I don't feel like being at work today. Not one little bit. I wish I could take an entire week off and do nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I've been going non-stop since Jan. 1st, between my master's project, the cross-stitches, accompanist duties at church, and work. Now that the cross-stitch projects are done, I'm treading a very thin line between wanting to do nothing with that "extra" time and needing to finish my master's project. I'm so used to not wasting a single minute - I would even cross-stitch in the car (no, not while driving) every morning on the way to work - that I'm afraid when I'm done after the next couple of weeks I won't be able to be a normal person again...I'll either become a total work-aholic, or I'll turn into a couch potato. Bleah. I think I need some sunshine and a weekend off...
posted by Sarah Reilly 12:18 PM -
Friday, April 26, 2002
rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat
What could be better than being woken up by...a woodpecker drumming on your furnace chimney? We heard the noise yesterday, but I actually caught the little bugger in the act this morning. Lovely. I imagine when all is said and done we'll have a nice little dent in the chimney. Denis suggested we get some sort of decoy to keep the bird away, but from what I've read they're not all that effective. Anyone have any better ideas?
posted by Sarah Reilly 8:21 AM -
Thursday, April 25, 2002
So Sleepy!
I am so tired right now. Who knew that 22 little (well, some not-so-little) kids could run you ragged in a day? I helped out with the "take your kids to work day" in the office, and somewhere between flipping pancakes and painting picture frames I was ready for a nap. :) If I hadn't just gone cold turkey on caffiene - except chai, I'm allowing myself one mug of that a day - I would be drowning in coffee right about now. At least the caffiene headache disappeared sometime last evening. That would have made today unbearable! I'm going to go to Wegman's, pick up something to cook for dinner, make Denis cook it, and dig out an unfinished craft project to curl up on the couch with. So much for working on my master's project write-up tonight...
posted by Sarah Reilly 3:55 PM -
Wednesday, April 24, 2002
Finished!
The two cross-stitches (for my twin nieces) are finished!!! I don't think my sister-in-law reads my blog, so I'm posting pictures before I give them away. (Mary, if you are reading this, don't look!)
(You can click on each image to see a slightly larger image.) Sorry about the image quality - who knew it was so difficult to take pictures of fabric with holes in it. I had to play with them in photoshop just to get them to look decent. :) They really are on the same color fabric, it's just the way the light was hitting them when I took the pictures. Now, I just have to get them framed, and they're done!
There's a light at the end of the tunnel! If all goes well, I only have one more document to write and a demo to give and I'll be done. Of course, I've turned into a paranoid madwoman, backing everything up incessently. All I can think of are the poor people in the computer lab I worked at during college...the people who had their entire thesis on one floppy disk, which would get totally wiped out by a hungry computer. We could usually recover some of it. Like two pages or so. So, I have at least 10 CD-R's with all of my code and documents at various stages, plus I copied it to another computer at home. Of course, if the whole house were to burn down, I might still have a problem...can CD's survive fire? Maybe I should look into offsite storage... (See what I mean about paranoia?)
posted by Sarah Reilly 7:21 AM -
Thursday, April 11, 2002
I'm still here!
Just really busy. Last night, I finished the coding for my master's project. Well, assuming I've found all the bugs. I also finished all of the screenshots and the user manual. Yay! Except that I still have another couple of documents and a final report to do. And a presentation/defense type thing. I just need one good night of sleep. Please???
So, what is this project that I've been slaving away at? Basically, a way to organize digital images under os x. Of course, I came up with the idea about 16 months ago - long before iPhoto was announced - and it even does mostly different things from iPhoto - but it's fairly pointless now as shareware or freeware. That's ok, though - I'm going to use it! I'm pretty proud of the end product, and I'd love to post pictures of the screenshots or something, but that would be pretty nerdy (and they'd be fairly boring). I just want to get everything over with, so I can move on to other things. Like finishing all of the half-finished projects in my craft room...and starting new ones.
Walking at 6 AM is certainly taking willpower...I'm used to hitting the snooze button a half-dozen times or so before actually starting my day. But it's been four days and I've stuck with it so far. (Yeah, I know, that's not much of a track record yet...) This morning, I decided to leave Molly home. Let's just say that picking up poo at 6 AM is intolerable. Of course, the guilt thing kicked in when I saw all of the other responsible pet owners walking their dogs this morning while I meandered along, leash-free. Guilt, guilt, guilt. I guess I'll just have to buy more baggies and deal with it, or feel guilty every morning. At this point, I'm not sure which is worse. Ah, the joys of living with a dog. ;)
posted by Sarah Reilly 12:13 PM -
Monday, April 01, 2002
Begin as you mean to go on...
Day 1 of swimsuit diet is going, well, swimmingly. So far today I have resisted Krispy Kreme doughnuts (that took willpower!), mall food court food, and vending machine goodies (I had to run to RIT to meet with my advisor.) I even got up at 5:55 to go walking with mom this morning, in the lovely 40 degree rain. I'm feeling very virtuous...and very hungry! And I have one last hurdle to get over when I get home...leftovers. (You can just hear the scary soundtrack playing, right?) So, I'll just drink my hot chai and half a gallon of water, and hope that my "nothing tastes as good as thin feels" mantra gets me through leftovers at Grandma's without undoing all the good I did today. I hope this gets easier, as I'm stretched to the limits of my willpower already...
posted by Sarah Reilly 4:39 PM -
