It’s the tail end of my first semester of graduate school. In hindsight, it should have occurred to me that this would coincide with the end-of-year fundraising push at work. I have a lot to accomplish over the next eleven days and very few unscheduled hours during which to accomplish it all. My dining table has been converted into a staging ground for my research papers. My sink is full of dirty dishes from the snacks that I’ve been meting out as rewards. Actual meals have fallen by the wayside, primarily because cooking would just be another form of procrastination.

Tonight for dinner, I reverted to two of my favorite snacks. The first is a graham cracker with crunchy peanut butter and raw honey. (Sometimes I substitute raisins for the honey, but I am out of raisins owing to an unfortunate pantry moth situation.) I chased this with half of an avocado filled with half a tablespoon of very good quality aged balsamic vinegar and sprinkled with fleur de sel. These two snacks provide solid nutrition and, when paired with a glass of Spanish Garnacha and a streaming episode of 30 Rock, will hopefully ward off that dream about showing up to your last class with an incomplete research paper and no pants.