It’s Chicago Style.. Sauce on top.

The month of May took me to three of the four corners of Nebraska and it was the oddest little spring road trip ever. Torrential rains, hail, snow, slushy hikes and frozen fingers refusing to stop taking pictures of rare views of nature. Yellow wildflowers poking hopefully through a layer of wet, white winter, searching for the sun. Yeah, the sun would have been a great companion for our little adventure but it was not meant to be I guess.

We cut the fourth corner off the end of our trip, exhausted from driving dirt roads and drying our wet clothes on hotel room heaters. Not to worry, I’m hitting that 4th corner in July when I spend a week plus in Nebraska City. By then, snow will be an impossibility so I’m predicting a heat wave. That’s Nebraska.. the land of endless corn and soybean fields and extreme weather. “Honestly, It’s not for everyone”. 😜

Two days ago I was asking myself what I did with the rest of the month of May and proceeded to go off on an emotional tangent instead of actually answering the question. Since it’s Sunday, I guess stats are a good place to start.

Exercise.. 9878 average steps per day and a total of 1 Jazzercise class. That’s the lowest average step count I’ve had since October 2016. No bueno! Bookmark my words – This is going to change this month! It has to!!

Sleep.. 7 hours and 1 minute average per night. This has to go up to, and I have a pretty good feeling it will.

Healthy eating.. This is hard to measure but I’m thinking it’s holding steady at “meh, doing ok”. I also have high hopes for making some progress in this department in June, but I say that almost every month. I have to have tangible goals or it will just melt into another month of “meh”. More on that later (perhaps).

Work.. My contract ended and I’m officially on the “bench”. I benched myself. I’ve taken a seat and don’t plan to put myself “back in the game” for the foreseeable future. I’m shifting my focus elsewhere. And it feels great!!

School.. That’s where that focus and extra time will be going. I spent most of the month of May orchestrating my re-entry into the masters program at UNO and communicating with professors to get permission to take classes that I’m not qualified for. This topic could also blossom into a post all of its own as there’s a lot to it. The short story is that a person who has never taken a literature class in their extensive college career would normally never be granted permission to take graduate level Lit courses. But poets aren’t good at following rules and I’m learning how to “bend and snap” with the loopholes.

I’m stoked beyond words to be starting my second year of grad school in July. Scared and anxious too, but when am I ever not anxious about things? The answer is almost never.

Relationship status.. Still engaged and still not doing any wedding planning. 🤔

Book report.. I finished “Wasted” by Marya Hornbacher and have intentions to finish “The Te of Piglet” in the next few days. Then I’m going to develop a reading list for the upcoming semester and start on that. There’s a blog post about “Wasted” waiting in my brain too but it apparently needs to take a number and get in line.

Movie review.. We watched “The Imitation Game” the other night and I highly recommend that. I would say more but I’m sort of coming to the end of what I’ve got time for today.

I’ll end by saying that my word for the month of June is going to be “impossibly”. It’s the adverb form of the word impossible of course and it’s the perfect word for describing things that are just too outrageous to be true. It also pairs well with lots of other words because it starts with that vowel sound. I’m going to write a blog post soon about my impossibly perfect back yard.

I think I’ve thought of six spin-off topics that I want to write about in the space of an hour. Not bad!!

Pizza Pizza!! 🍕

~Miss SugarCookie