Countdown Commences

I am on a countdown calendar toward finishing my dissertation. The end is still months away, but deadlines are looming nonetheless. I have a few priorities right now: publish papers, finish the dissertation work, keep my sanity. Keeping my sanity trumps all others. What's the point of getting a graduate degree if I lose my sanity in the process? Then I'd be a mad scientist which always looks like more fun in the movies than in real life.

Here's my sanity plan:

• Limit unnecessary time on the computer. This makes blogging difficult and has made me miss a few Facebook event invitations, but it's necessary.
• Exercise. I have bicycling goals and running goals right now. I don't always meet those goals because sometimes I spend a day skiing or hiking instead.
• Spend at least one day a week not working. This is actually difficult when I'm in the middle of a program or paper but also necessary. If I don't take at least one day off on the weekend, then I find myself burnt out halfway through the following week.

I have several other blog posts in my head, just waiting for some spare computer time to get written. They are mostly about winter trails in New Mexico and knitting.

Year In, Year Out

Apparently, I am supposed to write a summary of last year. I went through my photos to help with this and discovered, that there really isn't much there. I guess it's okay if every once in a while I have a year without much excitement to report. I did accomplish a few things that have been on my list of things to do like: defending a dissertation proposal (no photo)

Doing a relay for the Mt Taylor Quadrathlon:

 Joining a bicycle club and riding up the Sandia Crest road:

Riding a MS150 ride (not on the same day, but apparently in the same outfit):

There should be more excitement in the coming year. But amidst all the changes that 2012 should bring in life, I'm going to try to keep bicycling regularly, and even start training for a 10k run again, yay!

Probably the most ridiculous thing I have ever knit

Every year, I go to the Taos Wool Festival and visit Ellen's Wooly Wonders booth and am amazed at the patterns that she comes up with. I couldn't resist this motorcycle pattern. It took a few months (as most projects do) but sewing all those little parts together really turned out to be the time-consuming part, more than knitting the parts.

Luminarias

The Los Altos neighborhood started a Christmas Eve tradition of setting up luminarias 60 years ago. When we bought our house 8 years ago, we were warned that we'd be expected to join in. This year, we put up over 200 luminarias around our house. And several hundred people made their way through our neighborhood that evening to see them.

Our house.

Looking down the block where the street was closed off for the evening.

A neighbor's design in their front yard.

The view from our front yard. You can't see it but there is a house underneath many of those luminarias.