Dissertation proposal

I'm officially proposing my dissertation at the beginning of May!

3.29

I just found out that Mindy Kahling (writer and Kelly Kapoor on The Office) has a blog! Her bloggy name is Mindy Ephron - how cool is that! Nora Ephron (along with her sis Delia) are THE goddesses of romantic comedy writing (e.g., Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail). Her blog, “Things I’ve Bought That I Love,” discusses fun clothes, beauty products and helpful tips (like how she reduced her mile time from 10 minutes, i.e., my time, to 8.5 minutes).

The other customer who took Neighbor’s coat by mistake with her keys/phone called today and she got her stuff back - yay! She surprised me when she came back with tea light candle holders in summery colors that just happen to go perfectly with my spring/summer decor. Unexpected, totally not needed - but fun surprise!

3.29

It’s about 4am now. I fell asleep soon after 11:30 only to wake up an hour or so ago feeling completely rested. It’s about 3.5 hours until I can go jogging. Maybe I should stay up? I can at least work on my references for the dissertation. I was a regular driving service yesterday - it was kinda fun. I drove Purple Daisy to take her car in on Thursday, and it was ready yesterday so I took her to pick it up and then we went out to lunch. I went home, got some work done and then my neighbor came over. She’s had a pretty stressful few weeks and went in for a little pampering at a local salon/spa. When she was done with her massage they gave her back her coat only for her to find out that it was a coat that looked remarkably similar to hers. They had given her coat away (with her cell phone and keys inside) to someone else! The staff was helpful in letting her make some calls to get our apartment complex owner to get her an extra set of keys and then an employee drove her back here. I then took her back to the salon with her spare car keys tow and I’m also her “contact person” for the salon to call when hopefully the person who has her coat realizes what happened. The salon has supposedly called everyone who was there for the two hours before this happened. Hopefully I’ll get a call tomorrow!

3.22

I so want to make kitty litter cake! The recipe sounds really fun and it’s cat related = win, win!

The link has various pictures of kitty litter cakes that will likely take you to recipes, if you’re (still) interested. It’s kind of ironic, but I think my Dad (allergic to cats) would really love this dessert. He loves yellow cake and that is what is ground up to make the “litter.” I also don’t think he’d mind the ground up vanilla sandwich cookies either. PLUS he loves Tootsie Rolls, and those are melted to make the poop! Maybe I’ll make this during the summer after I propose my dissertation.

Speaking of dissertation, it looks like I will be proposing in a little over a month, with my draft due to committee mid-April! Scary, I know.

I just discovered “In Treatment” this week on HBO - really good. It’s on every night for a half hour and chronicles a psychologist’s sessions with his patients. There’s one appointment each day and the Friday appointment is the psychologist going to his session with his wife to deal with their marital problems. The appointments (days) are tied together when patients from other days call before/after sessions, or the psychologist, Paul, interacts with his estranged wife (his office is in their home). Diane Weist and Blair Underwood star and I recognize the Paul but don’t know his name. Some of the elements in the sessions are very universal, making it almost like therapy for free!