Seven Quick Takes: Friday the Thirteenth Edition

1. I mostly love the spring time change, because I am willing to go through a lot of hassle for the sake of evening light. I went out for a run last night at 6:15. Aaaahhhh, it felt so good, and it is so much easier to fit my running into our family's schedule if I can go in the evening.
2. That said, I always struggle in the first week after the spring time change with getting everybody up and out. I just don't know a good way to shift seven body clocks by an hour.
3. I am working on the seventh of nine analyses for my dissertation, this time looking at kids' use of low-frequency words. That's to say, are they talking about something being plain old green, or are they describing it as seafoam green, or emerald green, or bile green? I am cleaning up my concordance, going through each of its 6000 lines, and I keep finding myself staring at words like "drive," thinking, "Is that a typo? Is there an actual English word spelled d-r-i-v-e?" It is slow going. I am hoping to have my concordance cleaned up by tomorrow, but that may be optimistic.
4. Still struggling with balance. Still feeling driven to work fasterfasterfaster, because it's going to get harder. You may have noticed the blog neglect. There is also a fair amount of laundry neglect going on around here.
5. Months ago I volunteered to give not one but two talks for CE credit at an upcoming conference. Not sure what I was thinking, exactly. This is going to be a lot of work shoehorned into the next little while. Interesting material, and I've presented most of it at other points in the past. I have to get it all strung together pretty quickly, though, which will not be good for my plans to scale Mt. Laundry.
6. Baby is just about as sweet and happy as a baby can be, and she still sleeps almost all morning while Pete is at preschool. She prefers her mama more emphatically than her brothers did at this age. Last night before I went running, I tanked her up and laid her down. She woke up while I was out and fussed until I came back. She settled as soon as I took her from my husband. She wasn't hungry; she just missed me. Her hair curls up when it's humid out. I think it's darling, but I expect she will curse those genes when she's big enough to care.
7. Happy funding news: I found out that next year I can stay on the grant that funds me now, and get paid to focus mostly on my dissertation. No lab responsibilities at all -- just a small-ish TA job in the fall while I analyze my data and then write it up. In order to have data to analyze, though, I need to get back to work. More quick takes here. See you around.

Comments

[Kaycee]

Hi, just stopping by from Conversion Diary.

Don't feel too bad about the laundry. I don't have nearly as much to do as you and mine still piles up. I've decided that when I look back years from now the last thing I'll remember is whether the laundry was clean and folded.

[Sarah]

I always wonder what Benjamin Franklin was thinking when he came up with that time-change idea. There's no way he brought up his own children, or he'd know what kind of trouble this brings up--twice a year!

And your little girl can be glad she has a mom who can show her how to work with curly hair. Think of how much harder it would be if your own hair was stick-straight! How would you even begin?

[Tracy]

I just threw up my own QT - so easy to do a Friday post this way!

I am liking the later time for sunset, but it's even harder to get my kids going in the mornings. Hopefully it will be better next week.

and yeah for the funding continuing! that is great news!

[JaneC]

I know what you mean about staring at common words and wondering about the spelling or whether it's a real word. I have that problem when I grade undergrad exams. Sometimes I miss misspellings because I'm so cross-eyed from the bad handwriting that I can't remember how the word is supposed to be spelled, and common words start to look like gibberish.

[elly]

I am glad other people find the time change difficult. In the UK we do it in about 10 days time and I always dread it (both ways actually)
Some people look at me really strangely when I say I find it hard to get used to. More so as I get older. And of course for kids it is very disorientating. I will be teaching a one to one lesson at 8am on the Monday after the change and I expect both the child and I will be slightly spaced out.

[elly]

PS
And I hate it when people say we get an extra hour of daylight. That is just illogical. The whole system is crazy.

[rem]

Ha, Mt. Laundry is what we call it at my house too! And we are still struggling in the morning with the time change, but I do love that it gets dark later.