To the grindstone

I've noticed lately that when I'm at home, usually in the evenings and when I wake up, everything looks kind of grainy and greyish. It only happens when I'm at home, and it only happens when I have Something To Do. It mostly happens when I remember all that deliciously pure, sweet Free Time. Time is not something you lose, it's something that gets replaced by something else. For instance, last night I had this time. A few hours, in fact. Grudgingly, I spent those hours doing Spanish homework, because it superceded in importance what I really wanted to be doing which was to sit on the loveseat with some cookies and make my thighs dimple and shimmy by squeezing them and slapping them around with my hands. I suppose that eating the cookies helped too.
I needed to do that homework, the same way that I needed to get up early this morning and do some more homework so I could show up to my class today with at least half a chapter's worth finished. I didn't get any sympathy from the Spanish tutor, either, showing up with 25% of my work done and not remembering how to speak in past tense when she tried to converse with me in that velvety flowing tongue that is Espanol.
I also helped my boyfriend look for apartments in Dublin today. When I say "helped", I mean that he went to www.daft.ie, entered a request for one-bedroom apartments within his budget, and sifted through the results based on location, proximity to work and necessary conveniences, etc. and I went to www.daft.ie and emailed him listings of charming $8,000/month bungalows in Bono's neighborhood.
All in all, though, sacrificing such a short-lived life of leisure for learning a second language, shopping for apartments in exotic locations (that'll get a laugh), baking from my beloved new cookbook, and making room in my life for a blog has been worth it because of the feeling of accomplishment it brings, if nothing else. It inspires me--hold your surprise--to make a list.
Top 5 good things that have come out of the week:
1. World Peace cookies: chocolatey cookies that (no kidding) snap with a hint of saltiness on your tongue a la Pop Rocks.
2. I figured out how to post pictures.
3. Learned how to use the Spanish past participle.
4. Made some notes for one, maybe two short stories.
5. Paris Hilton got put in jail.