Sometimes adulting sucks

Photo from here

You can guess what happened today.

More on organizers and time management and holiday what not when I'm not rocking the pain meds.

And now food

Cranberry Sauce (I add a bit of ginger, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg to mine.)

Pumpkin pie (I substitute the ginger and and cloves for a teaspoon of TJ's pumpkin pie spice)

Pie crust for the pie.  (I cut it back to 1/4 cup sugar and add 1t pumpkin pie spice)

Biscuits.  (We were going to do sweet potato biscuits but the potatoes killed our blender.)

Sausage cornbread slow-cooker stuffing. (I leave out the cranberries.  This is a good base to add whatever your people like.  Mine like it plain.)

Cornbread (I use a very low sugar one from a mid-80's copy of the Betty Crocker cookbook.  But this is close.)

Our friends are making:

• Duck
• Ham
• Bacon Brussels Sprouts
• Roasted Broccoli
• Mashed potatoes & gravy
• Guinness Brownies
• Cranberry Walnut cornbread (?)
• A cheese board 

So we are going to be swimming in food tomorrow.   As a proper feast should be,

And so it beginns

Yep, Thanksgiving is this week.  May the stars help us all.

It's actually not that bad.  We're going to our friends house for dinner, so I don't have to cook everything this year.  Only about half.

Today I planned out my week.  I also planned out the five weeks after that.  Well, four weeks, because the only things in the fifth week are Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and I plan to spend both on the couch.  All this planning beyond one week in advance gave me an ear worm.

Five weeks beyond.

Let's see how this is shaping up:

This week

Sunday -

• Make Kitty's lunch x 7
• Make dinner boxes x 4
• Set up the antenna & the Roku to see the parade (belt and braces, missing the parade makes me cry)
• Wash Kitty's closed for work
• Fold at least some of the laundry

Monday -

• Make cranberry sauce
• Bake a pan of cornbread
• Clean the bathroom
• Wash the towels
• Fold any unfolded laundry 
• Have my therapy appointment

Tuesday -

• Make pie crust
• Chop vegetables for stuffing and squash gratin
• Go to PT
• Re-jigger Thanksgiving apron (totally a maybe)

Wednesday - 

• Make pie
• Make Apple/Butternut/Leek Gratin to cheese topping (because we must have too much food)
• Cook stuffing veg
• Cook stuffing sausage
• Toast cornbread

Thursday -

• Watch parade
• Make stuffing
• Pack up and head out 

Friday -

• Make burritos
• Catch up on laundry
• Change bed

Saturday -

• Decorate for Christmas 

And at some point probably go pick up my glasses.  Moving forward:

 Four weeks before Christmas -

• Therapy
• Dental surgery
• PT
• First Friday 
• Festival of Trees
• Do the gift shopping

Three weeks before Christmas -

• Therapy
• PT
• Make triple chocolate cookie dough & freeze
• Make oatmeal cookie dough & freeze
• Make peanut butter cookie dough & freeze
• Craft fair & Jacksonville Victorian Christmas 

Two weeks before Christmas -

• Therapy
• PT
• Make lumberjack cookie dough & freeze
• Make sesame seed cookies
• Bake batches of frozen cookies for gifts 

One week before Christmas -

• Appointment with new endo
• PT
• Make pumpkin spice cookies
• Bake more frozen cookies & send to work with Kitty
• Make nut horns
• Pick up remaining cookies from bakery (I do not do these as well)
• Help Kitty through actual surgery (Yes, I just said that) & pour onto couch
• Wrap any finished gifts
• Bake remaining freezer cookies for us, unless we save some for New Years

Christmas Eve -

•  Kitty will still be occupying couch
• Order Chinese feast 
• Set out small fuckton of cookies
• Curl up in flannel
• Read books
• Watch movies
• Game

Oh yeah, and I still have her gifts to finish.  I'm just going to tell myself they're not behind.

I'll put up recipes as I go.  It will give me something to blog about.

ETA:  And then we found out my Mother-in-law might have cancer.  Tests are forthcoming.   May the stars help us all.

It is comming

That is all.

I'll share my holiday schedule tomorrow.

And now I'm tired

So with all the medical crap looming in our future Kitty and I decided to get back into Meal Prep Sunday.  This means that you cook enough for the week on one day and just heat up as you go.  Rather than re-invent the wheel I'm just going to point you here for the basics:

http://www.mealprephaven.com/blog-1/2015/9/21/meal-prepping-101-for-beginners

And here for lots of great ideas:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MealPrepSunday/

Wedon't use divided containers, just big rectangles like these:

https://ziploc.com/en/products/containers/rectangle/containers-large-rectangle

Because were heathens who don't use sauces so we don't care if our food touches or not.

The whole point of this is to eat healthier foods in pre-measured portions for calorie control and better nutrition.  It's impossible to say I don't want to cook because I have cramps/feel sick/was in a late doctors appointment and it's too much work/takes too long so let's get takeout when all you have to do is throw something healthy in the microwave.  The downside is food boredom, when you keep eating the same flavors and textures over and over again.  This can be cured with a small salad, different sauce, new side or by deliberately eating something else once a week.  Better to be deliberate than to default to Taco Bell, even if crunchwraps are really tasty.

So today I cooked:

• 5 lb chicken
• 2 yams
• 4 red potatoes
• 3 heads broccoli
• 1 cauliflower
• 1 lb Brussels sprouts 
• 1 lb parsnips
• 2 lbs carrots
• 2 lb butternut squash
• 1/2 acorn squash

This made four nights of dinners for the two of us.  I also prepped:

• 2 bell peppers
• 10 carrots
• 1 cucumber
• 1 head of broccoli

Which I put in boxes for Kitty's lunch.  She makes her own hummus to take with those.  And I measured out my ricotta cheese, which is my high protein afternoon snack.  On Friday I made 20 egg burritos for Kitty's breakfast.   Tomorrow I'll cook another 2.5 lbs of chicken for my lunch for the week, and on Tuesday I'll make 20 burritos for me.  Kitty likes them spicy, I do not.

How to get tender, juicy, boneless/skinless from the crock-pot?  Here's what I do.

If you're starting with fresh breasts brine them.

https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/5804-brining-meat

If you're starting with frozen check the package.  If they say they've been "enhanced with" or contain chicken broth or a sodium solution they're already brined, just defrost them.  When they're either brined or defrosted pat them dry, place them in a single layer in your crock-pot, and cook on high for three hours.  Then store in your fridge in the juice.  That last bit is important because they're like sponges, and will be dry if you don't give them something to absorb.  I cook a batch at the beginning of the week and toss 112 grams into my salads for lunch.

Here's the basic idea for breakfast burritos

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/10/01/save-time-and-money-with-make-ahead-breakfast-burritos/

I don't use sausage, but I do put a spoon full of salsa in each one.  Also, use the big tortillas.  Don't try to save money or calories by buying the fajita or soft taco size.  You want the ones that say burrito or wrap or large.  About the size of a dinner plate at least.  All you will do is frustrate your ass if you try to use the smaller ones.

So after all of this today I'm taking tomorrow off.  I'm going to wash my hair, meet with my therapist, and catch up on my knitting.  For I am woefully behind on my knitting

Where am I

• Kitty pillow - On track
• Rose pillow - On track
• Love Paw pillow - 4 days behind
• Granny's Heart pillow - 5 days behind
• Geometric Heart pillow - 7 days behind

Yeah, I know.  Tomorrow I want to catch up at least two days on the Love Paw pillow and at least not have everything else get any worse.

I have another variation of Spencer and alien princesses kicking around in my head.  If I finish A Home at Last and Least Expected first would anyone like to read more sci-fi?

Off to knit more.

Adulting mostly managed

I don't have a cool, snarky Thursday graphic.

Today kind of fell apart on me.  I think the big thing was the presence of an enormous pile of dishes waiting for me when I got up.  That sort of thing kills me for the day.  Then I had Physical Therapy today and Kitty informed me that we had to pick up glasses.  Turns out mine weren't ready, they made an honest mistake and have to send back, so I get to start reading again next week.

I'm getting my teeth out on the 28th.  Hopefully Tylenol will continue to manage the pain until then.

I think I'm dealing with some chronic inflammation, mostly because when I took a Medrol pack, which controls inflammation, a lot of my chronic health issues improved.  Something to discuss the next time I see a doc, and to work on.  I was cleared for cardio today but not for weights yet, so that should help a lot.  I'm also going to add some green tea and more sleep.

Where am I

• Kitty pillow - 1 day behind
• Rose pillow - On track
• Love Paw pillow - 2 days behind
• Granny's Heart pillow - 3 days behind
• Geometric Heart pillow - 5 days behind

Yeah, this is going well.

Sadly having my teeth out on the 28th, and who knows when for Kitty's surgery but likely uncomfortably close, means I have to skip Festival for the first time in fifteen years.  Ah well.  Given the number of MAGA white hairs we had last year I think I'd like to have another election out of the way before we go back.  I'll still go and this means I can go to the craft fairs that always hit that week-end as well.

I want to write, but I have aliens on the brain.

Goals for tomorrow:  Make a batch of breakfast burritos, see how much it would cost to re-boot the pre-made dinners somehow, sweep the bathroom, catch up on the crafts list, take down Halloween already.

OK, off to bed with me.

Time for some quality adulting

So I keep having these moments when I realize I need to put on my grown up pants.  Today one hit in a big way.

I've needed two teeth out for a while.  Well three, really, but at the moment one is stable.  Actually 30 is stable, 31 and 14 are broken, sensitive as fuck and need to go.  I've been debating a root canal on 14, I even had it evaluated at an Endodontist.

Root Canal:

Pros -

• Save as much of the tooth as possible
• Seems very responsible
• Doesn't let anyone down about ruining my teeth
• Lets the dentists thing I'm making a carefully considered decision
• Allows to continue to magically think that it's resolving somehow

Cons -

• Expensive as fuck
• Might not be enough tooth left, meaning paying for a root canal and losing the tooth anyway
• Takes a remarkable amount of dicking around between two dentists to get the thing done.  It's already been a month and the dicking continues.
• Need to pay even more after the first of the year to get a crown

Extraction:

Pros -

• Very affordable
• Eliminates the pain right off
• Guaranteed solution to the problem

Cons -

• Admit that you lost a tooth.  Feel very guilty about losing a tooth even though it's not your fault.
• No magical thinking, this is very real 
• Sound like a coward.  Or impulsive.  Or something.
• Still need to figure out how to replace it later.  But later has a longer time allotment.

You see the problem here.  The pros for the root canal are all emotional, the pros for the extraction are all  practical.  So today I realized that *I* needed to stop dicking around, have the damage removed because it's not going to get better, and then figure out how to fix it in January when we have more insurance and more money.   I know my body and my budget, I just have to give up on hoping that this is going to magically go away and get it done.

________

I spent today prepping my kitty cat to go back to work tomorrow.  We made sure she had several days of lunches in the fridge, I got caught up on the laundry, and so on.  And I worked on holiday gifts, because it's the season.  Between those two I filled up my day.


OK, project check time:

Goals:

• Kitty pillow - 2 rows/day
• Rose pillow - .5-1 round/day
• Love Paw pillow - 21 rows/day (I've converted this one to intarsia knitting)
• Granny's Heart pillow - 1 square/day
• Geometric Heart pillow - 1 square/day

And then I have my 9-patch, a tiger stripe and a plain one in the same colors, but those will happen after these if I have time.  Also, the Granny's Heart and Geometric heart are not priorities.

 Where am I currently?

• Kitty pillow - On track
• Rose pillow - On track
• Love Paw pillow - 1 day behind
• Granny's Heart pillow - 2 days behind
• Geometric Heart pillow - 4 days behind

So yeah.  But I will start to catch up now that life is settling down.  Knock on wood and all that.

Let's take an early reboot this year

I started this blog in November of 2013 with a statement of intent.  A lot of it was based around the research I was doing for a story at a time. Since that story and all the research around it has become more than a little creepy since November 2016 I can't promise exactly when that story will be finished.  But that led me to making this blog as a way to challenge myself to reach my personal best.

Every year or two I try to reboot it.  This time I'm doing it more publicly.  Nerve wracking is what it is.

Here we go.

Time wasting in the Bay Colony was a criminal offense. As early as 1633 the General Court decreed:

No person, householder or other, shall spend his time idly or unprofitably under pain of such punishment as the court shall think meet to inflict: and for this end it is ordered, that the constables of every place shall use special diligence to take knowledge of offenders of this kind, especially of common coasters, unprofitable fowlers and tobacco takers, and to present the same.

A year later the Court fined two men the heavy sum of twenty shillings each for "misspending their time" - David Hackett Fisher
            Albion's Seed

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So what is the modern Puritan ideal?  Well, from reading the blogs and websites devoted to this ideal in theory it involves being submissive to god and you husband and raising children who are submissive to god and their father.  But in reality this is what they seem to aspire to:

• Keeping perfectly clean houses at all times.  Or just long enough to take the show-off picture.
• Wearing skirts every day and bragging about it.
• Look entirely perfect, slender and ethereal, even though they rarely exercise.
• Creating three home cooked meals a day , made with lots of processed crap and rarely complete meals.
• Being well read even though they only ever seem to read books put out by church publishers.
• Doing handcrafts like proper ladies although this is usually paper and glue.  If any sewing is involved it's simple lines only.
• Having the equivalent of a college education even though they never leave home and usually stop homeschooling around the age of 12 when they have to start looking after little siblings.
• Run a multi-level marketing scheme.
• And of course all the while having ideal relationships with everyone.

This is the question then, can you have this so-called perfect life, this Puritan ideal, even while being irreligious, liberal, feminist, and very pro-alt-sexuality?

I believe you can. 

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I missed my goals that year, all of them, due to a lot of real-world influences.  Since then life has been steadily improving.  I've become a lot healthier mentally and physically.  I've come to realize just how much bullshit it out there and just what really matters.

Now that 2018 is around the corner I'm thinking of going back to the roots of this blog and seeing if I can live that heavenly year.  If nothing else as a personal challenge.  And blogging about it simply for the public accountability.  I doubt more than two or three people are reading this, but that's not important.  What matters is that I'm doing this for myself, as a personal goal.

So my thoughts on challenging myself:

• Meeting my housekeeping goals.  I have lists I try to complete every day, nearly every week.  My goal is to finish those lists 46 weeks out of the year.  (I take one week off in early December for volunteer work, the week of my in-laws visit, and four weeks a year when I go off the HRT which knocks me squarely on my ass.)


• Wearing skirts everyday.  This would be one part that's bullshit.  Most of the groups I was researching five years ago embraced something that I can only describe as the mirror image of femme identity.  It's about subverting everyday femininity by taking it as far away from sexuality as you can while still hardcore reinforcing the gender binary.  Not my jive, people.  I'm just going to keep working out who I really am.

• Eating fresh food.  At times I've done weekly meal prep, at other times I'll cook nightly.  I'm not certain which I'll use in the coming year.  I'll share our current diet and what I cook as I do, but don't expect grand nightly suppers.  With only two adults on slightly different diets there's no point.


• Keep healthy.  Yep, I'm trying to lose weight.  So far I've been pretty successful, but I have a long way to go.  Right now my goal is to average about 1.5 lb/week and to re-boot a workout program.  More on that after my next round of PT.  Also, keep up on the maintenance side of things, regular check-ups, eye checks, seeing the dentist, that sort of thing.

• Read more.  Way back in the day I was trying to do a sci-fi interpretation of the Bible.  I think I'm going to pick that up again.  Also shoot for 30 minutes a day of reading.  I know it's not a lot but life is busy, and I'm trying for realistic expectations.


• Complete XYZ projects this year.  I'll post this list at the beginning of the year.  Expect it to be smaller.  I've been learning more about my limitations


• Sit through three college lectures a week.  I watch while I sew, or will.  Only three because one must allow time for some porn.


• Save $15,000 this year.  This is a new one (yay for female led households!)  We want a healthy emergency cushion and we've decided this is the year to do it.  I also plan a few larger purchases off our In Case Of Emergency list.


• Blogging.  Daily, for accountability.

So those are my goals for 2018.  If you want to share any have at.

Yeah, that

So the last time I wrote I was going to talk about everything else that went on in October.  But in the 12 days since then even more crap has happened.

To TL:DR October:

10/06 -  I have three teeth that need to come out, all failed dental work from California.  Two of them are broken.  One aches off and on and is making me miserable.  The hit to the wallet, even with insurance is substantial.  I am not a happy woman.  At the beginning of the month the aching one decides to act infected and put me on round #1 of antibiotics.

10/08 - The muscle spasm I talked about in my last post hit.

10/15 -  The infection I talked about in my last post hit.

10/28 -  Thanks to the head wrap heating up my scalp and my ongoing case of testosterone poisoning my hair came out in clumps.   Now I have some full on bald patches on my scalp.  I am currently rocking the scarf look.  Given the meds I'm on that should not have happened.  I'm seeing a new Endo in December to be reevaluated.

11/01 - A Wednesday night.  My dear wife comes home from work sick as a dog.  I mean SICK.  She spent Thursday and Friday on the couch, lethargic and sweating out a fever and watching nature documentaries.  On Saturday morning we landed in Urgent Care for her and ended up spending most of the day there.  Not only did she have an infection that no one can figure out how she got it up where she got it, but as it turns out she has - let's politely say she did herself a mischief.  We suspect this was caused by years of lifting people in the ER and is the actual cause of the pain she's been having in the down theirs for the past few years.  But regardless of how or when it got started it is officially past the Let's Keep An Eye On It stage and on to the Fix It Before It Becomes An Emergency stage.

Which means surgery.  Very likely sometime this month.  Because of COURSE it does.

OK, it's outpatient surgery.  Takes less than an hour.  Will probably be laproscopic, meaningv very small cuts. Get in, push everything back up where it belongs, sew the hole closed so it doesn't come out again, and you're golden.  Maybe put a mesh patch over the hole at most, if they can't sew it closed. Quick and simple and so on. 

Except I don't drive.  And I walk with a crutch.  My kitty cat does all the driving and lifting.  This is going to mean no driving for a week and no lifting from, well, last weekend to a month after surgery, whenever that is.

Anyone want to come clean the liter boxes for me?

We can make this work. We have friends who are like family who will help us make this work.  It just takes planning and coordination.  I will probably pull this off AND host Thanksgiving so my kitty cat doesn't have to drive AND make all my Christmas gifts and cards. And maybe even finish a story or two, although keeping to any sort of publishing schedule is not guaranteed.

So that's where we are.  I'm going to try to type up something here nightly because if nothing else it clears my head.