In the Home Stretch!

This is one of my very last Mondays of law school! We only have four weeks of class left before graduation, so we are officially in the home stretch. Oh, and only one more Moot Court practice EVER. Can you tell I'm excited? I'm just burned out on it--we've been doing it since November and I am so ready to be done. But my school will send our team of 3 to compete next week in Chicago, so we are all still meeting regularly to help them get ready.

I am also about to be done with my writing portfolio (due tomorrow at 3pm), which means I'm about to be done entirely with my advanced legal writing program! (Also very exciting). I will then have one paper, one exam, a divorce mediation "notebook," and a few advanced litigation drafting assignments left to do. I still have about 30 law review assignments to do, and our work on that is expected to extend far past graduation, but I'm doing those assignments literally at a rate of one per day right now just to get them to publication faster and minimize the work we have to do after graduation, because I will need to be studying a bare minimum of 55-60 hours a week for the bar exam all summer as it is. Anyway, I am so ready to be done with school. Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely loved my time here and would say without hesitation that law school has been a great experience for me, but I am just ready to wrap it up and see the reward for my efforts already! Also, between weddings, admissions recruiting events, client counseling practices, travel, Moot Court elections, and so forth, I haven't been able to take a Saturday or Sunday off in weeks, so I've been going for at least three weeks without a single real day off. This past Saturday night was my first evening to even be at home in almost two weeks, so I'm seriously craving a couple days where I have nothing to do and nowhere to be. But I am going to visit my parents for a long weekend in NC this weekend, and I am planning to leave all my books and manuscripts and other stuff here and just not even worry about it from Thursday night to Monday morning, because I just need to get away, and nothing is going to fall to pieces if I am not here working for three and a half days.

In other news, I've been making smoothies obsessively over the past few days with all kinds of fruit, yogurt, and vegetables and am considering going on a smoothie detox/ juice fast for a couple of days. My favorite combinations so far:
1) frozen raspberries, flax, fresh pineapple, banana, a squeeze of real maple syrup (which I happened to have on hand for another recipe I was trying), Greek yogurt, and milk--this was delicious and every bit as good as any smoothie you'd pay $5 for at a coffee shop.
2) bananas, natural peanut butter, and milk--at first, I put Greek yogurt in this one too, but I realized that Greek yogurt and peanut butter don't taste good to me when they are together. So I'd just go with the peanut butter next time.
3) frozen raspberries, a Clementine orange, fresh mint, lots of lettuce, a squeeze of lemon and lime juice, honey, and water--this one has a very intense flavor but is also very refreshing. If you put way too much lemon juice in at first like I did, you can fix it by adding a bit more honey. This is also SO nutritious and proved to be a good option to drink after my workout today.

I also had a huge, unexplainable craving for buffalo chicken dip today, so I whipped up a single-serving version of this recipe and it was so good. I also found salmon on sale and am planning to do maple-glazed salmon with brussel sprouts later this week based on a recipe in Women's Health (hence the maple syrup), so I'll have to let you know how that turns out.

Anyway, I'm off to go wash my dishes and clean my apartment a little and work on law review and then I am putting on my pajamas, watching a movie, and going to BED. Happy Monday!