Saturday, April 08, 2017

Saturday morning things

* I decided to take the time to clean house last night, instead of immediately getting to grading (I told the students not to expect this exam back before Wednesday, and anyway, I have two people who have to make it up - one was sick, the other told me (at the last possible moment) they had to go for a sports thing (they are on a team and I ask people to give me schedules at the start of the semester, but mostly only the baseball or softball players do. Also my Baseball Dudes came and took the exam EARLY because they knew they were going to be gone - I'd rather people take an exam early than late).

* The house is much better. It wasn't as messy as I thought it was; mainly it was that I really, really needed to sweep the floors (and wash the kitchen floor). I get nervous when the house is a mess because mess of the "unhygienic" sort bothers me (organized clutter does not: all of my books and my ponies around make me happy but then they all have their places). But I also get nervous because I do have a few people in my life who WOULD judge a person harshly (even if I never heard about it) for a messy house ("I went over there and you wouldn't BELIEVE how much dust was on the floor. It's not that hard to sweep!" and no, it isn't - but when you're tired and sad and have done too much in a day, it actually IS kind of hard).

And yeah, I know, I shouldn't care, but I do.

Actually, that's just one way it's hard to "go it alone" as an adult - yes, a spouse would generate more mess but at the same time a spouse could help clean up. (And if I were married? I would have to have a bigger house than I currently do. At a minimum I would want two bathrooms because....well.....sharing a house with a man, there are times you just want to go to a bathroom that someone hasn't JUST been in, if you get what I mean)

Also cooking and marketing. I almost ran out of milk this week (Green Spray doesn't carry the organic kind I buy; I wish they would. It's kind of a haul to get out to the wal-mart). I also wound up eating egg salad a couple of times because egg salad is easy to make....

I need to make my own needs more of a priority some times but it's hard when work gets busy.

* I slept better last night. I am attributing this to having cleaned up the house so I managed to exorcise the "rat dream" I had the other night.

Also laundry is done (and sheets on the bed changed) and I paid all the piled-up bills (I know, I know: I probably need to go to online bill pay for lots of things, but I like the control of knowing when and exactly how much is leaving my account)

* One thing I did this morning was change out the polish on my nails, because cleaning pretty much destroyed the previous manicure. (Hm. I wonder if the women I know who have elaborate manicures, if it's a status-marker, a "I don't have to do my own cleaning" thing? 'Cos it seems like almost ANYTHING I do - working in the lab, cleaning house, even unclogging a drain - messes up nail polish)

Anyway. It's a pale blue base and I have issues with blue nail polish (it wasn't a thing when I was a kid, and also, I think of "blue nail bed = insufficient oxygen") but it also has glitter in it so I am thinking of it as Rainbow Dash Polish:





A little hard to see, I don't know.

(Pacifica needs to make a pale-purple one with glitter so I can do Rarity nails some time)


* Next week Ponies are back. I suspect there will be some headcanon-destroying things this season; there's talk of "Big Mac's First Crush" and apparently it's neither Fluttershy (which would be MY pick) nor Marble Pie. Though then again: probably doesn't destroy my headcanon (That after they get done with magical adventures, some of the ponies "settle down" and Fluttershy and Big Mac wind up as a couple.) Because you generally don't wind up with the first person you have a crush on. (Or: Why my name today isn't Mrs. DeLisi).

* They're re-showing a lot of the old episodes. The very series opener, you know? It was really pretty good. Lots of things that prefigured stuff later in the series (good writing there). One thing I noticed is the voices are a bit different - Applejack is more "country bumpkin," Rainbow Dash is a little less talkative and more "single syllable words"....it's interesting to see how the characters have evolved over time. (I like Rainbow Dash a lot better now than I did in Season 1). And there was a certain sweetness to Season 1. (I still maintain Season 2 was the best season, at least in terms of "favorite episodes of mine" but isn't that kind of a common thing - the first season of any show, the writers are finding their feet, and then in Season 2 they really hit a good spot? Season 4 was also a really good season - that may have been when they took on a couple new writers? I found Season 3 and the most recent one (6) kind of uneven, but, meh - again, it's a show aimed at kids, so I don't complain too much if I don't care for an episode.)

* In a bit I am running out to go shopping. "Big" grocery shopping (in Sherman) but also a run to the JoAnn's (I want yarn for Kero, and also I am going to check to see if there's a less hand-destroying gold color than the Red Heart in Gold I found - it would be the right color for Starburst but I remember the last time I crocheted with the plain old Red Heart, I got blisters because it was so rough.) I'm also just gonna do a little "self care" shopping - maybe a couple of blind-bag toys if the bookstore has any good ones, or some kind of bath stuff from the Ulta. This week was emotionally hard. Next week will be a challenge - for one thing, it's Holy Week (so there's Maundy Thursday services, and I think I'm expected to do something at them), and for another it's the second week of the month so I have both CWF and Board meeting. And sometime I need to break down the second run of the experiment and take measurements and do the pH measurements of the soil I forgot to do last time. (At least we get Good Friday off. I am thinking maybe I can break the experiment down Tuesday afternoon, and then have Good Friday for myself. I tend to want to treat it like a Sabbath and not work.....I remember my mom saying her mom, who was really in a pretty liberal-for-the-times Protestant denomination, wouldn't eat meat on Good Friday. And I know people who fast that day. I've never tried it because I suspect fasting is not a good idea on an antihypertensive (my doctor warned me that I could have problems if I let my blood sugar get too low)

* Equestria Daily ran the German trailer for the MLP movie that's out this fall, and I'm sad to say I understood almost none of it. Maybe I DO need to see if there are German dubs of the episodes on YouTube and try watching them - most of the old episodes I've seen enough times that I kind of know what's being said and it might improve my ability to pick up language. I can't always understand rapidly spoken German and especially not if the person has any kind of an accent (Bayrisch!) or any unusual vocal mannerism (which is pretty much the whole thing of being a VA for a cartoon character) and I probably need to get better at that. (I'm halfway decent at French, but I've learned French for far, far more years - and even then, the really deep rural Quebecois accents give me trouble)

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