Easter Saturday

Knowing that Sundays have been anything but restful recently, we decided to go ahead and do Easter baskets on Saturday this year. The Easter Bunny hid eggs all over the main floor and the basement, so we'll probably be hunting Easter eggs for a good year or more. Phoebe has been finding eggs all day!

 

Grandpa & Darla's Wedding (March 29)

Big day over here today—Alexander lost his second tooth!

Just kidding!

I mean, he did lose a second tooth this afternoon, but our Big Day News is that today was Grandpa and Darla's long-awaited (and also not-so-long-awaited) wedding day. They were only engaged for a couple of months, but I had a few little flower girls at my house who have been so excited for this wedding that even that felt like a long amount of time. 

I have so many thoughts swirling around in my head about this wedding.

First of all, I'd like to apologize to my parents and to Andrew's parents for our own whirlwind engagement. Andrew got home from his mission on October 12 (2005). We got engaged on October 26 (also 2005) and were married on December 16 (also 2005). Somehow I thought that was plenty of time to put a wedding together. 

Turns out even the simplest of wedding plans still require...quite a lot of coordination and behind-the-scenes work. I'm sure our parents were losing their minds trying to pull everything together, while we blithely waltzed through the entire affair. That said, it's not like they were entirely surprised by our quick decision to get married and, in fact, were perhaps even less surprised than we were. 

To be fair, we had known each other—as friends—for several years. Continuing that friendship just made sense, even if our formal courtship was brief (and it was brief). 

There is something to be said about getting to know someone before you marry them, but I wonder truly how much time anyone needs to spend to get to know anyone else because...people are surprising. 

I mean, you can spend 18 years of your life thinking your spouse won't eat tomatoes and then one day they go to Montreal without you, are served a sandwich with tomatoes, throw caution to the wind, eat those tomatoes and find that tomatoes actually lend the sandwich a certain—as the French say—je ne sais quoi. And then next time you have sandwiches as a family you run out of tomatoes because that certain someone has taken the last slice that you had been assuming would be yours... 

See? Mind blowing stuff happens all the time!

A Walk Through Jerusalem

Our stake put on a "Walk through Jerusalem" on Saturday. They set up a village in the gym, elaborately partitioned off with sheets and cardboard to create a number of private spaces where the children could travel through in small groups to learn about the Saviour's life. 

FHE

Today for FHE we did our first quarter check-in on our goals for the year and discussed our recent "plateau" in homeschooling (where the kids do their darndest to not accomplish any actual work the entire day until I, exhausted, give in and tell them to go outside and play). 

On the one hand, we had a good discussion about procrastination (stemming from Alma 34:33):

I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.

Though Rachel accidentally read verse 35 instead, which was really a little harsh for our purposes:

For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.

So we also talked about how grace—and the atonement—can really cover a lot of stuff, so I'm not saying the children are headed to "heck" in a hand basket simply because they procrastinate from time to time (though procrastinating repentance while banking on being saved is...a whole nother ball of wax). 

Anyway, we talked about other scripture stories this made us thinking of and the kids came up with:

• The parable of the ten virgins (five of whom were unprepared)
• The prodigal son (who wanted to play without responsibility)
• The parable of the talents (and the servant who buried it in the dirt, thinking that would be enough)
• Noah (and all the people who wouldn't listen to him)

All excellent stories to bring home the point Andrew and I were trying to make about buckling down to do your work before goofing off. Because it just makes everyone happier. For one thing, in theory the kids would get to play sooner if they simply...did their work...right? For another thing, Mom would be much happier, which would make everyone happier, right?

We talked about how doing things—using our bodies, using our minds, creating things (art! stories! gardens! needlework! clean spaces!)—helps us feel happy. Avoiding doing things (like, for example, how I'm avoiding working on the paper I should be working on right now) can make us feel happy for a time, I guess, but at the end of the day...when we think about what we've accomplished...it's...a bit depressing.

Baklava and the Case of the Missing Socks

Yesterday evening we went outside to play after dinner. Phoebe wanted to play with the big kids in the cul-de-sac, but I told her she needed to stay in the yard with me because she's still little.

"I think I'm a big kid now!" she insisted.

And I did eventually relent and let her go play with the kids (I had a meeting to go to), but not before we played a few games together to let the big kids play without having to worry about her. 

Disturbing the peas (and other tales)

I'm working on putting a little fence around our garden, with the goal of keeping various critters out of it—deer mostly...perhaps the occasional rabbit...oh, and Phoebe!

Here's Phoebe disturbing the peas:

Once freshly planted in straight, tidy rows, our peas are now destined to be a "chaos crop," and will truly have follow the adage of blooming where they were planted (wherever that may have ended up being).

Particularly Pungent Pineapple

Andrew made chicken tikka masala for dinner. It was delicious but was a little spicier than he intended, the little kids suffered through a few bites of the sauce, but mostly ate plain rice and naan. Spicy bites were alternated with bites of fresh pineapple, to quell some of the heat. 

Everything was fine and dandy until I looked over at Phoebe and noticed her lips were bleeding. 

"Phoebe!" I said. "Why are your lips bleeding?!"

I dabbed them off with a napkin, trying to remember if she'd tried to get down at some point and bumped her face on the table or something. Because why would she be bleeding?

And then Benjamin said something, so I turned to look at him and his lips were bleeding.

"Benjamin!" I said. "Your mouth is bleeding, too!"

"Wait, what?" he asked, wiping his mouth with his napkin. 

"He's bleeding, too?!!" Andrew asked.

We started frantically scanning faces: "Alexander's mouth is bleeding, too!" Andrew announced.

"Is mine?" cried Zoë, who hadn't really touched much of her dinner.

Zoë was fine. 

"My mouth burns a little, but I think it's fine," Rachel said. 

Same answer for me and Miriam, both.

Andrew volunteered to be the constant for our study. "I didn't have any pineapple," he said, which launched a long discussion of which fruit he'd prefer in any given pair of fruits because he doesn't often choose to eat pineapple, apparently. 

And with good reason!!

Now, we already knew about bromelaine in pineapples, and have often joked that it's a fruit that you have to digest before it digests you, but we have never had one quite as pungent as this one!

There were a few panicky moments where we weren't sure why everyone was suddenly bleeding, but it only took us a few minutes to clue in to what was wrong. Still—so weird!

Four-leaf clover

This morning, Miriam made her goal of running a 10-minute mile. We'll see if she ever runs again (I'm sure she will, though she claims she won't), but at least she can finish her psychology class now since she achieved her goal. The purpose of the assignment wasn't necessarily to achieve the goal...but to go through the process of setting a goal and working on a goal long enough to see some progress.

Benjamin and I ran 5 miles, with our second mile at a 9:41 (and a pace of 10:30 overall). We deviated from our usual running route, which took us by a lovely tree in full bloom not too far from our house.

We are lucky that "stinky pear" season is so short-lived down here. It's pungent for a few weeks in late February and early March, but by now the Bradford pear blossoms have mostly been torn from the branches by the breeze, and they're leafing out in blissful, scentless green.

So the beautiful tree Benjamin and I ran past was not a stinky, ol' pear tree. It was some sort of ornamental cherry tree.

Later in the afternoon Rachel wanted to go for a walk (along with Phoebe (who was super grumpy because she had just given herself a nosebleed (from dig, dig, digging for gold) and Miriam). I told the girls I wanted to walk past this tree so I could enjoy it a little more, instead of just...running past it. So that's what we did.

It hangs over the sidewalk and is just lovely. 

St. Patrick's Day and Primary and Organ and Stuff

 

Today was St. Patrick's Day...and Sunday. Alexander was very excited about this combination of events (he had trouble keeping both feet on the ground).

Green Day

Alexander is terribly concerned about his lack of green church attire and the fact that St. Patrick's Day falls on a Sunday this year. He absolutely did not want to get pinched but just wasn't sure what he was going to wear! It was a real conundrum. 

So I joked that Miriam could make him a tie really quick since she's our resident seamstress.

To my surprise/delight she said that she would! So we looked up a few patterns and she was less than impressed to find out that a necktie involves very little machine sewing and a whole lot of hand stitching. I told her that I would do the hand stitching if she would do everything else—all the cutting and ironing and machine work. And we had ourselves a deal (though to be fair I ended up doing a whole lot of the ironing)!

This little project soon became two green ties (one for Benjamin and one for Alexander, since neither of them have green church attire, while the girls have plenty of options when it comes to skirts and dresses and things). When Miriam saw how much green fabric she had left after making the ties, however, the project ballooned into two green skirts (one for Zoë and one for Phoebe) and two green ties (one for Benjamin and one for Alexander).

It took us longer than we thought, but we managed to finish it all in one day (and it cost us nothing because it was all fabric I picked up from our Buy Nothing Group). We also learned a lot!

Early morning egg hunt; late afternoon nap

This morning I took the kids to the primary Easter egg hunt at the church. Phoebe, our homebody, wasn't sure she wanted to go until Alexander and Zoë told her that the eggs we'd be looking for had candy inside. As it turns out, the eggs didn't have candy inside, but Phoebe had a lot of fun, anyway. 

She probably had the most fun out of everyone, actually.

Turtles and worms

Zoë finished her grade 3 math curriculum last week (she's been doing challenge problems from this year and previewing next year's lessons this week). Despite being in kindergarten, Alexander is on track to finish his grade 1 math curriculum next week. And miraculously, Benjamin is only a week or two behind his goal to finish his math curriculum by the end of April, which means he's in good shape to finish by the end of May. 

The girls are working hard on their courses through BYU-Idaho and ASU. 

And we finished reading The Tragedy of King Lear today. 

Zoë learned about Georges Seurat's painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and pointillism in her French class at co-op on Thursday. They used q-tips to make a pointilism-style painting in class and then Zoë came home and got all set up to continue painting. She painted all afternoon, making a large and beautiful painting of the Eiffel Tower...

...which she gifted to Grandpa before I could take a picture of it.

He came over for pie after playing pickle ball with Darla. Yesterday was Pie Day or Pi Day or whatever (March 14, 3.14) and we've been celebrating all week! 

Benjamin just happens to be learning all about pi right now, so he was particularly excited for Pi Day. 

On Thursday we had quiche for dinner (made by Miriam) and a peach-cherry-berry pie (made by Rachel) for dessert. 

Running and nursing and things

This morning Miriam texted me to say that if we wanted to go for a run we should probably go earlier in the day, since it was supposed to "start thunderstorming around 10ish." But because I like to live on the wild side, we didn't end up leaving for our run until 10ish. 

We only did a short run, with the storm nipping at our heels and, honestly, I made pretty good time, coming in at 8:59 for one mile (remember that I'm slow, so this is a decent time for me right now). And I didn't really feel like I pushed it or anything (like earlier in the week when I ran an 8:30 mile...and then went on to run a couple more miles, which felt brutal after running my first mile so fast (like a genius)). 

*****

Violets

 

It is spring and the violets are here.

My children offer them
like currency—every petal
says "I love you."

There is no "not," only yes, do.

They are rich and set
flowers in their hair, fumbling
among golden wisps and curls.

In which I eat a thousand cakes and Benjamin poops rainbows

When Phoebe gets up in the morning she likes to sing nursery rhyme games: 

• Round and Round the Garden
• This Little Piggy
• Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake
• Itsy-Bitsy Spider
• Five Little Monkeys
• Little Bunny Foo Foo

You know, things of that nature. This has replaced her nursing time because...she hasn't nursed at all in a couple of weeks now (so I think we're done with that stage of life)...but she still needs some extra special cuddle time before she's ready to face the day. 

Yesterday when we woke up, she wanted to play Pat-a-Cake (this morning she wanted me to sing "How Much is That Doggy in the Window" so she could do a lot of barking and panting because she also likes to be a puppy in the mornings). She must have felt badly about slamming her head into my nose or something because she kept stuffing me with confectionery!

The following is a transcript that I wrote down on Facebook (is it cheating to just plop it in here? I don't know...my time is limited and I don't want to reconstruct this conversation in prose form at the minute):

Dangers of co-sleeping: Parental version

There are known dangers to co-sleeping, though there are also ways to ensure co-sleeping is safer than it would otherwise be if you took no precautions. But who has studied the dangers of co-sleeping to parents?

Nobody. 

It's all about the babies. Blah, blah, blah. Babies this, babies that. 

Nobody ever mentions harms that can befall the parents!

(Note that this is very tongue-in-cheek. I love babies (obviously, I hope) and I think their safety is important. While I admittedly have done a lot of co-sleeping, I have always taken precautions to avoid SIDS. But for real though...what about me?!)

Last night Phoebe climbed into bed with us at...some point in the night. I don't know when. But I know that I helped haul her onto the bed and settle her into her spot—right in the middle. 

She fell asleep fairly quickly.

Or perhaps I was the one who fell asleep quickly and was simply unaware of any shenanigans she was pulling (sometimes rather than simply going back to sleep she's a little bed bug, quite the bother). 

But I'm pretty sure she settled down right away and committed to going to sleep. 

So there I was, serenely sleeping on my back, with my cherubic toddler beside me, and dozing daddy on the other side of her. All was well with the world and then...

*POW*

In which Phoebe gets to snuggle a "little" puppy

Darla invited our family over for dinner this afternoon. We got to meet her mother-in-law, who was just wonderful, and try pork ribs, which was a little bit intimidating for us. We've never had ribs before, but I think we did an okay job with them—Zoë ate her ribs and then ate Alexander's ribs and then finished off Miriam's ribs, so she at least earned an A+ at rib eating. Phoebe really like the pineapple. Grandpa, quizzically, enjoyed the sweet potatoes. 

Darla had served up a dish of sliced...root vegetables (let's say). There were definitely potatoes in there and then some orange somethings that many of us assumed were carrots. But they were not carrots. They were sweet potatoes. And Darla really didn't try to hide this fact. On the contrary, she was quite open about it (much like the pumpkin soup incident at our house last month).

When Grandpa dished some potatoes and "carrots" (which were really sweet potatoes) onto his plate, Darla said, "I can't believe you're putting that on your plate!"

He just chuckled about it...because where else would he put it?!

Later when it came out that they weren't carrots, he felt a little hard done by. But, he survived them and somewhat liked them, so I think this really means that he...likes sweet potatoes. He doesn't want to admit it, but they're not half bad!

I think Phoebe's favourite part of the visit, however, was Titus, the dog.

She spent the first several minutes of our arrival nose-to-nose with Titus, telling him, "You're a good dog! You're a good dog! You're a good dog! You're a good dog!"

We weren't sure whether she was just enamored with him or whether she was trying to convince herself—and the dog—that they could be friends.

Running

My big kids aren't home right now. Rachel took herself, Miriam, Benjamin, and Zoë to a games night at the church. Andrew and I stayed home with the little kids. 

This isn't Rachel's first time driving by herself. She's been driving to pick Grandpa up every morning since Wednesday, and driving back home from his house alone. On Wednesday after driving Miriam to organ (with Grandpa sitting as navigator), Rachel decided to take her car on a drive to the church, just to rip the bandaid off. 

She also drove herself to co-op on Thursday so that she could leave after teaching the nursery class. 

And then this evening she took her siblings to games night. 

So basically, Rachel can drive to church independently. And that's a great start!

*****

Benjamin, Miriam, and I have been running quite a bit since the fall. At first only Benjamin and I were going, but then Miriam made running a goal of hers for her psychology class?? So she had to start running with us. 

But the thing is that she hates running (or so she says). 

Any time I push her, she pushes back harder breaks down sobbing.

"Let's only run one mile today," she'll say.

"Let's go for two," I'll say.

Next thing I know she'll be hyperventilating and bawling her eyes out while running...up the driveway. 

It was driving me nuts because it's not even like I run very fast. I don't. And I know this because today I took the kids on a 5k run and my time was 32:29 (they actually rolled in after me), which felt like a decent run.

But, back in 2010 my time was 24:42 for the same distance. That's pretty fleet!

Granted, that was a race pace and the runs I've been doing recently are just little training runs...and a few things have changed since 2010: I'm, ya know, older. I've birthed four more children. And I've put on a number of pounds since then (believe it or not).

But also, I more or less ran that 5k race cold. Like, I went running a few times after we moved back from Cairo and then I was like, "A 5k—why not?!"

I've been running for months now...with a rather significant break in December/January when it was cold and we had company and another significant break in February when we had COVID. So we're just starting up again after that.

Anyway, all this is to say that a 30+ minute 5k still sounds slow to me...and yet it feels hard (though part of what might be so hard is dragging the kids across the finish line).

Phoebe doing this, Phoebe doing that...

The older kids are really pretty good about entertaining Phoebe. They're all sweet with her and tolerate a lot of (frankly obnoxious) two-year-old behaviour from her. Just today Zoë spent a couple of hours playing with Phoebe outside because none of her friends could play. It was, in a word, amazing. 

I got so much work accomplished!

I didn't remember until 5:30 that I was in charge of dinner this evening...oops...but I got so much writing done!

Dinner was saved by some recipe that found me through some algorithm or other. I like when such algorithms are actually useful, like, "You look like a person who frequently cooks dinner. Here's an easy but delicious dinner idea!" and aren't useless like, "You look like a person who bought a toilet seat once. Here's a collection of outlandish toilet seats for your viewing pleasure."

Anyway, I made Baked Feta Pasta (with some help from Miriam, who apparently had become hungry and began to stalk the kitchen vulture-like). A tub of cherry tomatoes (purchased last week), washed and poured into an oven-safe dish...along with the rest of a container of feta crumbles that was on its way out (but still good) and some mozzarella (because I didn't have enough feta). Bake it while cleaning the kitchen. Boil some noodles. Have the kids cut up lettuce and cucumbers. Boom. Dinner in under an hour.

And the kids all seemed to like it. We ate the whole thing. Benjamin had seven helpings (and may be approaching teenage-hood (bless this house and our food supply because that kid can eat)).

So while I appreciate getting a couple hours of (relatively) uninterrupted time to work this afternoon, my camera role tells me that I spend a lot of time...keeping Phoebe out of her siblings' hair. 

I don't mind doing this because (a) Phoebe is a fun little person and I love her to pieces and (b) she's my responsibility, not her siblings'. 

This is just to say that...I have a lot of pictures of Phoebe on my camera...which I took...while the other kids were doing who-knows-what.

Here's Phoebe jumping in some puddles left over from a rainstorm:

Picture or it didn't happen: Rachel's driving test and Benjamin's first temple trip

This afternoon, Andrew took Rachel out to get do her driving test. Scheduling driving tests out here can be a little tricky (specifically for those not from around here, I suppose). First of all, when you go to select a location they have every location drop down in one menu, so you'd better pretty good at Georgia geography and know what locations are nearby. In Utah, for contrast, you choose first your region and then you choose precisely which location you'd like. It really narrows down how many addresses you need to look up to see where in the world state the place is. 

Also, things tend to fill up quickly. 

When I went through the process on Utah's website, I could still snag an appointment for tomorrow morning...if I wanted to...which I don't.

Rachel tested at Lawrenceville and I just checked and the next available appointment is April 10 (and there is only one slot available that day). That's more than a month away! 

And that's why Rachel had her learner's permit for 13 months before testing instead of the minimum 12 (and 1 day). 

I imagine testing is quite a bit different than it was back in the day (I don't know because the number of driving tests I've taken is zero). I believe the test administrator used to get in the vehicle with you. 

They don't do that here (at least not anymore; I hear it changed with COVID and it looks like it's a change that is sticking around).

Cooking up some colloids

This morning we made a couple of gallons of chocolate milk for the youth to consume after their temple trip this evening. Evidently buying milk at Costco (because it's much cheaper there than other places) and some Nesquik powder is more cost effective than buying ready-made gallons of chocolate milk. It just requires a little bit of preparation. 

So Andrew had Miriam dump a gallon of milk into a big mixing bowl and add 262 grams of powder (equivalent to 1 cup or so) and give it a few rounds with the immersion blender before pouring it back into the milk jug. This last step required Andrew's assistance because a gallon of chocolate milk sloshing around in a bowl was a little heavy and precarious for Miriam or I to handle.

(I, like, tweaked my back the other day. I could hardly move at all yesterday—was on the brink of tears for most of the day because it was so painful—but woke up feeling a bit better this morning...but not able to handle a sloshing gallon of chocolate milk).

Andrew poured the milk while I held the funnel. 

"I dunno," I said as I observed how full the jug was getting and how much milk was still left to pour in it. "Does the volume of milk increase when you add the powder?"

"Nah," Andrew said. "It just dissolves."

"Sure," I said. "But...does it though? Like, it just doesn't seem like this jug is going to hold all of this..."

"But if it dissolves then it doesn't add to the volume, right?"

"Are you sure about that? I just still don't think it's going fit..."

"Oh, it'll fit," he said confidently, dumping the rest of the milk into the funnel. 

Church stories

Weirdly, I have spent the last couple of weeks giving Benjamin tutorials on how to tie a...tie. 

I learned how to tie a tie when David was struggling to learn how to tie a tie (so probably when I was nine or ten). I also learned how to tie my shoes when he was struggling to learn to tie his shoes. 

I say struggle simply because learning is very often a struggle—it's something that requires curiosity and tenacity and humility. David was certainly all those things. Indeed, he was a clever and talented young man. And I was his little sister. 

So, suffering from what we'll call "Little Sister Complex," I worked extra hard to learn how to tie things properly extra early so that I could...brag about it to him. 

Sometimes I was a brat, believe it or not. 

I didn't have any particular reason to learn how to tie a tie, but I practiced and practiced just so I could do it quicker and better than David could (at least when he was a boy of 12). I don't know if he even noticed that I was competing with him, but I was. For whatever reason. Because, as I mentioned, I had no actual need to know how to tie a tie. 

Andrew has worn ties for years, though in high school he often wore one particular zipper tie. He didn't really start wearing "proper" ties until his mission. And he learned how to tie them, in his words, "wrong," because when he unties them, they don't nicely slip undone and instead wind up in a knot that he has to unpick before he can hang it up. 

He's happy—functional—with his abilities, but suggested that perhaps Benjamin should ask me for help learning how to tie ties so that he could learn the proper way. Could Andrew learn my way? Probably. There are many, many ways to tie a tie (I think I do the Windsor) and I don't think any of them are fundamentally wrong. But Andrew's happy with his way. 

He just thinks that Benjamin will take better care of his tie if he doesn't have to unknot it before hanging it up. And he's probably right about that. 

Just put me back to bed

Really quick before I got to bed...

Right around midnight, Phoebe got up, made her way out of her room, walked down the hall and into my bedroom, grabbed my arm and said, "Just put me back to bed."

So I put her back to bed, the silly goose.

"We could really cut out the middle man," I explained to her as we walked back to her bedroom. "And when you wake up you can just say to yourself, 'Phoebe, it's still nighttime! Go back to sleep!'"

But I don't think she quite managed to pick up what I was putting down because...

At around 12:45 she got up again (yes, this is how our nights go...and it makes it really hard to get anything accomplished, including getting off to bed ourselves), and this time she didn't even make it all the way into my room before she noticed that she'd caught my attention. So she just turned and ran back to her room and got into bed. 

I followed her—like the well-trained parent that I am (she has us wrapped around her little finger, this one)—and she just said, "Sit there."

So I sat there for a few minutes and she fell back to sleep. 

This has been an easy night so far. Other nights there is screaming. And hours-long interludes between bursts of sleep. But tonight she's been hilariously easy to put back to bed. 

"Just put me back to bed," indeed!

Life is Like a Box of Chocolates, or My Momma Always Said

To be fair, many universities allow students to withdraw from classes approximately two-thirds of the way through the course. I'm sure there are valid reasons for making such a decision. 

Rachel was marveling at the dwindling numbers in her math course.

She had to sign up for a group and decided to put her name down under the very first group, thinking to herself that this group of people would be sure to be on the ball about things (she's experienced some tricky group dynamics but, I think that's par for the course (no pun intended)). They started with six or seven people in their group and she has had a better experience in the group, but they are down to three people (the deadline to withdraw is not until March 4—the same day my library books are due (just a little note to myself)—so we'll see if her group stays that size). 

The absolutely wild thing, though, is that the last day of classes is, like, April 5 (I don't know; I'm not really sure how to read their schedule...so it might be April 8)!

That's like a month away! All you have after that is finals (April 9—10) and then you're home free! 

You powered through January and February (eight weeks of classes), but you can't do March?! Like, you have five weeks of classes and one week of finals left! Stick with it and you get credit for the course. Drop out and...you don't...and if you want to repeat the class you have to start over again in square one!

There are times when I think it's wise to put down burdens, but I also think it's wise to consider when the most convenient time to put the burden down is! Sometimes it's better to just carry things across the finish line. For real. Even if it's hard. (Though I understand that sometimes you simply have to put something down).

Anyway, while we were talking about this (Rachel's disbelief that someone would decide to drop a class at the moment when she's planning her Hermione-esque slide to the finish), I was reminded of a few things that my mom used to always say (and probably still says, though she hasn't said them to me recently). One thing was:

"You can do anything for a semester."