poof!.... goes the conceptual framework

Yes its gone, not very productive in helping me understand my research topic. I said it last week at my supervision meeting and I've been thinking about it ever since. My goal is to articulate what the hell I mean by conceptual framework by May 12 when I hand in a complete draft of my probationary report to my supervisors.  To help keep me sane over the next week, I'm reminded of what one of my prospective research participants, a lecturer of graphic design, said to me during an introductory interview in April; she was trying to explain the notion of design that students need to grasp - the idea that you cant see the end product at the start of the process, all you have are idealised versions of what you think it might look like and usually it never ends up looking like that anyway. Somehow I feel that its a lesson for me too and one I think MRL has been trying to hint at for a long time, by telling me not be to be so hung up on pinning things down outside of data collection. At least its something that can help me stay sane, No?