because i feel disgrace because you're all in my face

I had a pretty good day, all in all - it involved too much day job work early because I didn't work last night, and so when I woke up around 6:15 I did my usual morning routine and then started working for the man. But I got through what I needed to do for work, did a few things on my to-do list that I wanted to get to above and beyond the strictly necessary, and was able to stop around 5:45, so I'm calling it a win.

After work, I rode my Peloton - I tried out the 'scenic ride', which meant riding around some landscape with some soothing music. I chose somewhere around Cinque Terre, Italy, and I'm not sure if I felt a little off because I was slightly motion sick or because I was so damned sad that I couldn't be in Italy (probably a combo of both). Also I realized that I may not actually be that happy to be back in a place surrounded by tourists - that now seems so bizarre to me that it might as well be another life. But the ride felt good, and I think I've figured out the right setup for the seat so that my knee doesn't hurt. And I tried a stretching class after the ride and that was great too (as was trying their meditation app this morning), so so far so good on Peloton!

Then I lazed about and ate leftovers for dinner (the last of the chicken and mushrooms + carrots + mashed potatoes from the other night) while chatting with [censored] and Drewbaby via text. I then gave myself a pedicure and a gel manicure - and by that I mean I repainted my toenails (but certainly didn't pamper my feet with a soak and a massage and all the rest of the highlights from pedicures of yore) and then painted my fingernails. While I did that, I watched another video from that romance conference from December - I think I've now watched all of them but perhaps one. While I didn't learn anything from today's video other than how people who write a very short cliffhanger 'book' every two weeks make a depressingly high amount of money on Kindle Unlimited (which I actually already knew, so I guess I didn't even learn that), I'm still glad I watched it and I feel like I got my money's worth out of the conference even if it was virtual.

And now, I should probably consider going to bed - I have a full day of meetings tomorrow and dreams of writing around it, so it's time for bed. Goodnight!

wish i could turn my mind off for a month

I was pretty productive today, although I hit a wall this evening. But I got up this morning in time to write for an hour before work (mostly from bed - I was at my desk and actually crawled back into bed to brainstorm, since I hadn't showered yet, and it was great). And I slogged all day, mostly successfully.

When I finished work, I threw together a spicy red pepper/chipotle aioli from Barefoot Contessa's latest cookbook (which is a winner so far!) - this just involved chopping up some garlic and chipotle, chopping some jarred roasted red pepper, and pureeing it in my food processor before adding a cup of mayonnaise. The aioli took five minutes but really jazzed up the salmon that I made later, and it would also be amazing with sweet potato fries, or on a sandwich, or in an effort to jazz up many other foodstuffs.

After I did that, I had a quick call with Terry and Lauren (aka Subz) - we were overdue for a three-way catchup, so we made it happen tonight. Then I finished making dinner - I cooked some salmon, roasted some fingerling potatoes, and also roasted some broccolini with sharp cheddar cheese (broccolini also from the Barefoot Contessa cookbook). All in, this took <30min - everything cooked at 400 degrees for varying times, so while it took some careful timing to get everything done at the same time, I pulled it off and the end result was completely delicious.

Then I messed around on Instagram, caught up on Twitter, and did some romance novel business stuff. And now it's only ten p.m., but I'm determined to go to bed in the next 15-20min - I should have done some day job stuff tonight and did not, so I need to get up early and work in the morning. Goodnight!

chop it off, squeaky clean, i got thoughts nobody needs

Today was a day for productivity and attempting to get caught up on work. I was moderately successful in that goal - I got through some major things on my work to-do list, knocked out some email that had been lingering (although that's a task I never entirely accomplish), had a bunch of meetings, etc. Unfortunately, my focus on the day job meant that I didn't write or ride my bike or do much of anything else (other than a nap tonight, and a chat with Katie, and some v. tasty leftovers) - but I guess I have to be productive occasionally.

So, I have literally nothing of note to share with you tonight - I did take one quick break to drop some stuff off at the post office and pick up a book at Bookbar, but as far as interesting tidbits go, that is certainly not interesting. So, I'm going to go to bed and endeavor to be more interesting tomorrow - goodnight!

let me introduce you to the featherweight queen

I somehow only got six hours of sleep last night, so I'm going to try to go to bed as soon as I write this entry. I had a pretty productive day, all in all - I started with some coffee, yogurt, and my to-do list, and then I did a Peloton ride. I was not in it to win it today - when I got on the bike I realized how tired my legs still were from Friday, and so my performance was not at all impressive. But I did the whole twenty minute ride, so at least there's that - and as I told [censored] tonight, doing my second ride meant that I cut my cost-per-ride for the bike in half, so that's a win!

Anyway, I think I'm really going to like the bike - it felt good to get some activity in without having to freeze to death to do it. Then I foam rolled, showered, poured some more coffee, and had a virtual writing date with Veronica. We caught up on some tings and then silenced ourselves to write, and I spent a good chunk of time brainstorming and scribbling notes to myself. I'm nervously excited about the writing at the moment, and I want to keep it going.

That means I probably should have written more this afternoon, but instead I knocked a variety of tings off my to-do list, did some laundry, and talked to my parents. I also made a v. tasty dinner - chicken thighs with mushrooms, roasted carrots, and mashed potatoes. The carrots were a new-to-me recipe from Barefoot Contessa and they were super tasty - roasted under the broiler to get a bit of char, then tossed with orange juice, balsamic vinegar, and salt to give it some added oomph. I need to work on my broiler technique, since rather than charring the carrots, I ended up with a bunch of smoke and had to open the windows [I think the sheet pan I was using was too cheap, and so it warped in the heat, and I think that splattered some oil onto the oven and burned]. But overall dinner was super tasty and I'm looking forward to leftovers.

Then I did some more stuff around the house, planned out my week, took a look at some day job stuff to prep for tomorrow, etc. And now I'm going to sleep - goodnight!

when facing the wind got wicked we rallied and raised up

Well, as usual, when left to my own devices and when I do not have to work in the morning, it's suddenly midnight. Stupid.

Today was pretty good, though. I was lazier in some ways than I had planned - I didn't write, and I didn't cook anything. But I did do a lot of necessary stuff around the house, like fully putting away everything from my trip, resetting my guest room now that the bike is in place, organizing my office, breaking down boxes, taking out trash, doing laundry, reorganizing my cookbooks and my bar cabinet to accommodate new acquisitions, etc., etc.

I took a break from my casual productivity to have a post-Christmas gift exchange with Joann, Jen, and Jane - we did a Secret Santa and no one was supposed to know who had given them their gifts, but due to the fact that everything had to be delivered in advance, there were multiple hilarious shipping fails that led to almost everyone knowing either what their gift was or who had sent it to them. That said, it was fun - I gave Jen a set of the Riedel wine glasses that I'd bought for myself at Christmas because I think they're fabulous, and Joann gave me some cool 'cocktail ice cubes' that you freeze, then toss into a glass with liquor to make a cocktail (+ some travel toiletries kit that hasn't arrived yet but that I was coveting on Instagram). So, it was delightful to catch up and exchange gifts and generally hang out, even if spending time on video conference when I'm not working always feels a little weird.

Then I ordered takeout from Ash'kara, which was delicious (chicken shawarma and rice bowl + their amazing hummus and equally amazing gluten free pita). I then spent the evening alternating between getting things done and...not getting things done, I guess.

And now it's time for bed - goodnight!

one day when the tonguing is done we'll take our leave and go

I slept pretty well last night, but even with coffee I wasn't feeling totally in it to win it this morning. However, I did have several hours of work that needed to get done, and I also had meetings most of the afternoon, so it was a fairly productive work day. And, in the late afternoon, my exercise bike got delivered - I have succumbed to the allure of Peloton despite never intending to get one. I ordered it back during the first week of December, as it was sinking in that I will be stuck in my house most of the winter and desperately need to do something for my cardiovascular health since I do not do anything on the days when it feels too cold to take a walk.

I didn't play with it immediately, even though the delivery people set it up super fast and it was ready to go - first, I had a last work call / happy hour with Sara, and we had much to catch up on. Then I called my parents and ended up talking with (or 'discussing' with, as my gram might have said) my dad for a couple of hours. After that, it was almost 8:30 and I perhaps should have wound down and watched tv like I had originally planned. But instead, I decided to check out my bike setup and I ended up doing my first ride. So far so good - the hardest part was figuring how to clip in, since I've never taken an actual spin class or ridden a bike that requires cleats, and so clipping into the pedals was a bit of an adventure. But once I was in, I felt so victorious that I went ahead and did a ride. I think I'll potentially really like it, but we'll see if my legs feel like rubber tomorrow.

Then I messed around online and with my planner to consider what I need to get done this weekend, and now I think I should go to sleep - goodnight!

soon may the wellerman come to bring us sugar and tea and rum

I was super tired all day because I managed to only get six hours of sleep, and even the best coffee wasn't enough to overcome that problem. But I made it through my meetings, had some leftover pulled pork / sweet potato / brussels sprouts for lunch, made it through more meetings, and was able to log off by five. Then I ordered Indian food, talked to Terry, and rearranged my guest room - I have no guests coming for the foreseeable future, but I do have an exercise bike getting delivered tomorrow, and I decided the guest room is the right place for it given the aforementioned dearth of guests. Note that guests are still welcome, but the bed has been shoved into the corner to make room for the bike - so we'll see how that goes.

Then I spent the evening alternating between doomscrolling and getting some shit done. I was going to go to bed early, but of course I got my second wind (perhaps technically my first wind?) around 9pm, and suddenly it's almost eleven. So, bedtime is imperative - goodnight!

swimming through sick lullabies

Welp, today was something. It was something I felt like I've seen coming for several years (such as on July 21, 2016, when I watched Trump accept the nomination, which should tell you that I've been concerned about his authoritarian/anti-democratic/completely selfish characteristics since long before it became popular to do so in the mainstream; or on June 2, 2020, after watching him send in troops on protesters in DC (which very notably did not happen today)). And yet it was still shocking and awful to actually watch, and very upsetting to think about what he could incite in the next fourteen days.

So. The morning was pretty good and I got some writing done before work, but I was pretty distracted all afternoon and gave up around five to order guac and enchiladas and margaritas from my favorite Mexican place down the street. But I ended the evening with an emergency doom zoom family time; Adit, Chandlord, Claude, Sam, John, and Jess all made it, so we hit quorum  (I don't know where Priyanka was, and Ritu was at the hospital, so they're excused). We hung out for a couple of hours and talked about politics and tiktok and merch and a variety of other topics, and it was a delight.

But now I need to sleep so that I can try to get something done tomorrow - goodnight!

turning saints into the sea

I got a flurry of hits on my blog tonight for the search term "now I’m falling asleep and she’s calling dekalb", which is a joke I made for myself as the title of a post during the election in November - and I wish I would have tweeted that shit because I saw someone tweet it tonight and they got many tens of thousands of likes. Also, I hate everything I just said about posting it on twitter for the likes.

sssanyway. Today was full of existential dread, but I didn't feel too bad about being unenthused and unproductive because every person I talked to at work felt similarly. Tomorrow is soon enough to rally and get caught up. I did, however, write for an hour before work and thirty minutes after, and that is a feat I very much hope to accomplish again tomorrow. I also made some brussels sprouts, roasted some sweet potatoes, and made a chipotle/maple/orange butter from my new Barefoot Contessa cookbook to go on the sweet potatoes - it was pretty tasty and a good way to add some interest to sweet potatoes. And any 'added interest' to anything in my life right now is a good thing - I risk slipping into deep, soul-crushing boredom while being stuck at home, so fancy butter is at least something.

While I was cooking that stuff, I had a phone conversation with Chandlord, who is just as bored as I am. Then I ate those tasty things with some of the pulled pork I made yesterday, and it was a delightful dinner. After that, I made the mistake of turning on election results and spending too much time going down rabbit holes, but I rallied, turned off the tv, and spent some quality time with my planner.

And now I need to go to sleep if I want to write tomorrow - goodnight!

i ain't blind and i don't like what i think i see

The one-day-delayed Sunday Scaries have arrived right on schedule. I actually think my headache is because I was away from Denver's altitude for three weeks and am dehydrated-ish, but we'll see how tomorrow treats me.

That said, I feel pretty happy about what I did today before my headache hit. I got up reasonably early, made coffee, meditated, and then sat in my writing office and did a couple of hours of writing work. I took a break when Katie called, and I lured myself into being distracted by inviting myself over to her backyard for lunch. Before I went, I made some dry rub spice mix and prepped a pork shoulder so that it could rest in my fridge for a few hours, and I also showered so I wouldn't smell like dry rub.

When I got to Katie's, we hung out in the backyard, wearing our coats and pretending that everything was fine. Luckily, while Denver's altitude can be a bitch, the weather is often not bad - it was in the fifties and sunny, so while it was not the kind of weather that would have caused me to actively choose an outdoor lunch in the beforetimes, it was certainly feasible to do it today. So, we hung out for a couple of hours, caught up on life, and ate poke bowls (we did not share with James because he is allergic to fish and also had to leave for a doctor's appointment anyway). It was great to see her, of course, and I wish all days in quarantine could be this lovely...

After we finished, I swung by my house and then went to the grocery store (with a detour to wash the Iowa gravel dust off my car). When my groceries were duly procured, I came home, put everything away, and then threw the pork shoulder in the instant pot. This wasn't entirely effortless, since I seared it first, then deglazed the pot before pressure cooking it, but it was as close to effortless as you can get for making a tasty meat dish. However, I started it slightly later than I had planned, and even with pressure cooking it takes almost an hour and a half. So while it was cooking, I ate leftover thai food from yesterday, and then did a bunch of housekeeping stuff to bring things into a semblance of order.

And now, I need to stop staring at my screens and maybe spend a few minutes reading paper before bed - goodnight!

i could wait a year, but i couldn't wait three

Luckily I have tomorrow off, so the possibly epic post-holiday case of Sunday Scaries has been postponed to Monday. That meant today was some semblance of relaxing/productive. I'm still wiped out from the drive yesterday - I slept for more than eight hours last night, and still had to take a brief nap this afternoon.

But I managed to make breakfast, shower, talk to Veronica, order lunch, talk to my parents, and then do a bunch of stuff around the house in the afternoon/evening. I still haven't bought groceries, so that's a task for tomorrow - but thanks to my freezer, I had some bolognese sauce (on top of freshly-cooked pasta) for dinner, and it was delish.

I also spent some quality time this afternoon / evening considering my goals for the year. I feel like 2020 was pretty aimless, although the main task was surviving with my sanity mostly intact, and I am happy that I accomplished that. And the year wasn't all bad for me personally - despite all the challenges, I'm grateful that I've had quite a bit of time to reflect on my patterns and habits, think about how I can live a healthier and more joyful life, what I want and how I want to get it, etc. The challenge right now is that I feel ready to set some seriously ambitious goals, but it's hard to set seriously ambitious goals when so much of the world around me is more uncertain than usual.

But that's a problem that I can't solve tonight - instead, I think it's time for bed so that I can be ready for whatever happens when Sunday Scaries turn into Monday Melodrama. Goodnight!

i whisper things, the city sings 'em back to you

I am back in Denver, sitting in bed and ready to crash. Today was as smooth as it could be given that I didn't get enough sleep last night - so, I didn't get out of my parents' house until around 11am, which is later than one should theoretically set off on a ten-hour solo drive across the snowy midwest.

But I had a nice morning before I went - I loaded up my car and cleaned up the downstairs like I was leaving a second home (which is basically how it always is, since [censored] and I take out the trash, tidy up, clean out the fridge, etc). I also ate a last meal of ham + potato chips and my beloved A&E french onion dip - perhaps not the meal I should have eaten, since I knew I would eat garbage on the road, but that dip is addictive.

Then I said farewell to my parents and [censored], got in my car, and headed out. The most dangerous part of the drive was probably 0.5 mi from my departure, when I met a truck full of hunters on the unbladed gravel road east of the railroad tracks and had to pull over into several inches of snow/ice, but that was duly accomplished, and as soon as I got to the highway, the roads were clear the rest of the way.

So I drove all day; I made four stops mostly out of boredom / needing to use the bathroom because I was drinking liquids to alleviate my boredom, but I made it home in decent time (especially since I gain an hour coming this way). I listened to music for the first part of the voyage, but then I listened to a couple of podcasts, and then I listened to more of Matthew McConaughey's 'Greenlights' - it's a really excellent audiobook, and he's actually quite a good writer (at least of memoir; some of his poetry is not my jam, but his storytelling is great). So good, in fact, that I finished the chapter I was on while getting ready for bed, and I will probably have to finish the rest of it while walking or something since I don't want to wait for my next road trip.

And now, it's time for bed. My house seems to be in good shape thanks to Katie's check-ins, and I unloaded everything in my car that could freeze overnight, so I can sleep in tomorrow - and then we'll see what the day holds. Goodnight!

the thug life baby, it chose me, i didn't choose this city

Happy new year (pt 2)! Today was my last full day in Iowa, unless the roads are dire tomorrow, and I spent it taking care of a bunch of tings - but the most important was, of course, winning Ticket to Ride. The win was made more sweet because I beat [censored] by exactly one point, and I also did it after my dad inadvertently blocked me (as it turned out, completely unnecessarily). So, for the last Ticket to Ride game of this holiday season, I will most certainly take it.

I also went into my dad's shop in town and helped [censored] install a new hitch on his truck. This was treacherous for two reasons: 1) we got several inches of snow today, on top of the layer of ice we got two days ago, so the roads were not ideal, and 2) installing a hitch involves lying under a truck and holding a heavy metal hitch bar over your face while putting in the bolts necessary to attach the hitch to the truck. I can safely say that my v. brief apprenticeship in automotive work has confirmed that I do not want to pivot into a career as a mechanic. But I didn't smash my face and [censored] has a new hitch, and so I think it was pretty successful. I also helped [censored] move some bookcases he'd built into the house and down to the basement and into his room, so I think I've done my sisterly duty for both last year and this year.

I also did a test run of making gluten free onion rings with my air fryer - they turned out v. tasty, although the batch sizes are small, but I intend to keep experimenting with them in the future. And we closed out the evening with a new york strip roast (basically cooked like prime rib, delish) and fried potatoes and salad, and then I packed as much as I could pack tonight.

And now, it's time for bed - I need to get some decent sleep if I'm going to drive tomorrow. Goodnight!

it's been so long since i've seen the ocean....i guess i should

Happy new year! This is the first official post of 2021 (it's 12:53am in Iowa, so I'm counting it). Today was a v. lowkey and chill way to ring out what was a crazy and unexpected year. I slept in, lingered over coffee, stayed in my pajamas until after two p.m., and was generally pretty lazy. I did get some writing business stuff done, and responded to some emails, and did a bit of planning, but none of that was particularly onerous.

For supper, we had takeout Mexican food, which [censored] and I went to pick up - the outdoors is treacherous right now thanks to the thick layer of ice on everything, and I'm sure it will be worse tomorrow because I can hear ice hitting my window again. When I defrosted and cleaned off my car today, it was kind of trippy - the snow was so hard and icy that I could actually walk on top of it without consistently sinking in, and when I did sink it, it felt vaguely dangerous. My car had a quarter of an inch of ice on the windshield, which came off in large sheets and felt like tapping into a creme brulee. I'm hoping that Saturday's weather is nice, since it would probably be a good idea to get back to Denver sometime in 2021....

But that is a problem for the weekend. Tonight, after supper, [censored] and I watched the rest of the new season of Letterkenny, then watched a variety of other ridiculous tings, and generally stayed up way too late. But now that I've said goodbye and godspeed to 2020, it's on to the new year - goodnight!

imma be what i set out to be, without a doubt undoubtedly

Too tired to blog tonight, and also too annoyed - I thought I was winning at ticket to ride today, and instead I somehow came in last. My parents somehow tied for the win, so at least [censored] didn't get it, but still, it was an unfortunate outcome.

And so, since I've already fallen asleep once, I'm going to go to bed - goodnight!

diamonds aquatic

Merry Christmas! Okay, it's not Christmas, but we did a white elephant gift exchange over zoom with my dad's side of the family tonight, so it was almost like Christmas. And we ate the second half of the zucchini lasagna that I made the other night, and lasagna used to be our Christmas Eve tradition, so I'm still feeling the Christmas spirit.

That said, I worked most of the day (on writing stuff, not day job stuff) - I'm still making my way through content from the conference I went to earlier in the month, and I was also doing some side research + playing around with some ads stuff. I did take a break to make a run into town to buy some supplies, and while it wasn't super treacherous at 1pm, it certainly became treacherous later in the day. We had winter storm conditions all day, and this morning it looked almost pretty - nice snowflakes, not too much wind. But as I was at the grocery store, the snow turned to ice. The power flickered in the grocery store, which took down several checkout registers, but luckily I escaped and made it home before anything bad happened. Still, it was a v. bleak day, and it means I'm not quite sure when the best time is to drive back to Denver given that there is much snow and many miles between here and there....

But that is a problem for another day between Thursday and Saturday - for now, it's time for bed. Goodnight!

then i stole her car and hit a hundred on the highway

I have suddenly stayed up too late, again, so I need to crawl into bed before the night gets away from me. But today was okay - I watched a couple of hours of that romance conference from a few weeks ago (there is soooo much content, but the sessions I watched tonight were really good), and I loaded some stuff up in my car for the eventual drive back to Colorado, and I ate a lot of ham.

But with that v. brief update, it's time for me to go to bed - goodnight!

train in vain

I have once again stayed up slightly too late (although I am doing better than usual on this trip), and so I need to go to bed immediately. However, I do want to immortalize that I won Ticket to Ride tonight, so that's worth an entire blog post. And I did some work (personal work), hung out with my family, and made zucchini lasagna for dinner, so all in all it was a decently productive day. Goodnight!

when you fall like a statue

I'm suddenly too tired to blog, so hopefully this stays somewhere on this side of the coherency line. I had a pretty lazy but pretty nice day, all in all - I spent quite a bit of time thinking about writing business stuff (watching a couple of videos I hadn't gotten to from the virtual conference I went to earlier this month, making lists, exploring some bestseller lists to see how various books/genres are marketing right now). I've been pretty checked out from the business side of writing since I've been wandering in the wilderness trying to figure out what's blocking the artistic side of my writing, but I want to get back into it in a serious way in 2021, so I'm trying to seize momentum and figure out how to tackle the next phase of my writing career.

Of course, that's not all I did - I also hung out with my family this morning, talked to Katie, took a shower, and did a family zoom call with my sister's family (her three kids, two kids-in-law, and six grandkids of varying relationship complexity made them way too porous of a 'bubble' to consider seeing in person, but at least zoom works). I took a walk outside and listened to a podcast and didn't freeze or get shot by hunters, so that was a success. And I roasted some tomatoes for my favorite Barefoot Contessa caprese salad. And even though I vowed not to, I got sucked into an episode of Letterkenny with [censored], but I limited myself to one. All in all, it was a good day, and hopefully I can carry some productivity into tomorrow.

But now I need to sleep - goodnight!

everybody wanna pass as cats

Merry Christmas! I hope that you all had a wonderful day of celebration and feasting in whatever manner you chose to pursue given that we're living in 2020 and nothing is normal. I had a lovely day - we had our usual delightfully lazy morning opening packages, and I got a lot of gadgets and cookbooks to add some new techniques to my #quarantinechef game. That's a good thing, since #quarantinechef has no real end in sight yet...but now is not the time to think about that. And I like cooking, so I will choose to focus on the positive of how much more experimenting I'm going to get to do in the next few months.

After opening presents, I took a shower and switched into almost-pajamas (my winter leggings are basically pajamas and now I live in them) for my daytime activities. We had Christmas brunch (breakfast casserole, muffins, ambrosia), which was all perfect. Then I had a v. lazy afternoon - I had to suffer through [censored] winning at Ticket to Ride again, and then I relaxed and took a long nap. For supper, we had prime rib, which was an excellent way to get some protein/iron after too many days of my own cooking (I mostly make chicken, sorry guys). All in all, it was a really nice day, and hopefully things stay nice for the rest of my trip.

After all of that, I really just wanted to go to bed - but I rallied for a late family dinner (Christmas version) that came together somewhat last-minute with Adit and Priyanka, John and Jess, and Claudia and Sam. Ritu was too tired to join and Chandlord was mysteriously absent, but it was nice to talk to everyone else - and as much as this year is ridiculous, I do enjoy that it is forcing people who live in California to include me in their social plans because all social plans happen online now.

And now, I need to sleep - I have grand plans to do a bunch of writing-related stuff tomorrow and maybe start bingeing Bridgerton (a Netflix show based on one of my favorite historical romance series from back in the day) - we shall see, we shall see. Goodnight!

lord of the toads

No blog tonight - it's late and I left my laptop upstairs and I can't go get it because I might disturb Santa Claus. Today was good, though - I did some reading, did some planning for 2021, hung out, and made my grandma's ham balls for dinner, which turned out pretty amazing if I do say so myself.

But now I need to sleep - goodnight!

the greatest of teachers won't hesitate to leave you there by yourself chained to fate

Today was decent, all in all - at least I got a lot of tings accomplished, which I'll take. I woke up relatively early and did some journaling with my coffee, which is always a good way to start the day. I also ate breakfast, showered, and wrapped some presents - 'tis the season for wrapping, obvi. I thought about taking a walk, since it was over fifty degrees when I woke up - but the wind was already brutal and the temperatures were dropping all day (it was down to 25 by four p.m.), so I decided that a walk wasn't in the cards.

Eventually, my mom and I vacated the house (via car, not via walking) and drove over to my sister's house to drop off Christmas presents. We aren't getting together with her extended family due to the 'rona and the fact that her kids have partners and/or kids, and those kids go to multiple households as well, which means seeing them is like seeing a hundred people. But we dropped some stuff off for them, and it was good to see my sister for a bit, so at least there was that bit of holiday spirit.

Then my mom and I went grocery shopping to prep for the next few days of feasting. Then we came home, put tings away, and then [censored] and I drove into town to pick up takeout Mexican food. This is really the only takeout option in town, which is v. unusual compared to my extravagant takeout life in Denver - but luckily, this takeout option is excellent and I'll happily eat fajitas once a week if I need to. While we were in town, [censored] and I paused to watch a Christmas light display put together by FFA (Future Farmers of America, if you weren't aware) at the high school - they timed the lights to a Christmas song you could listen to on a specific radio frequency, and it was a delight.

Then, after supper, I said goodnight to the parents and came downstairs to wrap more gifts with [censored]. We're ahead of schedule - usually this is a late Christmas Eve activity, but we're done with the exception of some stuff that I'm wrapping for my dad (he always succeeds in conning me into wrapping the stuff he's giving my mom).

I then spent the rest of the evening writing some more Christmas cards, messing around online, and reading a book. And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

thigh juice

The wind is picking up in rather dramatic fashion outside - it's always windier here than it is most places, but tonight is really bringing it. It was a very nice day for December in Iowa - over fifty degrees, and a bit windy but not so windy that I couldn't take a walk (which I did). But tomorrow the temperature is going to drop all day, and it might get down into the single digits tomorrow night, so that's something to not look forward to.

But I made good use of today, after I finally decided to get out of bed. I ate some breakfast, drank coffee, showered, etc., and eventually drove into town to drop off several boxes of stuff at the thrift store. It is weird, when juxtaposing my parallel lives, to be someplace where I usually know someone in every store I go to (in this case, the woman running the place is the mom of some girls I went to high school with + is in the same club as me and my mom)...when I'm in Denver, and also in San Francisco, that kind of connection is non-existent.

Anyway, I dropped stuff off, which was great because I've been meaning to do it for months (but was thwarted over the summer bc they were closed due to covid). I also washed my car and picked something up for my dad. Then I came home, took care of some more tings, ran back into town to pick up something else for my dad, came home, took a walk around the property, did thirty minutes of day job stuff, etc. Then we ate supper, which was mostly leftovers of the previous evenings' meals, which meant bartering (I gave up rights to all but a bite of the tater tot casserole but got the whole remaining leg/thigh from the chicken I made the other day).

Then I wrapped some presents - 5 down, many many more to go. Then I had a friendship renewal call with Jen, Jane, and Joann - we were all doing a fancy face mask (the skincare kind, not the covid kind) that Joann had recommended, and while it was fun to do it together, it was a bit ill-conceived as a video chat because the solution hardened on our faces so much that it was hard to talk. But my skin feels amazing and it was great to see them, so it was #worthit.

Then I hung out with [censored] while finishing the peach bourbon and coke zero cocktail he'd so generously provided the alcohol for (and watching Billy Joel videos, because that's what we do). And now I should consider sleeping - goodnight!

tomorrow comes with one desire

I was much more productive today than I was yesterday, but that's not saying much since yesterday was ridiculously sloth-filled. Still, I'll take today and aim to compound it tomorrow. I took care of some tings around the house, showered, etc., and then made a quick trip to town to mail something + pick up some groceries + pick up [censored] from where he had dropped his [censored]. Then I did some more stuff around the house and hung out with the parents. I also had a call with Alyssa to discuss health stuff, which was great.

Then, I ate some avocado to make up for the dinner I embarked upon making - I made tater tot casserole, and I have to say it was pretty great. I think I've perfected my gluten free recipe - since it can't take the canned soup that traditional tater tot casserole uses, I had to improvise. I tweaked a recipe that I found online, and with my tweaking I think I've stumbled upon an excellent solution. So, dinner was v. tasty, and I don't think I have to give up my Iowa card yet since I can still make tater tots.

Somewhere in there, I also stepped outside a couple of times to see the so-called Christmas star - the conjuction of Jupiter and Saturn was pretty cool. It helped that we have relatively little light pollution (although the security light over our driveway doesn't help), so I was able to see it pretty clearly. I love geeky astronomy stuff, so this was right up my alley.

After dinner, I participated in a quick zoom call for Jess's birthday (happy birthday, Jess!), then chatted with my parents for a couple of hours. Then, [censored] and I watched a bunch of SNL clips. And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

chipmunks roasting on an open fire

Apologies for not blogging last night - I meant to, but instead I stayed up way too late researching 2021 planners + texting with Riturani. So, today I was v. lazy - I didn't get out of bed until after ten, and didn't eat lunch until two, and it was really almost too lazy given that I want to get tings done on this break.

But I did write a bunch of Christmas cards (finally...they probably will not reach people by Christmas, but I didn't have a lot of time because Minted delivered my order almost ten days later than planned). And I had a v. tasty supper with my family - my mom cooked tonight, and she made a perfect roast beef with potatoes and carrots. We're alternating cooking duties; I made chicken with a bacon/parmesan/mushroom/cream sauce last night, and I think I'm cooking tomorrow night, so we'll see what I come up with. Also, I took a walk around the yard, so at least I got outside for a bit of fresh air.

Now, though, I'm tired and am going to haul myself to bed before I get too distracted by the internet - goodnight!

cutting lines and blurring truth

Today was quite lovely, all things considered. I did some desultory journaling and task completion this morning, and then I made lunch - lunch is not something my family typically eats on normal Fridays, but today wasn't a normal Friday because it's my mom's birthday. So I made that fancy wrapped chicken breast with prosciutto and goat/cream cheese, and brussels sprouts, and it was delish. Also, Aunt Kathy came down to drop a couple of tings off, and it was great to see her since I haven't seen her since sometime this summer.

So, we hung out for awhile and it was all v. nice. [censored] showed up sometime around four and is now here for the duration of the holiday, and I'm happy to see him even if it means sharing a bathroom. We ended up having Mexican takeout for dinner; it was v. tasty, and while it was great to have queso, it was sad to discover that Iowa is no longer allowing takeout margaritas (this is not technically accurate - after further research, takeout alcohol is allowed, but it has to be in a tamper-evident sealed container and not a single-use styrofoam or paper cup, which is prohibitive for a lot of restaurants).

Then, after hanging out with the parents for awhile, I came downstairs, joked around with [censored], painted my toenails and fingernails, and generally relaxed. And now it's time for bed - happy birthday to my mother and also to the Chandlord! Goodnight!

language of strangers

IT'S VACATION, BITCHES. Today was a slog, but not a bad one, and I was done by 5:30. I perhaps didn't finish everything on my list, but I finished enough to not feel guilty about shutting my laptop. And now I'm off for 2+ weeks and I'm v excited about that.

When I was done, I hung out with my parents - my mom made steak and baked potatoes and salad, and I had some open wine, so it was quite delicious. Then we hung out and chatted in the kitchen; eventually my dad and I moved to the living room, where we discussed travel while watching a PBS show about sacred sites. My mom joined us after she finished painting her fingernails, and it was all v. cozy.

And now, I need to sleep - goodnight!

ethereal stepping

One more day...and with each day I have slightly fewer meetings, since everyone is ready to be done and so things are slowly dropping off calendar. I do have several things I need to do tomorrow before I can start my break, and if I don't do them tomorrow I will need to do them in the next few days, so I have some incentive to slog hard and fast tomorrow. But we'll see whether I'm successfully able to get in the zone - right now, my energy levels are resisting the idea of ramping up to anything approaching massive productivity.

Or maybe I just don't want to be massively productive at work - I did spend the last few hours taking care of personal tings, and that felt good. And today was overall pretty decent - I slogged, but it wasn't super onerous. And my mom made tenderloins and tater tots (and green beans, in a nod toward health), and it was all excellent. So, if I can carry a tiny bit of my personal momentum into tomorrow, I may be able to end the work week/month/year strong despite the fact that 2020 has been anything but strong.

But now I need to sleep if I'm going to accomplish feats of productivity tomorrow - goodnight!

they'll pull the nerves out through the pores

I'm too tired to effectively blog - I had a lot of meetings today, some of which were important, and the last of which was from 10-11pm (with a team in Asia, I hope they were happy I showed up). But all in all, it was a good day, and I had some time off in the evening to make home fries / bacon / eggs for my parents and hang out in the kitchen.

But now I need to sleep so I can do some of this again tomorrow - only two more days until break. Goodnight!

[untitled]

I'm too tired to think of a title, or of any substantive updates - I slogged most of the day, and then for another hour or two tonight, although tonight's session wasn't very productive and I should have just thrown in the towel early. But I did take an evening break to eat supper (taco salad, mmm) with my parents and hang out with my mom while discussing possible things to cook next week.

Or maybe I'm not tired...maybe I'm depressed because the Olive Garden in San Francisco is closing, and I will never go on another fantastic Tuscan voyage with the usual suspects. Or I'm sad because the Cliff House is also closing, which is a beloved meeting spot for my San Francisco writing friends. 2020 keeps striking. But I have three more work days to go before vacation and I think I can survive...goodnight!

my anxiety and money just compounds

I had a lovely day in ye olde Iowa - not sure how I'm going to motivate myself to work for the next four days, but I'm sure I'll figure something out. I didn't sleep in nearly as late as I normally do when I'm here, since I need to prep myself to still get up at a reasonable hour for at least the next week. And I was motivated to get out of bed by the knowledge that I have a new coffeemaker here - it's the same coffeemaker I have at home, and it means that I can make a pot of coffee in the morning without either making my mom move her coffee into a thermos or messing around with a french press. Yes, I'm basically buying stuff for here like it's my vacation home, but since I usually spend 6+ weeks here over the course of a year, maybe that's not so far off.

I spent most of the day hanging out with my parents and settling in, which involved unpacking, organizing my room, putting together my new desk chair, etc., etc. I also ventured into town to visit the grocery store, which was wildly uneventful. And my mom made one of my favorites for supper (cheeseburgers and fried potatoes, with a side of roasted broccoli), so I'm a happy camper.

But now, I need to go to bed so that I can slog tomorrow - goodnight!

I know I love you and you love the sea

I have arrived safely in ye olde iowa after an uneventful drive (although my phone, which I am typing on, tried to say "infection" instead of "uneventful", so hopefully it's not more knowledgeable than I am). The actual drive time was exactly ten hours, which was excellent (since it's 680mi), but I had to make a couple of stops for bathrooms and gas, so time on the road was more like 10.5hrs. But since I didn't stop for food or any other fun, I made good time.

However, I didn't leave Denver until after ten, so it was late when I got to Iowa. But my parents were kind enough to let me in, and we hung out for a bit before they went to bed and I did a bit of settling in. And now I desperately need to sleep - goodnight!

from the coveted touch of a girl in love

No blog tonight - it's only eleven p.m., but I meant to be in bed thirty minutes ago. That hasn't happened at any point in the last three+ weeks, so it's not exactly a surprise that I'm not in bed. But I'm headed to Iowa tomorrow, barring bad weather, and so I need to get a good night's sleep so I can get up and throw some stuff in my car and head out. Note that that process will prob take me at least two hours of putzing and loading and eating and reconsidering my packing strategy, which is why I need to go to bed asap. Goodnight!

let's go out with a bang

Five more working days until vacation through the end of the year. Today was a bit of a doozy, though - I had meetings, I had stressful emails, I had more meetings and stressful emails, and it was all a bit more than I wanted to deal with (as evidenced by the fact that I took one of those meetings while sitting in my armchair with my comfy faux fur blanket). But it wasn't bad, all in all. And I took a walk even though it was only forty degrees, so I feel impossibly smug about that epic feat.

But I didn't wrap up work until after six, at which point I was a bit fried. I talked to my parents while eating leftover shepherd's pie, and then I spent the evening taking care of tings around the house, tings on my computer, tings involving laundry, etc., etc. None of it is exciting but all of it is necessary, which is pretty much the definition of most parts of adulthood.

And now I'm going to stop staring at my screen and do some more tings to unwind before bed - goodnight!

i could use a hug or a handshake, i could use some drugs or a band-aid

I'm exhausted and should have gone to bed an hour ago - I slept fitfully last night and woke up too early with the knowledge that I needed to get some day job work done. Usually I'm pretty good about boundaries in the morning and focus on journaling, meditation, etc, but today I spent an hour in my pajamas with my coffee, answering email and taking care of tings. That set me up for a much better day overall, but it was still not my preferred way to spend my morning.

Then I slogged all day, with a break for leftover Indian food and a twenty-minute walk. Sometime after five, I closed my work laptop and went to get a covid test in preparation for my trip to Iowa; happily it was negative. But I had to wait in the parking lot for thirty minutes or so, so I spent that time talking to [censored]. After the test, I drove by Bookbar to pick up a book, came home, cooked some shepherd's pie that I had previously made and frozen, did a bunch of laundry, tidied things up, did some Christmas shopping, did a bit of day job work, and overall it was just a lot.

And so now hopefully I'm tired enough to sleep as I need to - goodnight!

cut the dead weight, burn the red tape

I was not in it to win it today - I have a headache, and my skin is so dry that my thumb spontaneously cracked, and I didn't feel like doing anything at work. However, I forced out some productivity anyway - I didn't write this morning because I had to spend that time reviewing and signing a bunch of papers for my house refinance, and I also had an earlier start than usual to record a podcast for work (not exciting, just a minor internal thing). I took a break from the day job at eleven to greet a notary - we sat in my back yard so that I could sign all the mortgage papers that needed a wet signature, and while it's strange to sign that kind of paperwork in your backyard, covid times call for covid measures. And now my refinance is confirmed, and I shaved 1.25% off my mortgage rate, so that's pretty sweet.

To celebrate, I ordered a poke bowl for lunch and ate it outside - it was sixty degrees today and I feel like I need to soak in sun while I can get it. Then I slogged. Then I snuck out slightly early (easy to do when you're sneaking out of your house and not an office, but my office was easy to sneak out of too) and ran a couple of errands and picked up a few grocery items - I don't really need much for my fridge between now and Iowa, but I picked up some eggs and some meat to throw in the freezer so that I'm ready for whatever awaits when I return.

Then I ordered Indian food because I didn't feel like cooking, and then I was v. lazy and very nearly wasted the night staring at my phone - but I rallied and read part of a book (LOVE LETTERING, which has been recommended by several people). And now I'm going to try to go to bed early enough to get a decent amount of sleep tonight and hope that resets my crankiness - goodnight!

in the stillness of remembering what you had

Do you ever stop and think about how strange life is right now? Like seriously. I am wearing a red velvet sweatsuit, which is not a thing I ever would have purchased in the beforetimes. I had a zoom call with my writer friends in California tonight, which I would not have done in the past; I would have missed them, but no one would have been zooming (I didn't even know what zoom was tbh). I spent the whole day working in the my dining room, which is now my office, except for getting excited when I got a new kind of mask delivered (spoiler: it wasn't as great as I expected) and when I took a walk around the neighborhood (to make up for the fact that my natural routine yields approx five steps per day). And I just reread my blog from March and it's cute and quaint how I had been alone for five days and wasn't sure how I was going to make it through the "month" of not going into the office that had been announced then....

sssanyway, it is what it is, and I'm weirdly happier than I've been in at least a year, possibly more, so I guess this velvet sweatsuit is good for something. Today was fine - I got up in time to write before work, then slogged all day. I had to work until six, so I didn't bother to make anything fresh for dinner - I just ate leftover pasta and brussels sprouts, then took care of some tings. And then I talked to Barbara, Anne, Grace, and Veronica for a couple of hours - Anne finally convinced me to download tiktok, which means I spent thirty minutes after the call giggling at tiktok videos and I have #noregrets.

But I will have regrets tomorrow if I don't go to bed right now - goodnight!

tryna stream my way to a better life

I'm trying to kick the coming week off better than this last week - not that this last week was bad, but the week before I was on vacation and going to bed at one and waking up at nine like my body would prefer, and so it was brutal to get back into day job timing. So, it's 10:10pm and I'm hoping to be in bed in twenty minutes (although I may read for a bit in bed, but that's dangerous....).

Today was good, though. I got up around 7:30 and actually left my house quite early - my usual order of Philz is weirdly delayed (and by 'weirdly' I mean 'entirely to be expected because everyone is ordering tons of shit online), and so I was out of coffee. So I stopped by the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, put gas in my car for the first time in many weeks, and picked up a latte and a bag of beans from Huckleberry. When I got home, I made myself an omelette and reheated some fries (from a takeout order) and green beans (from a different leftover supper), and it made for a pretty tasty breakfast.

Then I ventured out again to pick up a writing book at Bookbar - and it felt like I was a Victorian orphan looking through the window at a wonderland of forbidden treats, because I couldn't go in to browse (browsing is by appointment only) and so I just stared in the window drooling and dreaming of reading books and drinking a glass of wine (Bookbar is a bookstore / wine bar / coffee bar) until the staff found the book I had ordered. Someday, my bookstore friends, we will be reunited...

Then I came home, talked to Veronica, contemplated the story, ate some leftover Thai food, and did a bunch of outdoor work (mostly watering things that needed to be watered). I also talked to my parents, who seemed to be doing well. Then I made supper (spaghetti carbonara and some brussels sprouts, yum), talked to [censored], wrapped up some stuff from the conference I attended this weekend, made some plotting notes for my book, etc.

And now, after a productive weekend and a lot of thoughts about what I should be doing next with my writing, it's time for bed - goodnight!

pour a little salt we were never here

I had a surprisingly productive day, which I suppose is what happens when you get up at 6:30 on a Saturday - and probably also explains why I felt like going to bed at 5pm but have managed to stay up until ten (and am now considering going to sleep immediately). I spent most of the day watching videos from a virtual writing conference - while I am still deeply sad that I'm not in a fancy hotel drinking a fancy cocktail with my fancy friends, I am guessing that I saw way more actual content today because I watched a bunch of sessions rather than slacking off to hang out with people. Some of it was a hit, some of it was a miss - but overall I'm feeling more energized about the business side of writing than I have in ages, and I'm making plans to translate that into actual progress at some point in the near future.

But I couldn't bear to stare at screens all day, so I also took care of a bunch of stuff around the house. I finally put garland and lights along the banister leading upstairs, so my hallways looks delightful. I decorated my mantel and put a bunch of stuff away, so my living rooms feels perfectly cozy. I set up a couple of temperature sensors that I've been meaning to set up (one for the garage and one for my fridge, in addition to the one in the basement) so that I can remotely keep an eye on how tings are doing in the house when I'm gone (which is never these days, but someday will happen). I got a chip in my windshield fixed.  I washed my sheets and swapped out my duvet cover, and I'm counting remaking my bed as an aerobic workout due the challenges of switching duvet covers.

I also treated myself to delivery from Ash'kara, which was delicious and I wish I could sit at the bar and drink a cocktail with Katie. I gave myself a gel manicure (red, to match the season). And I'm wearing a new velvet sweatsuit, which feels utterly ridiculous and wonderful.

And now, after recounting a list of tings I did and absolutely nothing about what I learned in my conference, I'm going to leave you on a cliffhanger (someone at the conference said to do that) and go to bed. Goodnight!

it's a promise i can't make and i won't validate

I'm sleepy and I think I need to go to bed right now - I'm technically in a virtual writing conference this morning, and it's on central time because it was supposed to be in Houston (which means I should be at the Houston Four Seasons right now, but I am not because it's the end of the world). The first session starts tomorrow at 7am and it's unclear if I will make it to that because it's recorded and so it's tempting to sleep in....but if I sleep in, there's also a chance I won't get around to watching it. So sleep and getting up seems like a better idea, but we shall see.

Today was fine - I mostly worked, although I wasn't all that productive. But at least I slept a ton last night, so my energy was better. And I ran a quick end of day errand to return things and pick up things at Nordstrom and Crate and Barrel, which is pretty much my usual shopping pattern now. Then I ordered Thai delivery for dinner, watched the evening session of the conference, talked to my parents, and generally slacked off until now.

And so now it's time for bed - goodnight!

spiracles

Today was kind of rough - I haven't been sleeping enough, and I was having nightmares this morning, so my energy was dragging and my concentration wasn't really available. It didn't help that I had a massive number of meetings, many of which required a lot of conversation, and so I had to be on. Everything was fine and none of it was dramatic, but it was more effort than I really felt like expending today.

But I survived and it could definitely worse. However, since I was dragging, I have nothing exciting to share - although I did have one of those rare days where I ordered both lunch (poke bowl) and dinner (chicken kebab and hummus plate) because I couldn't be bothered to even heat something up. And now I'm going to stop staring at screens and unwind so I can get some real sleep tonight - goodnight!

falling asleep at the wheel

It's ridiculously cold today, and it's a reminder that winter isn't just coming...it's here. But in my house, it's cozy - I have bought every faux fur blanket and fleecy loungewear it's possible to buy, and I have a space heater for my office and a fireplace for my living room and flannel sheets for my bed. Yes, I have gone so hard on #treatyoself quarantine goodies that I have basically fashioned a nest for myself out of material objects to replace tings like friends and family and restaurants and travel and the ability to walk into any store without worrying about catching a communicable disease (okay, I used to worry about communicable diseases in some places, but they were mostly places that I shouldn't have been and mostly diseases related to food poisoning).

ssssanyway. Today was pretty good - I had a long but productive day at work, and I had a break around 4:30 to start a chickpea stew, which was a good thing because it took two and a half hours to simmer. This was because I started with dried chickpeas rather than canned; I had soaked them overnight, but they still took awhile to soften. But I made a chickpea and chorizo stew, the recipe for which I got from a winery in Sonoma a million years ago, when I went on a Thanksgiving weekend trip with Ritu and the guy she was dating at the time (who is not Bill). She should have known it wasn't gonna work out when she invited me to share her two-bed hotel room with her and the guy - but I got a lot of fun memories and a recipe for chickpea and chorizo stew, so it was definitely worth it for me. Editor's note on the memories, though: I completely forgot that after we went to five wineries, we had dinner at Panda Express (according to the blog), which definitely tells you that it happened in 2004 when I was still relatively poor and also eating gluten. Ah, to be that young and innocent and able to soak up wine with orange chicken.

sssanyway again. The stew was delicious, and my kitchen is now clean, and I'm pretty sure I won't cook a damn thing tomorrow. I spent the last bit of time designing my Christmas card, and I'm hopeful that it will turn out beautifully, but we shall see. And now I really need to sleep - goodnight!

time to raise hell or walk on by

I had a v. nice day, all in all - it certainly could have been terrible, because it was grey and gloomy all day, and my house was slightly too cold and I felt like I should be hunkering down for the cold front that is moving in. But I was determined to not let that overly affect me. Granted, I had to take a nap at three, which I haven't had to do for awhile...and I'm going to doom myself to that again tomorrow if I don't go to bed immediately.

But I woke up in time to meditate and journal a bit, and also read and make coffee, and also wash my hair, so that was all a lot of accomplishment. My coffee is from my beloved Philz in San Francisco, and I had ordered a bag of a darker blend that I used to love - I wasn't loving it so much this week, but then I remembered that I used to get it 'sweet and creamy'. So I added sugar and some heavy cream that I happened to have in the fridge, and suddenly I was transported back to Palo Alto, circa 2009, when I would stop at the Philz there to write at 6pm with an ill-advised nighttime coffee to wait out traffic before heading back to the city of sin. Ah, memories.

However, the sugar probably started a sugar spike/crash cycle that continued all day, since I was craving M&Ms after my nap (I really don't crave sweets). But I had leftover chicken and potatoes at lunch, and for dinner I roasted some excellent green beans to go with the last of my (unfrozen) leftover ham balls and potatoes gratin from last week. Thus properly restored, I did a bunch of stuff this evening, including making a batch of sweet potato hash for breakfast the rest of the week, which will hopefully keep me from sugar crashing the rest of the week. I also finished a writing book that Veronica had recommended (courtesy of Anne) that I thought was excellent, so I'm looking forward to playing with some of those techniques tomorrow.

But if I'm going to do that, I need to go to bed right now - goodnight!

one day all our secrets will be spoken

I've been staring at screens for hours and hours and I need to get off my laptop immediately. Today wasn't bad for a first day back in the office (aka my dining room) - I didn't get quite enough sleep last night, but I did meditate, journal, etc. this morning before starting work. Then I slogged all day, but I rewarded myself with a poke bowl for lunch.

I did take a break around dinner - I took a quick walk, then made dinner. I tried a new recipe for chicken with a really delicious mushroom/cream/garlic/bacon/parmesan sauce, and it was excellent. I also roasted some fingerling potatoes with fennel and onion, and they were excellent too - so that was quite satisfying.

What was slightly less satisfying was that I then worked for two hours - but I'm all caught up from break (fastest catch-up ever) and feeling better about the week ahead. And now I'm going to get off my laptop and decompress before bed - goodnight!

i'm wondering why do all the monsters come out at night

It's not quite ten, but I didn't sleep all that well last night and I have to get up for work tomorrow, so I'm contemplating crawling into bed with a book and hopefully sleeping early. Today was pretty decent, though - I got some stuff done around the house, had a writing chat with Veronica (always a delight!), and then did some more stuff around the house. I then ran some errands, which mostly consisted of picking up some stuff at Crate and Barrel / CB2 - the downside of being home all the time is that I see many things I want to decorate / do / improve, so the bulk of my #treatyoself spending the last six months has been home decor + sweatpants.

I did, however, also spend money on groceries, which were probably more important for my immediate well-being - I didn't need much, but produce seemed like a good thing to get. Then I came home, ate some cheeeeeese, and talked to my parents. Then I called [censored], who was driving home, and we talked for almost three hours. That wasn't how I had planned to spend my evening, but it was better than going down the deep rabbit hole of the Sunday Scaries, so I'll take it.

And now I think it's time for bed - goodnight!

push the trigger and i pull the thread

I had a pretty nice day, all in all, but the Sunday Scaries and the return to work are starting to creep up. I spent the morning journaling / drinking coffee / making a lot of to-do lists, and I was curled up under my blanket and didn't want to leave - but I successfully rallied and went over to Katie's for an outdoor lunch. It was only in the low fifties and this is not something we ever would have done in the beforetimes, but in the year of the rona it's imperative to find ways to get together despite the weather.

So, Katie ordered brunch (pork belly hash for me, + margaritas for both of us) delivered to her back yard, and we hung out for a few hours. There was still snow everywhere, but the sun was shining enough that it was almost pleasant, and I survived with a thick sweatshirt, a vest, my winterweight leggings, and my uggs. We hung out outside for a couple of hours, and also walked around the block to grab coffees from a pop-up stand; it was the first coffee someone has made for me in a couple of months, and while walking there and back + getting it while wearing a mask wasn't the way I used to spend my Saturdays, this one felt pretty good.

Needless to say, it was a v. delightful afternoon...but as soon as the sun slipped behind the trees around four, it suddenly felt chilly and the fun came to an abrupt end. So I came home and immediately jumped on a friendship renewal call with Joann, Jen, and Jane, which was also entertaining. And then I messed around, ate some leftover ham balls, messed around some more, refreshed my memory about inbreeding and the infamous Hapsburg jaw, and am now considering going to bed. It's only 11:26, but I need to start shifting my sleep a little earlier and going to bed at 1am tomorrow night won't cut it, so tomorrow would be a good time to practice getting up. Goodnight!

thunderheads were forming

I had another delightful day, all in all. My fitbit says I've been getting ~45min more sleep per night than usual, which I would say is probably about right - not sure how I'm going to adjust to going back to work, but it's only three weeks until I'm off for Christmas, so hopefully I'll make it.

So I got up, made coffee, wrote in my journals, took care of some tings, showered, and ate some leftover chicken and mashed potatoes for a late breakfast / early lunch. Then I had a v. long video chat with Heather (aka dear respected madam) - we hadn't caught up properly in months, and so we talked for almost three hours. It was a delight to chat with her, as usual, although it made me sad that I have not seen her (or anyone else from California, with the weird exception of one night with Adit in Iowa) in months and months.

Then I did a bunch of house stuff - I decided to finally tackle cleaning up my guest room, and while I'm not done, I did manage to haul multiple boxes / tubs of stuff from the second floor to the basement. Having a basement is dangerous, since it means I can horde stuff in 900 sq ft of space that doesn't have any other clear purpose. I'm pretty tidy in my hoarding down there - in fact, I spent some quality time rearranging my canned goods this afternoon - but still, it is v. dangerous for me to have a place to keep things that I would otherwise consider jettisoning.

sssanyway, I did as much tidying as I felt like doing, and then I took a break to make dinner. Tonight's project was my gram's ham balls - I grew up eating them all the time, but I probably haven't had them in a decade because they take gluten and are also not something I could readily get the ingredients for. But I had recently found a gluten free bread crumb (actually, panko) that was good enough to be the base in a different dish that requires bread crumbs. I also have a meat grinder attachment for the Kitchenaid mixer that my aunt gave me, which means I can grind my own ham - ham balls require ground ham and ground pork, and while ground pork is usually available, ground ham would require a weird conversation with a butcher.

So, I mixed up the ham balls, put them in the oven, sent a picture to my dad, was informed that I had used the wrong pan (I remembered Gram using a roasting pan, but that was probably for a double or triple batch, which would make sense since she made them for bigger gatherings), and so pulled them out before they got too hot and transferred them into a different dish. They turned out really well - maybe I'm biased and now overselling them because I was so happy to have them again after a decade, but I thought they were great and definitely worth making again.

It's also kind of funny - I've been cooking so much that I'm starting to recognize the components that make something great, and I realized that this is basically a second or third cousin to sweet and sour pork. The sauce is vinegar, brown sugar, and dry mustard, which definitely creates a sweet/sour tang - and the ham adds a bit of umami (although possibly not as much as using fish sauce or some other umami bomb). Granted, a ham ball with the sweet glaze-y sauce is pretty different from a texture standpoint - but the flavor combos really work.

So, I was delighted to have ham balls, and they went really well with yesterday's leftover potato gratin and brussels sprouts. Then I did a bit more house stuff, attempted to make a Christmas shopping list, etc. And now it's midnight and I need to sleep - goodnight!

and now my problems got problems of their own 'cause they're growing up

I had a really delightful Thanksgiving, which might not have been expected given that I didn't go anywhere or see anyone. But I definitely made the most of it. I slept in a bit (but not too much), then spent the morning messing around the house, eating, showering, etc. I then spent the afternoon mostly putting up a Christmas tree - I've never put up a Christmas tree of my own volition before, although I was coerced into several by Terry. Given that 2020 is truly a weird year and it's important to find all the joy you can, I bought a tree - a relatively small (i.e. not very girthy, since I have no room for a large tree) prelit fake one, which looks pretty good despite being small and fake. I spent most of the afternoon 'trimming' it, as ye olde Victorians would say - since I'd never had a tree before, I also had to buy ornaments, but I'm pretty happy with the assortment that I acquired over the last few weeks. I also hung up some Waterford crystal ornaments that I bought in Ireland like fourteen years ago and never had a place to hang, and they look great. And I bought an ornament that is a merman, which is totally ridiculous and yet I love it.

In between trimming sessions, I took a walk while it was still daylight out and called my parents to wish them a happy thanksgiving. I also took a break to make dinner - I made a potato fennel gratin from Barefoot Contessa that turned out super good (although weirdly undersalted - I usually trust her recipes, but I should have trusted my instincts on this one and quadrupled the salt), along with pork chops and brussels sprouts. Not exactly a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but a very tasty one nonetheless. And I tested out a blended margarita with cranberry juice (and cute cranberries and mint on top as a garnish), which was a total winner.

After all that, and after finishing the tree, it was 8:45pm and I could have just curled up with a book and gone to bed. Instead, I kept the festivities going for the last few hours - we had a family dinner Thanksgiving, in which "family" = "my college friends". It happened by accident, since Jess meant to set up a zoom for her actual family and accidentally invited us instead, but when she caught the mistake we turned it into a real zoom for us anyway.

Of course, the conversation was utterly ridiculous. There were some shocking revelations, including Jess getting bitten by rat mites for the past few years (apparently rat mites are translucent and the size of a period, and apparently they had rats in their attic, and apparently an exterminator ran into the house with a handgun of the bb variety and shot a bunch of the rats). We also learned about raccoon latrines, which I did not know were a thing. We learned about a book called 'All Joy and No Fun', which Jess is reading about parenting. We learned about Adit's ongoing credit/debit card fiasco in a choose your own adventure where nothing actually happened. We learned that Adit's children want to sleep with Priyanka every night, but see sleeping with him as a punishment. We learned that Ritu was at work, but Bill still dialed in from bed, where he mostly judged who had the best joke (Vidya was in the lead for a poop joke, but Jess had a surprise zinger that I have now forgotten but that encouraged her to leave the call on top). We learned that Claudia's cat excels at killing mice, and Claudia's baby excels at crying. We learned that if you dial into Zoom from your phone, everyone on the call can tell when you switch away from the Zoom to look at something else online because your camera turns off. We learned that Priyanka has been engaging in retail therapy, which I sympathize with since that's my only therapy too. And anyway, since I am wearing a nap dress that I bought solely because I loved hers and succumbed to the instagram marketing, I can never judge anyone for their covid spending habits.

There were other shocking revelations, and other not-shocking revelations, and it was all quite entertaining. But now, Thanskgiving is over (although my gratitude is not!) and I need to sleep - goodnight!

your face is all that i see, i'll give you everything

I had a pretty nice vacation day, all in all. I slept in, made coffee, wrote (yay), talked to Katie (also yay, I guess), showered, and had leftover Indian food for lunch. I did about thirty minutes of day job work, but it was related to planning fun activities and I was stressed about it when I woke up (there is a deadline for fun, related to closing out our financial reporting for the year, so it's a bit of a high pressure situation). So, I was relieved that I got that done and can enjoy the rest of the week.

Then I took a walk - it was still chilly, but most of the sidewalks had melted off, so I walked down to my beloved cheese shop to buy myself some treats for this weekend. Then I came home, put things away, and had a class with Alyssa, which lasted about two hours. At that point, it was time to make dinner, so I tried a new recipe for chicken and mushrooms, which I had with mashed potatoes, and it was really tasty. While I was cooking, I talked to Terry (again, yay) and drank a glass of chardonnay (with the excuse that I needed wine for deglazing the pan - but the other excuse is that it's the apocalypse).

Then I was going to write, or perhaps read, but instead I went down a three-hour wikipedia rabbit hole on nuclear disasters, followed by space shuttle explosions; believe it or not, this is a good sign, since I often go down these weird rabbit holes when I'm getting deep into a book. But while it may be a good sign in theory, right now I should really sleep - goodnight!

ain't it hard keeping it so hardcore

Today was terrific, if you ignore the pandemic, which I mostly did. I slept way later than I had planned, since my body has apparently decided that vacation means catching up on vast quantities of sleep. I awoke to find the world blanketed in a few inches of snow, which was v. beautiful but also meant that I didn't go anywhere today - not that that's different from most days, but I would have taken a walk if it had been nicer. Then I made some fried eggs to go with some leftover black beans for a quick breakfast, lazed about with coffee and my journal, and generally contemplated life (and stayed off Twitter for the third full day in a row, which means this is the longest I've been completely off Twitter since my silent retreat in Bali almost four years ago). I had some leftover steak and a twice baked potato for lunch, lovingly cleaned and oiled my cast iron wok from last night's pad thai misadventure, took an extended shower, and could very well have done a whole lot of nothing after that...

...but instead I wrote for three or four hours over the afternoon/early evening, which was wondrous. And I ordered delivery Indian food so that I wouldn't break up my mojo by cooking. And when I was done writing, I finished the book I had started in bed last night - I read MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by Matt Haig, and I think I liked it. The main character goes on extended tour of lives she might have lived, and it was cute and fun and very bittersweet, and while it's not at all in the vein of what I've been reading, it was great for yesterday/today.

And now I'm going to go to bed, unless I get lured into starting another book - goodnight!

you grow up, grow old, or you hit the road 'round here

I'm on vacation, and I made pretty good use of it today. I slept in, which was good for me, but I still had time to make coffee, journal, shower, eat breakfast, etc. before heading to Colorado Springs to see my friend Barbara. Due to this pandemic situation, we had a socially distanced hangout - in any other year, I would not have driven an hour to hang out in someone's backyard when it was only ~50 degrees, but this is not any other year. So we sat outside for three hours, appropriately spaced, and it was a delight to see her. We commiserated on how deeply we both want to travel, discussed writing and life, daydreamed about Venice, etc., and I could have stayed forever...

...but it was, as I mentioned, fifty degrees, so even after I put on my coat it was eventually time to call it quits. I drove back to Denver and hit a bit of rush hour, but I was listening to Brene Brown's podcast with Dolly Parton, who is a total badass, so that got me through. When I got home, I dealt with the latest pile of #treatyoself boxes that had shown up on my front porch, put away some laundry, took out trash, etc. Then I tried a new recipe for pad thai, but I wasn't very happy with how it turned out - I do not have a good sense for stirfries or rice noodle dishes because they're not something I usually make, and so while this was promising, I ended up overcooking the noodles (after thinking I was undercooking them), and the overall dish was a little too dry. Since there was gluten in some of the sauce, which I usually pretend not to know because it's just a little bit, this was probably not worth it since the overall dish wasn't amazing. I might try again with a slightly different technique - the flavor was pretty good, it just didn't finish quite right.

sssanyway, that was a bit disappointing. Then I cleaned up, sat around and did nothing [I've been off twitter for almost 48hrs and I'm jonesing for a fix, but there is no methadone for twitter withdrawal, so I just stared off into space instead], and then journaled for an hour. And now I think I'm going to pick up a book and crawl into bed to read until I fall asleep - goodnight!

stacking up my house of cards

Today was better than yesterday, which was a relief. I got plenty of sleep, got up, did some journaling, took a shower, and reheated some oatmeal in time for a writing date with Veronica. We didn't actually end up writing - instead we talked for ninety minutes, which was delightful and very much needed. Then I made lunch, ate lunch, and talked to [censored] for an hour or so.

After that, Katie showed up - she and her family were out for a drive and they drove past my house, so they sat on the curb and said hi. This was v. abbreviated since they didn't get out of the car and I didn't have shoes on (and the sidewalk was chilly even though it was a nice day for November), but it was nice to wave at each other. Then I messed around a bit, started some laundry, threw some potatoes in the oven to bake, and took a walk while I talked to my parents.

The potatoes were for a batch of twice-baked potatoes, which I deeply love - I've discovered the joy of having them in the freezer so that I can have one when I feel like it, but I was out of frozen ones. So I made a batch tonight, and paired it with a perfect reverse-sear ribeye - I have been eating v. well in quarantine, so at least I have that going for me.

Then I folded laundry and cleaned up my kitchen. And then I painted my toenails and gave myself a gel manicure while watching a couple of episodes of Padma Lakshmi's Taste the Nation (still great!). And now I should sleep - I have grand plans this week, and I want to get cracking. That also includes staying of twitter the whole week - I made that somewhat impromptu declaration to V today, although I was thinking it last night after binging twitter yesterday, and I'm going to stick to it, if only because that time would be better spent writing or reading or doing literally anything else. Goodnight!

with that chip on my shoulder, and this past year i got so much older

I had a local minima kind of day - nothing wrong, precisely, but nothing very right either. I did get 8+ hours of sleep, which should have been restorative but perhaps just gave me more energy for my existential dread.

Either way, I finally dragged myself out of bed and made brunch - I tried to recreate Tony's huevos rancheros, and I would say I did a bang-up job. He serves his on top of a quesadilla instead of plain tortillas, so I made a quesadilla w/perfect cheddar and two corn tortillas (and a little olive oil to make the tortilla crispy instead of soft). I also doctored up a can of black beans with onion, garlic, cumin, coriander, cayenne, salt, and lime juice, which made them tasty. And my fried eggs were perfect - crispy on the bottom, soft yolky goodness in the middle.

So they turned out so well that I hummed a little when I took my first couple of bites, which is unusual. But after that, tings went downhill - maybe I was tired from such an awesome meal, or tired from my week in general, but I had a lot of trouble rallying. I did eventually go to pick up /return a couple of things at Nordstrom and Crate and Barrel, and I also made a stop at Locavore to get a few grocery tings that I was missing.

Then I came home, tidied up, reheated some chickpea stew, ate the chickpea stew, procrastinated a bit more, and finally wrote for awhile. I let myself be distracted by Aditya, though - we ended up watching the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion together over zoom, and you can tell how bored I was because I agreed to watch it despite not growing up watching the show. We ended up hanging out for quite some time - Priyanka joined us as the reunion was wrapping up, and the three of us went v. deep on politics, covid, the economy, and mouse infestations until approx ten minutes ago (12:30am MST, for those of you keeping track at home).

And now, even though I have much to say, I want to go to sleep - goodnight!

saturday, wait

Today was my last day of work until after Thanksgiving, which of course meant I had a lot to do - I was up and at 'em by nine, and I worked until seven. However, two hours of that was a happy hour with Vicky, whom I haven't caught up with in a long time, so it almost doesn't count. And then I slammed my work laptop shut, put it away, and promptly reheated and ate some of last night's chickpea stew (yummy). And I finished the night by finishing THE CITY WE BECAME by NK Jemisin - it was a total delight, and I wish I could write like that.

But now it's time for bed, and dreaming, and kicking my staycation off on the right note. Goodnight!

thursday doesn't even start

Today was another long-ish day in the pixel mines. Luckily, tomorrow is 'no meeting Friday', which means I only have 4.5hrs of meetings, which practically feels like a luxury.

So today, I woke up, made some coffee, and used my new Instant Pot steel cut oatmeal technique to make oatmeal while I showered. This was brilliant, since it's pretty easy to dump oatmeal, water, and a pinch of salt into an instant pot and turn it on and leave it alone. So I showered, drank some coffee, scooped out some oatmeal, and got to my laptop in time for an 8:30 meeting....

...and then had meetings straight until one, when I had a half hour break. I broke down and ordered a poke bowl since I was basically chained to my desk, and I timed it well enough that it arrived close to a break between meetings so that I could grab it and a pair of chopsticks and then eat it during a meeting. But I took a long break starting around 4:30 - I walked to the post office, dropped off a couple of returns, and bought some Christmas stamps. Then I came home and called my dad - it's his birthday today (happy birthday!) and so we had a long chat about tractors and corn prices and mice and Kansas and chickpeas, among other things.

Then I finished making my chickpea stew (the Alison Roman recipe that was ubiquitous earlier in the year - I still like it), ate my chickpea stew while browsing twitter, and was tempted to go to bed at eight. But I rallied and worked for a couple of hours, which means I'm fully caught up on email - I would like to take all next week off, and this makes me feel more confident that I will be able to.

And now I need to go to bed so I can finish the week strong - goodnight!

tuesday, wednesday break my heart

I'm feeling too tired to blog - I worked too late last night, went to bed too late, and got up too early to start the whole process over again. My meetings and other activities were fine - in one of my meetings, someone actually hired a goat ('goat to meeting') to dial in for ten minutes, which meant we all just got to watch a goat roaming around on camera. It was bizarre and stupid and wonderful, and I'm v. impressed with the goat farm's business model.

So I slogged all day, but it wasn't too onerous. When I was done, I ate a snack and then made a Whole Foods run - I may want a little more fresh produce for next week, but for now I'm pretty well stocked up for the staycation / writing retreat that I'm planning to indulge in. I have plenty of food, decorative items to put up for Christmas, grand plans to turn my guest room into a space for kettlebells/yoga, a new velvet sweatsuit, and a book to write...and I just have to make it to Friday afternoon unscathed, which I think I can do.

So I bought some groceries, came home, put everything away, and ate some more boeuf bourguignon. There were still three servings left, so I froze two of them, which means I can make something else tomorrow. Then I messed around and did basically nothing until now, with the exception of some journaling / stuff for the class I'm taking with Alyssa.

And now I need to sleep and hope it restores me - goodnight!

simmer down and pucker up

I'm suddenly too tired to keep sitting here in front of a screen - it's 11:38pm, and I just did day job work for the last two hours. That was on top of a grind straight from 9 to 6:30 (although I did take a break somewhere in there to take a twenty minute walk, since it was seventy degrees out and that kind of gift in mid-November can't be wasted). Tings are busy at work, and I figured that I would sleep better if I wasn't stressed about being behind, but I'm not sure that was entirely the right move.

However, I did relax a bit this evening - I talked to my parents for almost an hour while I reheated and ate some boeuf bourguignon (still so fucking delicious, I can't even). And I messed around a bit online. But now I really need to get seven solid hours of sleep so that I can make it through whatever tomorrow holds - goodnight!

she's a silver lining

I didn't sleep well last night, mostly because I probably should have worked last night and didn't, and so woke up in the middle of the night with my head racing with all the things I needed to do. But I was able to fall back asleep, and I enjoyed my coffee with some journaling before work, and so I was able to recover my equilibrium. I slogged pretty hard all day (although perhaps not hard enough), then stopped around six so that I could get on with my evening.

My evening was not particularly productive, as it turns out. But I did make eggplant tricolore to use up the eggplant in my fridge before it went bad; I didn't eat it tonight, but it's better after spending some time in the fridge anyway, so I'll have a v. tasty lunch tomorrow. While that was cooking, I heated up last night's bouef bourguignon, and it was even better tonight - exactly the kind of decadent winter cooking I adore, especially with mashed potatoes.

Then I messed around online, texted with [censored] and Drewbaby, ordered some more Christmas stuff (we've entered the decor hoarding stage of the pandemic, but I'm pretty excited to put solar-powered LED lights on the miniature pine tree in my front yard), and generally chilled. And now I think I'll try to go to bed early so that I can get up early and tackle stuff I should have done tonight....

...but one last thing! In my mindless internet browsing I discovered that gluten free Oreos are coming in 2021! And that means I could make Oreo blizzards at home...cookies and cream anything is one of the things I miss most about the gf life, so this is v. exciting news. 2021 is already looking promising, even though we're going to slog through tens of thousands of covid deaths to get there.

And on that note, stay safe and goodnight!

been wondering if your heart's still open, and if so, i wanna know what time it shuts

 Today was a delight. I stayed in bed until nine, which went a long way toward restoring me. Then I decided to make good use of the fact that it was nice for the first time in a week - instead of writing, I made some coffee, took a luxurious shower (luxury = shaving AND washing my hair on the same day), made an omelette, and generally practiced self-care for awhile. Then Katie came over - it was just nice enough to sit outside and stay six feet apart, especially since the sun was shining and I had a tank top / long sleeved shirt / sweatshirt + winter-weight leggings + uggs. We didn't eat anything, but I drank a lot of coffee and Katie drank whatever sparkling water beverages she'd brought with her, and we talked about a variety of subjects, and it was perfectly lovely.

Katie left around one, and I had some leftover thai food for lunch, took care of some tings around the house, and then ran an errand in Cherry Creek. I'd ordered some more Crate and Barrel stuff (they are getting most of my money during the pandemic -- but they're probably behind Athleta, since I keep buying leggings / joggers in an effort to cozy my way out of any malaise), and so I went and picked it up at their curbside delivery station. Then I came straight home, since the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon is not where I want to be even during non-pandemic times - I could use a few things, but none of it was pressing, so I'll sneak out some weekday afternoon or break down and get it delivered.

When I got home, I immediately started making an unnecessarily elaborate dinner - I was in the mood to make the Barefoot Contessa's boeuf bourguignon, which I used to make occasionally for dinner parties but haven't made in at least 5-7 years since I a) no longer have dinner parties and b) have too many friends who don't eat beef. It takes close to three hours, but it's worth it - very luscious beef cubes, a lot of bacon, a lot of onion, some carrots, and a whole lot of mushrooms. It also calls for an entire bottle of wine, and you also add 1/2 c of cognac and burn it off (which adds some flavor / char to the veg). All in all, it's delicious, and it's even better on top of mashed potatoes (which I seem to have perfected in my new stand mixer).

So, by the time it was done, I was pretty much in heaven - and I am v. much looking forward to leftovers. While it was cooking, I talked to my parents, who were kind enough to interrupt their viewing of a John Wayne movie for the fifteenth time this year to talk to me (thanks guys!). And after I was done eating, I cleaned up my kitchen, instagrammed my cooking adventure, and generally procrastinated until now.

And now it's time for bed - goodnight!

i guess what i'm tryna say is i need the deep end, keep imagining meeting, wished away entire lifetimes

I was much more hermity than intended today, but it's because I spent over three hours making a breakfast that I normally would have spent fifteen minutes on. We're doing some Olympics-type activity at work, with a variety of competitions, and one of those competitions is a cooking challenge. But since no one can taste or verify whether any output is good, the challenge is instead to make a single meal with as many appliances as possible.

I think I successfully used every single appliance I own, with the exception of my grill (it's been violently windy off and on all day, and I didn't think lighting a grill was a good idea). This included doing truly inefficient things like using my food processor to shred some cheese for an omelette (I have bags of shredded cheese, or I would normally just use a grater). But I made another batch of those pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting that I liked so well a couple of weeks ago, and the omelette that I made was one of the best ever - using an immersion blender to beat two eggs was overkill, but the omelette was certainly fluffy.

I also made steel cut oatmeal in my instant pot in the first time, and I was v. impressed - it doesn't save time from cooking it on the stove, but it seemed creamier and didn't require monitoring/stirring, so I'm a fan. And I grilled slices of apple to put on top of it using my panini press, which is another trick I never would have tried but was actually quite nice. So while I don't intend to make this particular combination of things with this particular level of appliance overload again, at least I learned some new techniques.

But that meant I didn't have breakfast until after noon (I had a couple of snacks and a lot of coffee to get me going), and by the time I cleaned up my kitchen it felt like the day was shot. I spent some time catching up on correspondence, and then I took a bath, and then I took a nap. I had planned to cook tonight, but I was definitely not in the mood - so I ordered thai food (which was exactly what I was craving) and read half of THE CITY WE BECAME by N.K. Jemisin. So far it's great, but I managed to pull myself away at the midpoint so that I can go to bed at a reasonable hour.

And now that reasonable hour is upon me - it's definitely time for bed. Happy Diwali to all my Diwali-celebrating friends - goodnight!

my head is giving me life or death but i can't choose

I'm super tired and need to go to bed soon - I have grand hermit plans for the weekend, so I don't want to stay up all night. But today was decent enough - I didn't write this morning, but I did journal before slogging all day. I took a break while it was still daylight so that I could take a walk, and then I had an extended happy hour with a coworker (Sara, who is one of my favorites). We talked for two hours or so, until our takeout orders arrived, and it was a delight to catch up with her.

Then I ate my takeout (I was in the mood for guac, so I made it happen), talked to [censored], messed around, took a nap, and watched last week's SNL. And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

somebody's calling you out for somеthing you never said

I meant to go to bed an hour ago, but if I close my laptop as soon as I'm done typing, I can salvage my bedtime. Today was good, all in all - I got up in time to write before work, and I snacked my way through the day (the last of my leftover hash and eggs; a bologna sandwich for lunch; an apple and some peanut butter; a charcuterie plate with soppressata, cheese, and almonds). Some of my meetings were vaguely annoying, but I survived them. And then I wrote again after work, since I had a writing date set up with Veronica and Anne - we're all doing nanowrimo, so it's been great to reconnect (albeit completely virtually).

But by 6:45 I was done with working/writing. So I made my charcuterie plate, finished my glass of wine, and read the rest of NINTH HOUSE. It was excellent - it had started out slow, but it was really good and twisty since it was basically a magical murder mystery (and with Yale secret societies, which is my jam). Only bummer is that I thought it was a standalone and it is instead the beginning of a series, and the next book likely won't be out until 2022. But, it already got optioned by Amazon Studios for a tv show, so hopefully that means the next book will actually come out at some point because I have feelings about that ending.

And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

better nix my summer plans

Today was pretty good, although I was tired by the end of it - I didn't get enough sleep, and I intend to rectify that posthaste. But I dragged myself out of bed in time to write, so that was a delight. And then I showered, slogged all day, took a break to eat a poke bowl, and took another break to have class with Alyssa. When that was over, I made dinner while talking to [censored] - he was good, but my porkchop, polenta, and brussels sprouts were even better.

Then I was tired, so I doomscrolled and cleaned my kitchen. And then I had an 8:30pm meeting with someone in India and did another hour of work right after. But now I've gotten through what I need to get through, and I'm going to read a bit and go to bed - goodnight!

scroll and key

I have no updates of note, but that rarely stops me. I woke up in time to meditate and write before work; I am still behind on nanowrimo, but I got a thousand words this morning and I’ll take it. Then I showered and slogged; the slogging wasn’t the most effective, but it was better than nothing.

I stopped slightly early and took a walk, but it was colder than I thought and I wasn’t prepared for it, so I came home before I froze. Then I had a virtual happy hour with Caroline; we had dreamed of meeting outside in person, but it’s too cold for outside and cases are spiking too much to be inside, so we went virtual instead. I ate some fancy cheese and drank a glass of wine while talking to her, and it was great.

Then, I should have done many tings, but instead I did a bit of kitchen work, made a bologna sandwich, and read NINTH HOUSE for a couple of hours. I really just want to finish it, but I can’t stay up any later if I want to write tomorrow...so it’s time for bed!

nobody’s coming to save me

It snowed today, and the view from my desk was bleak, but I still had a decent day. I wrote quite a bit before work, then slogged until six-ish. Then I ate leftover fish tacos, caught up on some tings, and started reading a new book (NINTH HOUSE by Leigh Bardugo, which is v different from her Grishaverse books because it’s set in Yale’s secret societies). And now I am going to go to bed - goodnight!

somebody's ripping you off, trying to sell you good news

I'm super super tired, probably because I got up at 7:30 by accident (after going to bed at one, after getting not nearly enough sleep any night last week). So I'm blogging early and am going to crawl into bed and finish the book I started last night and absolutely not start any of the other books that are waiting to tempt me.

Today was good overall, though - I messed around, made some delicious hash (potatoes, onions, green pepper, bacon) and ate it with a couple of fried eggs, and then had a writing date with Veronica. The writing went well, although it took an unexpected turn; I wrote a little bit more tonight to see where it's headed, and so far I like it. We shall see, we shall see.

When I was done talking to V, I did some house stuff. I also raked my back patio, which took some effort; my big tree is lovely in summer, but it dumped all its leaves at once and my patio was a disaster. I got it mostly cleaned up, with some leaves left behind as mulch for my shrubbery, so that felt pretty good.

Then I talked to [censored] while eating a snack. And then I walked down to my favorite cheese shop to buy some chorizo; there's a chickpea and chorizo cassoulet that I last made approx fifteen years ago, and I'm thinking it might be time to resurrect it. When I got home, I did some chopping of vegetables, then called my parents. And then I finished prepping dinner - I made fish tacos, which were delicious, and now I have enough leftovers for tomorrow that I could potentially not cook if I don't want to, but we shall see.

Then I cleaned up my kitchen, came upstairs, wrote for a little bit, and now you're all caught up. It's time for me to read and go to bed - goodnight!