Yeah, so I haven't written in a while. Work has been... insane. I thought it was insane prior to three weeks ago, but that was nothing compared to now. Before this 3-day weekend, I worked 14 days in a row (ie, no weekends) for a total of about 160 hours. There was one stretch where I worked 38 hours over a three-day period. Yeah. Add in at least two hours per day in transit (it takes a lot longer to get home at night when you can't catch the express train during rush hour), and I haven't been spending much time at home. (Although, despite what I thought last time I wrote, I only ended up spending two days in the field and the rest in the office.)

But this past weekend, I finally got to spend a few days away from work-- yay!-- and to see family and friends-- double yay!

I flew into DC late Thursday night, and on Friday we drove up to the house in New Jersey, working on preparing it for another renter-- which means trying to sort through the incredible amount of stuff we have in boxes. We came across all sorts of things. One was a notepad my mom kept around the time I was born, including writing about staring into my eyes and thinking how beautiful I was, and also a list of potential baby names. Now, I don't want to give you the wrong impression about my parents' taste, because there were a good 50-60 names on the pad, and most of them were absolutely beautiful. But the list included the names Pinky and Princess. Wow.

Anyway, there was much more. There was a journal entry I wrote in January 1991-- when I was just turning 9-- opposing the Gulf War. There were tons of photos from the 1970s, including from my parents' wedding and from summer 1970 when my then 17-year-old mom volunteered with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. There was, of course, all sorts of stuff from my grandfather. There was... far too much to try to list it all.

So we spent Friday night and most of Saturday cleaning and sorting, with a brief time-out for me to decorate the cookies you see above (which I baked on Friday before we left). They came out pretty well for a first try, but I definitely want to practice a lot more until I get really good at it-- it seems like such a fun hobby!

Then, on Saturday night, I got to see Rich and Morgan again. It was really nice, and I kept thinking how much I wished we lived nearer to eachother. Rich and I... there are a lot of ways we're quite different, certainly, but on some level we really are kindred spirits, I think. It's a good feeling, and a good friendship. (And I just get good vibes from Morgan, even though she's been pretty quiet the two times I've seen her so I can't say I know her very well yet.)

And then Sunday was the family day-- we stopped in to visit my mom's parents for breakfast, before heading over for Easter with my dad's side of the family. The cousins were adorable as ever, with Katie in particular adding a bit more pretty red hair and a ton of new words since I saw her last. Then a six-hour drive to Maryland, arriving past 1am, and getting up before 6am to catch a plane back to Chicago, and you have one very tired Britt back at work who wonders when she gets a lie-around-and-do-nothing weekend. (Answer: not very soon; I'll be out of town again next weekend, and then the following weekend Meredith will be visiting, which will be wonderful but not particularly conducive to unstructured laziness and sloth.) But that's okay. I've been running in crazy stressful mode for almost two months now; I can make it another three weeks.
  ¶ 11:46 PM