This has to be a short entry, because I'm running seriously late for the bus...but we've made lots of big (-feeling) decisions this week, and I guess I wanted to make a record of them somehow. And, given how crazy our schedule has become, five minutes before washing my face is about the largest segment of blogging time I can snatch!

So, our decisions, from small to big:

I've decided to schedule one evening a week at the university graduate library, to work flat-out on my thesis there instead of bleeding it out into lots of little pathetic non-attempts in our living room after work, where Nika looks up at me soulfully ("Wouldn't you rather pet & play with me, after being away all day?") and the computer screen blinks at me with bad, seductive eyes ("surf! surf!") and our DVD collection sits right in front of me....the list could go on forever! So, from now on, Tuesday nights I'm heading straight from work to the library. I started this week and got more work done on the thesis in that one night than I had in the past three months. Sadly, I am not exaggerating. This seems like a good new plan!

I've filed to graduate in December 2006. It gives me long enough to make the whole thing do-able, while also motivating me to get the damn work done!

And, biggest of all, Patrick and I have finally decided it's time to start saving for a down payment on a house. Gulp! We may be very, very broke for the next couple of years. But we've been putting money into rent for too many years now, and it's time. We even know exactly where we want to live (gorgeous, left-wing, artsy, lots of coffeeshops, commutable to Leeds), and the houses are affordable in terms of mortgage payments...but first we need to come up with that darned down payment! So. This is going to entail lots of hideous financial sacrifices over the next couple of years, but I think it really will be worthwhile...and if we don't do it now, we may never, 'cause I don't see us ever making so much more money that it would be easy to come up with a down payment!

Meanwhile, we're off to Edinburgh tomorrow (yayyyy!), and with hideous timing, Nika's stomach has gotten a bad upset over the past few days (aaaaaggghh). It seems to be gradually getting better, and she hasn't been actively sick for the past two days...but it just kills me that we have to drop her off at the kennel tonight, a night before we leave, and before she's even fully adjusted back to her normal food. (The kennel only accepts drop-offs between 6:30-7:15 pm. It's insane!) It's moments like these when I long for a live-in dogsitter...oof.

Oh, and if anyone was curious about the novel-collaging I mentioned in my last entry, Jennifer Crusie's posted a great page about it on her website (with WAY more artistic collages than I'm intending, but what the heck).