Friday morning stuff

* My Lenten "resolution" is not going so well given that one big news story here is that the budget shortfall is even worse (billion with a b, I didn't even know our state budget was that big) than previously expected.

Wondering if I should start preparing a tip-jar to carry to class with me for the coming fall....

A lot of this comes because apparently the state-revenue eggs were all placed in one basket, that basket being oil and gas revenues. Turns out the basket doesn't have a bottom.

Enjoy your cheap gas, everyone! 

* Though one more thing I need to post about and would be remiss if I didn't: my friend is in a rehab center now, right? (The kind where they feed you well and have you do PT and basically get you ready to go back home). One of the people from church who went to see her recently said that her color was back, she had the sparkle back in her eye, and "She was acting like she wanted to run the place."

This is huge, and this is one of the times where I humbly say: Sometimes God answers prayers the way you want them to be answered. Three weeks ago, right after dealing with the whole My-Dad-In-The-ER situation, I got an e-mail about her emergency surgery and it sounded terrible. I didn't expect her to make it through the night....yes, I read my e-mail that next morning and for the next few days with trepidation.

But I guess that's three bad situations that turned out much better than they could: my dad's ER trip was fundamentally a medication mistake that was corrected by fluids and time, my friend looks like she's going to make it, and my stomach issues turned out to (most likely; today is the first day with no PPI) be "just" gastritis (and at the very least - I didn't wind up spending the last Friday of January being prepped for surgery)

But yes. I would still like to respectfully request a few quiet weeks where nothing too much bad happens.

* I'm picking away on various projects. I have a worsted-weight shawl (the Sloane Shawl) that I have been working on since late last summer. I thought I was nearly done until I measured it and realized it was still too small. (I was originally just going to knit until I was nearly out of yarn, but I confess, I'm getting kind of bored of it).

I didn't do as much on the bee socks as I had hoped last night despite reading 2 chapters of the Silviculture book - I am having shoulder problems again and I found that the combination of knitting and leaning forward to read griped it, so I just put the knitting down and moved the book onto a pillow on my lap, which was more comfortable.

It seems likely that that fall I took several years ago actually DID break my collarbone, but I was busy and in denial that I was injured and I didn't ever get it looked at. Over Christmas break, one day when my parents were scheduled to go to the gym and work with their personal trainer, my dad didn't feel up to it, so I took his time slot, and when the trainer had me working on one of the machines, he commented, "You seem weaker on your left side than you should be" and he kind of felt of my shoulder after I told him about the fall and he kind of grimaced, and said, "Yeah, it seems like maybe you did break it, it doesn't feel quite right." I suppose the only thing to be done now is to keep up with exercise (that seems to keep the pain at bay) and apply heat as needed. If it ever gets REALLY bad I suppose that means surgery, ugh.

It's better this morning after having heat on it last evening and after working out. (I'm trying to avoid taking NSAIDS at all, I suspect a dose of ibuprofen I took mid gut-ache made my gastritis worse)

It's not bad all the time and only seems to flare up if I sleep on my left side and sort of "fold" that shoulder inward.

* Stupid Ponification of the day, new OC edition:

An Earth Pony, pale yellow in color, with a dark forest green mane and tail with slightly lighter green stripes in it, worn in a thick braid. Cutie mark is a conifer tree. Her name: Sylvie Culture. Her special talent: getting trees to grow.

(I wish I were better at drawing so I could draw all the ponies I've dreamed up over the years in a group - Scholastica and Folio and Frost Flower and Ocker Strine (the lone stallion) and now Sylvie Culture.)

* I still have plans to take Saturday totally off. I have exams to grade but I can do that after class today. I need to get out and do something different, and I hope the new knitting mags that I buy on the newsstand are out.

I also need to get some better food. I had bought an eye-of-round roast locally and tried cooking it in the slow cooker but it came out SO dry and tough that it was almost inedible. (It's still sitting in my fridge; it's still got a couple days before it begins risking being not-okay). If I am motivated to I may drag out my food processor (I rarely use it because I hate cleaning it, and for the scale of cooking I usually do, it's easier to just chop things with a knife) and see if I can grind up the cooked roast and make it easier to eat that way. (Of course, I might also burn up the motor in my food processor). I might just grind it up and freeze it with a mind to using it in soups or something later on.

But, yeah. My mom complains that the anti-fat advocates have ruined pork compared to how it was when she was a kid; I think they've largely done the same for beef.

I might get some ground bison (if it's available) and do the Meatballs in Onion Sauce from the "Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook" (yes, such a thing exists, and it's great fun to look at. I can't remember if I ever made anything out of it yet, but the meatballs sound good)

* Though apparently the "latest" study says that an egg a day poses no health risk to anyone (well, except for those who are allergic, which I am not). I need to eat more eggs, probably. They're a simple source of protein and they do have some other good things (the yolks contain some compounds thought to fight macular degeneration and other eye issues, which I worry slightly about, given my family history).

Sometime I need to try a salmon omelet when I have a can of salmon open.

* That's another way my inner six year old wouldn't recognize me. I wouldn't TOUCH fish as a kid (Well, later on, I would grudgingly eat monkfish, as it does taste more like lobster than fish). But now, salmon is one of my go-to protein sources. I can get pretty good canned salmon: wild-caught (sustainably so, or they claim that on the can), skinless and boneless. I like it best as salmon loaf or patties but it's also good creamed and I'm thinking it could be used in any dish calling for canned tuna (a fish I still do NOT like), like maybe Salmon Salad sandwiches.

And it's nice to have something like that on the shelf for those days you can't get to the grocery but need something more nutritious. And it keeps for a good long time in the can so I can stock up when it's a good price.

* One of the online boards where I hang out is having discussion of school Valentine's day stuff, mostly negative opinions of it. I don't know. I remember it fondly from when I was a kid and I don't really care that it's "corporate stuff" that promotes the cartoony valentines and stuff. It was just...nice, even for a kid like me who enjoyed learning, to take a little break one afternoon and have a party. And I can't feel negatively about that. Especially since, back then (I'm talking about before junior high school) it seemed far more a celebration of FRIENDSHIP than of romantic love. (You know? Equestria needs a Friends Day type holiday, where everypony gives a card or a flower or some little thing to all his or her friends, and maybe everypony gathers at the end of the day for a little party with good food and fellowship). And even though I've said I didn't have many friends growing up, I actually had enough friendly acquaintances - people I might not arrange to play with on Saturday, but that I was friendly with in school - that I got plenty of cards.

One of the things of adulthood I tend to object slightly to is the idea that every day is like every other, more or less, and many of the holidays that were recognized when you were a child are ignored. Oh, we still have Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter and Independence Day, but I often miss the silly "littler" holidays that we sometimes did something for in school. (I remember the green bagels they handed out on St. Patrick's Day, and how that didn't strike me as even slightly odd until I was an adult and realized that it was kind of an odd cultural mash-up. (the American-Irish idea of dying everything green on March 17 along side of the American (New York, really)-Jewish tradition of bagels)

I dunno. I tend to think adults maybe even need those little celebrations more than kids do, seeing as we have to do stuff like pay taxes and go to the DMV and worry about the economy.

* Another thing I am trying to do, is when I have the chance to be kind and extend a little benefit-of-the-doubt, to do it. I had a student - one of my International students - call me this morning before the exam. She was at the hospital much of the evening with a family member who was having chest pains. When she took a breath, I calmly said, "Would it help you to come in and take the test Monday morning?" This is someone I do not think would try to pull a fast one* Apparently being able to take the test a bit later was what she needed. And it's not a big deal to me, one less exam to grade this afternoon and I can do it Monday. (I believe I have sufficient exam security that this person will not hear about it before Monday, and again, anyway: what goes around comes around).

I admit, part of it is after the whole ER situation with my dad I am a lot more sympathetic towards people who have had that kind of stress. I would have hated to have to walk into a room the next morning after that and be evaluated on something. Especially in a language that is not my native language.

This also may be a case where I read a few too many fairy tales as a child: I tend to believe a bit in the whole "entertaining angels unawares" situation, or perhaps a bit less fancifully: you never know when some little thing you do for someone turns out to be a big thing for them. I've been trying more and more to err on the side of being helpful and of allowing a bit of slack for people who have emergencies than I maybe once did.

(*And anyway, I tend to feel in situations like this, what goes around comes around, and people who lie to make their lives easier eventually wind up being caught short)