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I tend to overwhelm myself. I do this by waiting until the last minute to complete things or by taking on more than I can handle.

Now, that last sentence is all relative. At different times I have been able to “handle” more or less, depending on what is happening in my life.

I bet if I looked back through this blog since I began graduate school, I’d find a post like this every time my writing packets were due. I wish I knew how to change this fact about myself. I’d like to say it has gotten better every semester, but I’m not sure that fact is true. Well, I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. I have gotten better. I just want to be a lot better than I am right now.

Here is what I need to have written (at a minimum): 18 pages of nonfiction, 5 pages of nonfiction, 1 poem, and a bunch of my own writing for my 3rd semester project (you should submit too!!!!). This all needs to be completed by Friday. Yes, Friday. And in truth, I should have had the 18 pages completed and sent out YESTERDAY to my writing group, which meets TOMORROW. Yes, tomorrow. Which means, I need to HUSTLE and throw something together. Which also means my submission to my writing group is going to be half-assed. Which means, I’m shorting myself the good critiques I need.

I want to do fun stuff like bake oreo cheesecakes and search online for houses and watch movies with my love and upload pictures to Facebook instead of doing my homework. Oh, wait… that is all I did this weekend.

One thing I can say that I’ve been doing a good job with is writing every day for 15 minutes straight. It has been very helpful. The problem is that what I’m writing is much more journal-ish than nonfiction-ish.

Enough whining. Today I’m going to go to work and get a lot done, then Mr. O and I will walk Fenway, pick up Wolverine (my new blog nickname for Mr. O’s son) and we will go grocery shopping together. Then we are going to go home, I’m going to cook them Chow Mein for dinner and then it is going to be a night of writing for me.

Speaking of food, last week I decided I want to start cooking for Mr. O and myself one time a week. I dont’ have the greatest cooking skills, and the only way to change that is to start cooking. So for my first week, I made spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread. I didn’t take any photographs, boo. Today I’m making Chow Mein. Both dishes are easy for me, but I’ve got to start where I am comfortable. Oh, and on Saturday I made an Oreo Cheesecake (my first cheesecake!) I will try to remember to take photos, and I’ll be sure to do a blog post about it all soon.