I've been thinking lately about how Shef was born when I was 26, and Mac was born when I was 30. It came up because I've been pushing myself really hard to finish the first full draft of my book project. Yesterday, I imagined trying to finish it with an infant or a toddler around.

I mean, that seems impossible. On the other hand, I think having kids and still doing stuff taught me how to maximize time - a skill I've used for this book project, too.

Because I did do stuff when I had infants and toddlers. I did My Stupid Master’s Degree. That took four years. It was super hard, especially that one time I almost failed Intro to Literary Theory. Instead of failing, I made myself write a final, 20-page paper on something I didn't even understand. The simulacra. Or anal rope. Something. I can't even remember.

I also ran some marathons. I did those almost stubbornly. Like, you can't stop me from running this! Don't even try to stop me! I did them, and one time I covered the distance even faster than I had before the children were born.

I had new jobs that I performed without sleeping full nights.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, my endeavors are maybe easier now? I'm grateful to have a teenager wandering around asking to learn how to do laundry and moaning about the pain of new braces and an eight-year-old playing too many video games and refusing to clean his room. 

After all, these are people that have reached the age of reason. "I'm busy making myself write 1000 words per day right now. I'll talk to you in 30 minutes." They grumble about it, but they walk away.

So what am I even saying? I guess the point is, if you're thinking about having a baby and writing a book at the same time, I feel like that's going to be really hard.  But now that I'm considering the big picture, maybe it won't be harder than finishing a graduate degree or running your fastest marathon. 

So, just keep trying to do stuff if you feel like it, regardless of the children. That's the message. 

It'll work out, and you'll be happy you had the kids whenever they arrived.

I'm afraid this wildly popular feature will have to be posted tomorrow.  We're just home from a 10 hour drive from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and I just can't fiction right now.

Fortunately, I've been inundated with requests to tell about the fine city on the east of the Midwest that we just visited.  Here's the story: Ann Arbor is a fun college town with some beautiful buildings.  We toured the law school (gorgeous, and the library was a finalist to stand-in for the Great Hall in Harry Potter), the business school where Uncle Shea studies about making money (modern and very hip), and the School of Social Work, which is slightly nicer than Peik Hall at the University of Minnesota.  Peik is where I did My Stupid Master’s Degree™ and it's not nice at all.  The University of Michigan School of Social Work has a study area, at least.  And probably well-stocked vending machines.  Here's a pattern I've noticed: If the alumni of a certain School don't tend to make a lot of money, said School is not that impressive to tour.  Just saying.



There's some cool public art at Michigan like The Cube.  It's a sculpture you can push and spin.  And there's a very good deli that President Obama himself has frequented.  It's called Zingerman's.  It pays the employees a livable wage and everything.  We also visited the University's Archeology Museum which wasn't such a huge hit with the boys.  We did, however, see mummy sandals and Mac showed off Egyptology knowledge gleaned from The Magic Treehouse series.

Something we learned is that Ann Arbor has a high cost of living.  Also, Sister Mary and Partner Shea have tired of the cold weather.  Finally, the stadium (The Big House)  holds 110,000 people, which is more people than the population of Ann Arbor.

If you have an occasion to visit Ann Arbor, I recommend the Holiday Inn Express and Suites.  I give the city 3.5 stars.  Not as cool as other college towns like Bloomington, IN and Madison, WI, to which I assign more stars.

I hope this review was helpful to you.

This weekend, my good pals Rachel and Jim got married. It was lovely, and I was the personal attendant to the bride, which gave me a backstage look into the whole thing.

Usually when you're P.A., you are the last person the bride sees before she walks down the aisle. It's quite a privilege, and I like to be the person who fluffs the dress and drapes the veil.

All the wedding events were enjoyable, but it also made for a busy weekend. Dan flew to Colorado today (this time, I'm certain of his destination), which compounds things a little bit.

A couple of weeks ago, when we were driving somewhere, Dan and I started talking about how you think you're busy at various times in your life. Like, when I was in high school, I thought I was really busy with homework and activities. In college, too, I felt really busy. When I started my first teaching job, I was busier than ever. Ditto that when Shef was born and My Stupid Master's Degree was in full swing. But now, with Mac here and my business going a bit and both of us trying to exercise moderately, things seem on the verge of out of control most of the time.

"I mean," I said to Dan, "I HOPE that now we're really busy, because.. well, it just can't get much busier than this."

"Oh yeah," Dan said, reassuringly, "I'm pretty sure this is it."

Knock on wood, will you? I'm doing it right now.

Rachel has been trying to convince me that now that we're finished with grad school, we should move immediately on to National Board Certification. The great thing about this certification is that in my school district, it gets you an extra 4k, no questions asked, every year for ten years.

That’s a lot of dough.

I've been telling Rach that we should go for the certification next year. I would have more time then, I said. And also, I just finished My Stupid Master’s Degree™ and all.

But, today, good pal Tim was recognized for completing his National Boards, and in addition to the cash, he also got a nice golden apple.

It even has his name engraved on it.

I think the apple incentive might just put me over the edge.

Because of My Stupid Master’s Degree™, begun four years ago, and, you know, Shef, also begun four years ago; I haven’t seen any movies or read very many literary books in that amount of time. Four years.

I’ve set about remedying that situation this summer by joining Blockbuster Online and reading stuff. I read a little and watch a little every day. In case you want to know what I’m reading or watching you can look in the right sidebar, where I’m keeping a list. If you don’t care what I’m reading and watching, then you don’t have to look at it.

Also, I’m doing triathlon training, which brings me joy. This summer, I’m riding my new road bike with clipless pedals, the kinds of pedals that your shoes lock in to. The kinds of pedals that bad-ass and wannabe bad-ass cyclists use.

The trouble with clipless pedals is that, you know, you clip your feet into them. And then when you want to stop and put your feet on the ground, you have to be able to clip them OUT.

This hasn’t been a serious problem, except today. After I’d already clipped out my right foot and was waiting at an intersection, right foot on the ground and left foot clipped in; I lost my balance.

I lost my balance, began falling to the left, but of course the left foot was still locked into the pedal, and there was no time to get it out. In a panic, I reached out for cycling mentor Jamie, who happened to be right there. But in reaching for her, I really just pushed her down.

And then we were both on the ground under our bikes. When I first got down there, my left foot was still clipped into the bike, and I had to lift the bike off my legs and twist my foot violently to toward the ground in order to be able to stand up again.

This took time. And there were several witnesses.

This has been a roller coaster week so far: sophs cheating, texting, and hijacking my speakers. My Stupid Master's Degree on the rocks and then off again. Shef standing on the coffee table belting out Smash Mouth one minute, and lying on the floor of Bread and Chocolate screaming for another cookie the next.

Luckily, one of the kids told me we have 43 days of school left, and I'm on the verge of being finished with grad school forever; so life could be worse.

You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t written much about My Stupid Master’s Degree™. You might have thought that “no news is good news” on the progress front.

If you thought that, I’m sorry to report that you were sadly, sadly mistaken.

All these months I’ve worried about it and thought about it and kind of done some reading about it. Remember how Dan spent two months in Iowa? That was part of the problem. And other times I’ve frittered away my work time by doing dumb stuff like grading papers and planning lessons and clicking around the internet with reckless abandon.

I was supposed to fill out some paperwork this fall that would make doing my paper legit. It would allow me to actually use the data I collected from my kids. Did I fill it out? No. Not until yesterday, when I realized my school district also has their own set of forms that need to be completed and then signed by various dignitaries. And, I can’t actually submit the former set of forms until I get all those signatures on the latter.

What do you think the chances are that all those forms will be submitted and approved in the next eight weeks? What are the chances that I’ll actually write the rest of the paper in that time?

Yep, I agree. Slim. Very, very slim.

Well, the last hours of winter break are upon me. I had a really great vacation. I did almost no work (this will, of course, cause me pain in the coming weeks, but it’s pain I would’ve felt anyway), I visited the desert, and I did a lot of training for my half marathon. Oh, and also I registered for my thesis credits. This means that I’ll be finishing My Stupid Master’s Degree™ come heck or high water by May. I’m already planning the party.

Shef got great Christmas presents, became obsessed with all things Cars, and had his first day on downhill skis yesterday, thanks to his superstar grandfather.

Dan is back in Des Moines, for the fourth work-week in a row. I have developed systems for coping as a single parent, but it’s not exactly easy. The worst is the break-of-dawn drop off at daycare.

But anyway, here we go.

I had a tough week on a few levels, so I was behind at work and on My Stupid Master’s Degree™. Long story short, I failed to meet the Wednesday 4:00pm deadline for submitting my quarter grades for upload by the technology guy. I didn’t think this was such a big deal because I like to enter my grades into the web-based program myself, which I was frantically doing during my prep period on Thursday morning, when I got an email from my assistant principal asking me to please get my act together and enter the grades pronto.

This email triggered my Automatic Guilt Reflex, so later that day when a request for attendance committee members appeared in my inbox, I volunteered immediately. Even more alarming, when one of my cutest sophs asked if I would please, pretty please, chaperone just a little bit of the Sadie Hawkins dance, I found myself agreeing.

I tell you, sometimes I’m really sorry I was raised Catholic.

Even though the paper grind has me kind of beaten down (32 of 130 papers evaluated, another 50 coming in next week, and a five-pager to knock out for My Stupid Master’s Degree™), I’m happy to report that I’ve kicked the vertigo-inducing virus that had me sidelined from athletic endeavors last week.

As you know, regardless of what life throws at me, I’m taking a firm stand against atrophy.

To this end, I took a break from the Foer analyses and This I Believe essays to I stride the River Road this afternoon. While I was doing it, I thought about my plan to demolish my half-marathon PR in February.

You should know that I set that PR when I was 13. Sheila and I ran the race together in matching outfits and although I can’t exactly remember, it’s entirely possible we crossed the finish line holding hands. Then I know we made ourselves a cake with the numbers 13.1 on it.

God, it's tough to recover from such profound dorkiness, but I want you to know I give it 110% every day.