Monday morning stuff

These days, I never feel like I either got enough work done, or relaxed enough, over the weekend. I did finish the current crop of soil invertebrate samples Saturday. (Yes, I'm still doing this, even though I've submitted a manuscript. Part of it is I hold out hope that eventually we will be able to burn the site and then I can compare the post-burn samples, but part of it is fear that the manuscript will get rejected and maybe if I throw a little more data at it I can at least turn it into a presentation somewhere)

I did finish one sock of a pair, and started its mate. And added a few rows to the Hagrid cable-knit sweater.

This time of year, I just get tired. It's too late in the year for it to still be so hot. (We're supposed to reach 94 again a couple days this week). And there's no rain, so there's a miasma of dust and pollen that hang in the air.

And I'm tired of turning on the news and EVERY TIME seeing Donald Trump on there. Or any of the other candidates. Dear Bob, we have over a year to go before the presidential election. People will be too bored by it to want to vote by Nov. 2016!

And I confess, I'm REALLY tired of the "count every gram of carbohydrate" bit. I'm doing an experiment with trying to eat meals with fewer than 45 g (what a woman with type II diabetes is permitted) and wow, even with lots of non-starchy vegetables, it is challenging. I hope I don't have to go on that diet forever. (Bloodwork is tomorrow, and again, I have no real reason to suspect anything is abnormal other than (a) a weak family history of blood sugar issues (b) the fact that I'm taking a beta blocker and (c) the fact that I am considerably larger than a size 6. On the side of suspecting nothing is wrong is that I'm extremely not-sedentary*, I don't drink soda, I'm still younger than any of my relatives who were diagnosed with pre-diabetes were when they were diagnosed, and I normally don't go overboard on sugars. Well, for some values of "overboard." Like I said, it's hard for me to assess - literal-mindedness - and so maybe when a doctor says "Don't eat more than 45 g of carbohydrates" they really mean, "I want you to keep it under 60 but I realize you won't make the goal I listed" and of course, I am all I MUST MAKE OR BEAT THAT GOAL and I make myself miserable)

(*Even "relaxing," I don't sit for hours at a time - I'm usually up moving around about 10 minutes out of every hour)

Also, I'm just angry at the local wal-mart for how they treat their produce. I really, really wanted some fresh raspberries (the Green Spray, inexplicably, has blackberries - which I don't like - but not raspberries). ALL the punnets at the wal-mart were moldy. ALL OF THEM. And I've seen similarly mistreated produce there before. I don't know if they get it delivered and then leave it out on the loading dock in the sun, or if they play football with it before putting it out, or what. I've taken to buying most of my produce at the Green Spray because, while their stock is quite limited, what they have actually seems to be taken care of. And I know it's not just fresh raspberries - I've gotten ones from the Green Market in Sherman that I held over a couple days in the fridge and they were FINE. (and both the wal-mart and Green Market berries are organic, and I think even from the same distributor)

We desperately need another large grocery. We won't get one, that's wal-mart's stranglehold, but we need it. And I don't think that either of the two small stores where I don't shop (Sav-a-lot or what used to be the Winn Dixie) has good produce, I have never ever heard anyone praise their produce. Most people, when you ask, shrug, and say they drive to Sherman or Dallas.

(Having some actual competition might get wal-mart to clean up their act a little. I hear anecdotally that not all wal-marts are as bad as mine. I think perhaps it's an "eh, meh, people don't have anywhere else they can go, and anyway, they're all rural folk so they should be grateful they even have a grocery" sort of thing)

Or, we need a branch of the Green Market to open here. I know people have asked them about that and they say the time isn't right for them to expand. Okay, fair enough. But I can tell you, if they expanded here I'd shop there in a heartbeat. Even though it means paying more.

(And if there were ever a Fresh Market - the chain that has a store up near my parents and that I've praised many times before - to open anywhere near me, well, I'd try to get there as often as I could to shop. Even though they rival "Whole Paycheck" (Whole Foods) in their prices. Their stuff is top quality and it's properly cooled or whatever. And the shopping experience is so much nicer. And yes, that matters to me, when my only "outing" in a week may be to go buy food, I'd rather go somewhere with good lighting and quiet music rather than harsh fluorescents and end-cap tvs blaring ads at me. And if I am limiting what I eat - and I do, in terms of sodium and processed food, all the time - I would rather get the BEST stuff I can rather than kind-of-okay-but-also-kind-of-beat-up stuff)

Though I will say, one thing I don't envy about my parents' town is how my mom often feels compelled to go two or three different places to get the best deal or the brand she wants. And, okay, I do go to the Green Market and Kroger's sometimes when I'm in Sherman, but they're so close it doesn't feel like having to trek across town to get from one to the other, which often is what my mom does.