stick a fork in me

More and always more of hanging in there, but only just.  Pretty much my status quo.  The confounded move got me behind on my thesis prospectus deadlines, and my stress levels have been high enough to make my behavior ugly and my memory poor.

In my brain, I've given myself this halfway-imaginary deadline.  I just have to make it through my comprehensive exams in December, and then I will do a giant New-Years priority shuffle and try to start thinking more than a week ahead.  Right now I can only think from one assignment/test/paper to the next.  I've gotten infinitely better over the last year at learning how to not try to do homework all day long with kids underfoot, and to just be as present with them as I can be while double-timing the housework so that my evenings are free.  Then I head to class or the library, or lock myself in my room while little fingers slip under the door and plead with me to read them a bedtime story. I am so popular....

Our snug Bantam Hill is coming along, we are doing lots of settling - both kinds.  I can't make paint decisions while I'm working on my thesis, (brain..can't) so the mid- 90's color scheme and cows are staying for a while.  The crumbly rock facade on the fireplace, the tired carpet, all of it is just going to sit tight for a bit.  We have a lot of work to do on the house that is neither fun nor glamorous before any designing can begin in earnest.  The only decent-sized tree on the property (cottonwood) is coming down tomorrow (because... cottonwood), and if we want to finish the basement we need to first dig a french drain along the back of the house (which... we are scratching our heads over why that wasn't done when the house was built).  Mr Renn has to finish building shelves in our storage room so we can clear boxes and bins out of our garage... that kind of thing.

But hey - I think we did a decent job at minimizing the period of super-tumult involved in the move.  We transitioned from a quasi-normal to a quasi-normal pretty quickly.  The kids are all still acting out (coloring on walls and furniture, regression with potty training), but I have to (need to) believe we did something right.  Kind of like how I have to believe that life will somehow feel more manageable after my comps.  It's the "don't tell me if I'm wrong" kind of floundering belief.

So... the moral of the story: don't move while in the middle of grad school, if it can be helped.  Which, why would any sane person even need that advice?  Regardless, soldiering on....