I'm feeling better about the weight stuff--I am much more confident that I can do something about it if it's that important to me. And given the very important point Mark brought up about the vericosity in my legs already and the compounding effect extra weight has on that problem, it is becoming very important to me.
But enough about that.
I am finished with my first semester at LBJ--the final yesterday went fine and now I really do have time off. I'm already nervous about the prospect (yeah, right) of learning enough calc to take the validation exam in January, but I'm going to give myself a couple more days before I start freaking out about that or my PRP paper. This is, after all, supposed to be vacation, and it's bad enough that I have to work 3 days/week during my supposed "vacation."
I'm having a good morning at work this morning, though. I finally found data for two of the things that were hanging over my head from the maternal and child health indicators list. I knew they were there all along, it has just taken ages to find them. I should take another look at the JJ stuff while I'm on a roll.
My baking bonanza was a partial success. My biscotti didn't meet the Mark test, and some of my shortbread broke and thus became Mark's tea biscuits, but I think everything else is OK. The gingerbread men and sugar cookies look nice, and I'm pretty confident the pound cakes will be good. The fudge is a little bit soft, but it should harden over the next couple of days, and soft fudge isn't the worst thing in the world. So tonight I need to start getting it all packaged up and sent off. The problem is that there are other things I wnat to send to some of the folks I am planning to ship it too. I think I might just skip that, though. No need to let Christmas be overwelming. I got about half a dozen cards sent out on Tuesday as well, so that's going pretty well. Need to do some more tonight. Writing out Christmas cards makes me feel strangely grown up, and signing Mark's name to them as well as my own makes me feel...married. It's odd, but sort of nice, in the same way it's nice to refer to Mark and Chancey as my "family."
Emily is off to stay with her parents for a few days. Her mom really sounds like she's not doing well, and I apparently I am talking about it a lot, because Mark said something last night about how surprised he is at the effect it's having on me. It's really two things, I think. The first is Emily and wanting to be able to make her feel better and knowing it's simply not possible, and the second is fear that this means my mom could get sick, too. I simply cannot fathom my mother being terminally ill. It's beyond my capacity to comprehend.