has made me (and as a result Eric) much more aware of what I (we) eat. Since Eric doesn't actually buy much when we go grocery shopping and has little food that is his in his house (most of it being left over from occupation by is cousin or aunt), my diet impacts his diet heavily. In the frozen dinner section there were precious few meals without meat, I had never noticed this before. Woodmans has a whole row including frozen foods for the health, vegan, and organic foods so that was a good place to go for yummy stuff I can eat. I got a few dinners and two Amy's burrito type things. Everything I have eaten so far has been good, except for the Jeweled Rice I made but that is because brown rice is sometimes difficult to deal with.

Eric and I are heading to Los Angeles for Spring Break in ten days. Yay! I am hoping for temperatures of 60+ each day we are there. The only things on the schedule so far are Knott's Berry Farm and Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. We also try to take in some ethnic foods of various kinds. Eric wants to go to a noodle house. I think he will find they are similar to those here in Milwaukee. I want to visit the ocean but I don't know if it is going to be warm enough for a good beach trip. Eric chuckled at me when I said that- he reminded me that he went in Lake Michigan on New Years Day- water temperature maybe 35, air temperature 20, wind chill making it about -10. I guess it will be warmer in California than that!!