Very First Giveaway!

Hello!

If you had the chance to read my 200th post, one of my goals was to do a giveaway. I love pretty things, why not share them with others?

Before we moved into our new place, one of the things that I ordered for the apartment were these adorable 4x6 terrarium post cards from Quill & Fox. Their Etsy shop has a number of cute cards and postcards, and I thought they would look cute framed in a little set, sticking with my love of terrariums.

I just love them. They are so well done, and printed on high quality cardstock. Plus the packaging was really cute. I ordered a pack of eight with plans to share the other four. And who better to share them with than my blog readers? You could also frame them, give them as a gift, or get your stamps out and get ready to catch up on your correspondence! : )

Interested? Here is how you can enter into the drawing:

1. Follow/subscribe to my blog, and shoot me a comment so I know you are subscribing (I can't always see it) - One entry!

2. Comment on this post - A second entry! (Make sure I have your name)

3. Bonus entry to the first person to name the Friends episode where one of the characters is "catching up on (his/her) correspondence." It's my favorite one!

I will draw a winner next Monday. Know that I love things like random number generators, so I promise that all drawings will be totally legit. No funny business.

Good luck!

This giveaway is now closed. Congrats to Kelly!

Guilt

Remember that time that I was a PhD student? Yeah, I seem to have forgotten.

Over the weekend, I pulled out my dissertation proposal. And then I cried. For real.

It is hard to admit that I had not looked at it in almost a year. And when I finally pulled it out again, I just felt lost and overwhelmed. I could not even begin to tell you what I had been working on last summer. What I still needed to read, or even what I had already finished reading. I definitely cannot identify where I left off or where I need to get started now, outside of the notes from my faculty member. Which are basically awful. How did I let it get this far? I'm just really sad, and disappointed in myself, and not sure how to restart. At this point, I wonder if it would just be easier to start over.

My supervisor asked me yesterday if I wanted to finish. He said that it is okay if I don't, a lot of people do not finish. But he said that if I decide not to finish, I have to be okay with it and let it go.

I have thought about it a lot, and lost a lot of sleep. I do want to finish. I have put in too much time, energy, and money to stop now. I still want to propose in the fall. But I need to commit to buckling down and getting it done. I need to work on it every single day. And, most importantly, I have to find some way to get back into it.

I thought comps were hard, but this is definitely the hard part. Sigh.

Training Time: Part Two

The Bronze Fonz gives running two thumbs up!

The running continues! This weekend I did another six-mile run. It was pretty rough. But I am looking at adding a mile each week, plus an increase from three weekly runs to four. Here is our new training schedule. The Chancellor wrote it. How cool is that?

Week of May 7
Run 1: 2 miles
Run 2: 4 miles
Run 3: 2 miles
Run 4: 7 miles

Week of May 14
Run 1: 2 miles
Run 2: 4 miles
Run 3: 2 miles
Run 4: 8 miles

Week of May 21
Run 1: 2 miles
Run 2: 3 miles
Run 3: 4 miles
Run 4: 9 miles


Week of May 28
Run 1: 3 miles
Run 2: 3 miles
Run 3: 3 miles
Run 4: 10 miles

Week of June 4
Run 1: 3 miles
Run 2: 3 miles
Run 3: 4 miles
Run 4: 6 miles

Week of June 11
Run 1: 2 miles
Run 2: 3 miles
Run 3: 2 miles
Run 4: 10 miles - Lighthouse Run

Week of June 18
Run 1: 3 miles
Run 2: 2 miles
Run 3: 2 miles
Run 4: 11 miles

Week of June 25
Run 1: 3 miles
Run 2: 3 miles
Run 3: 4 miles
Run 4: 12 miles

Twelve miles. Wow. It is hard to believe that I will work my way up to that over the next two months. I do not even want to guess what July, August, and September will look like. Eep!

I am hoping that I can work it out to throw a few 5Ks in the mix for some of those 3 milers. Since I am new to the race setting, I think it will help me to get in the mindset of what the race day will be like, even if I am just running to finish. Plus they are fun and you get cool t-shirts!

: )