Thursday, March 30, 2023

Thurdsay evening things

 * Last day of PT is tomorrow. (It was to be Tuesday, but I was still kinda sick from what was probably a food intolerance reaction). I guess I will get the PEP pads or whatever they call them now showing the exercises I can do at home. I do some - I do the "controlled crunches" and some stretches and stuff. (I may also have pulled an abdominal muscle Monday, which contributed to my feeling unwell). I did some cardio this afternoon and then did the stretches. I need to figure out a way to work them in; perhaps do a bit less cardio in the mornings and then do 10-20 minutes as a warm up at the end of the day. Not every day, though, I'm thinking for the PT type exercises, every other day is the maximum frequency I should do them.

* I joked on Twitter that it made me sound like a grandma, but that I was hoping "my shows" were on this evening instead of basketball. (They were: by "my shows" I mean "Ghosts" and "So Help Me Tod" (which comes on right after)). And yes, maybe it does seem grandma-ish, but you know? One thing I think I would miss if I went to a fully-streaming way of getting entertainment would be the anticipation of certain shows - looking forward to them. And yes, for my Thursday night shows, when I have AAUW I usually don't get to see them, but it seems the new model of shows on networks is to have 2-3 weeks of new episodes and then a couple weeks of repeats so you can often catch the ones you missed sooner than the summer re-run season. 

* One tiny victory today - the last student who stayed working after the systematics lab (I think most of the people scrammed at the break, I had mentioned I'd leave the specimens out until Monday, I hope they do come back to look at them). Anyway, this student is new-ish (she might be a transfer? I think?) and she asked me a few questions about my teaching ("What's your favorite class to teach" and honestly, though I didn't cop to this - it depends a lot on what the "personality" of the group of students is like. If you have people who are engaged and ask questions and talk a lot in lab, it's fun. If you have people who seem like they hate the class and can't wait to get out of there, it's kind of miserable.) And she commented that she liked how I pointed things out about the different species, and said "I never liked botany before I took this class" and I always love to hear that kind of thing; I count that as a win because I feel like my enthusiasm has won someone over for a subject. (The best comment I got in last year's batch was from soils - "I never knew soil was interesting before")

Anyway, I'll take it. Especially for this class, which has been rough because it's a new prep. 

* I'm still reading in "Wives and Daughters." It moves slowly but I like that in a book, I like the detail and the dialog and all that, and Gaskill was a good writer.  Also there are notes in the book - both footnotes that quickly explain simple things, and more detailed endnotes that reference things like styles or popular books of the era that are referred to. I like that; I like being able to understand those things and not have to either guess from context or blip over it without knowing. 

* I probably need to go in and work some on Saturday (lots of grading), but I would like to finish the current quilt top. I also have a next-quilt planned - I bought several yards of a photorealistic print of succulent plants some months back at Quilt Asylum (it was on sale - one of their closeouts) and I want to do a just-simple Jacob's Ladder style quilt with it. I have a pattern but I need to see what to use as the background fabric. My inclination would be white but that seems a little stark; I have to dig in my stash and see if I have a big enough piece of cream colored fabric (I had some pink and some pale green, both colors in the print, but neither one was ideal; the shade was just off enough that it wouldn't be right.) Maybe I try that out tomorrow afternoon if it's sunny out (I like to compare in natural light) and then Saturday afternoon, if I can't find a good one, I run out to the local quilt shop (they are now open Saturdays!) and buy a chunk of a solid that will work. (I also might have some light gray that would work though)

I also have a binding to finish sewing down, and a couple more to put on, and a backing to sew up to eventually take the top in to be quilted. (Though I should be careful - and I really should dig harder in the stash for a background fabric for this quilt - because I have a big tax bill to pay, and also in another month or two I do need to buy new tires....)


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