Buffalo Ranch Chicken salad.

It has been a long day. The evening is proving aggravating. This calls for easily made comfort food. Since I didn't have the stuff to make the chicken salad with the cranberries and almonds that I liked from Aldi's, I did the next best thing. I made Buffalo Ranch chicken salad from stuff I had on hand. To be honest, I think it came out pretty well.

I used one can of chicken breast (drained). I added a 1/2 cup of mayonnaise and one scallion cut fine. I then put in the last of my bottle of semi-homemade ranch dressing, I guess it was about two tablespoons. I estimate I added an equivalent amount of Sirachca (however you spell it) and a teaspoon of celery flakes. I think it came out ok. We'll see what Beloved thinks of it.

In the meantime, I'm going to make myself a cup of coffee and try not to think about the holidays and stuff. Because it is proving stressful and I'm about ready to just scream at the kids because they're screwing around instead of picking stuff up as they should be. And I'm just done with it. Today is the second day in as many weeks that I had to sit down and sort stuff out so that it could get put away. I'm sorely tempted to just start throwing away every toy I step on. And we haven't managed to get anything actually cleaned up yet.

If things continue at this rate, we're not decorating for Yule or really doing anything fun. We'll just be attempting to get shit cleaned up every damn day. And then they'll get a mess of toys and it'll be an even bigger disaster. I may be in a pessimistic mood right now. It's been a rough couple of days for me mental health wise.

Feelings are messy.

So, I've been sick most of the month. It started with a cold. Then there was a norovirus (I'm pretty sure it was one, I had the same stomach issues that I did last time I caught one.) that lasted for about two weeks. A few days after I was over that, I caught the flu. Again with stomach unhappiness. On top of all of that, we're still adjusting my medications and I'm dealing with seasonal affective disorder along side my other mental health fun. (Fun being said in the greatest of sarcastic tones.)

On top of all of this, the feelings of rejection are really hard. I am getting ahead of myself, however. I have a cocktail of mental health problems that have made my life challenging for years. It's been rough and I struggle with the fact that I am disabled due to it all. It is also hard for me to accept how it has effected the lives of people around me. Especially the negative effects.

I have bipolar disorder. I was diagnosed with it after postpartum depression lead to postpartum psychosis. It was handled badly by the people who were treating me at the time. It lead to other problems. Long and horrible story short, I wound up in the hospital where I got the bipolar diagnosis (with psychotic features when the depression gets really bad). As I was in the hospital, I found myself basically talking about a lot of past trauma. From what I remember, which isn't much because of all the medications that I was on at the time, I talked about trauma from when I was a small child.

It was painful and, looking back, necessary to get that diagnosis. It was, however, probably one of the most dehumanizing experiences I have had in my life thus far.

The other diagnosis I have is post traumatic stress disorder. I can reluctantly live with this one because it is a diagnosis I have had for a long time. It was initially made when I was at college. I was having classic PTSD symptoms revolving around an abusive relationship I was in during high school. The clinician treating me had suspicions that there was additional things going on but I just wasn't read to hear it.

I reluctantly accepted that my childhood wasn't healthy at that time. Having more life experience under my belt and coming to realize that how I was raised wasn't "normal" lead to my butting heads with my parents. This made life in my parents' house problematic and I lived in fear of getting thrown out after a few confrontations. So, I went back to silent mode and did my best to get through college before they decided I was too much of a pain to deal with.

Cut to a year after I had graduated and I was struggling with my health. I lost my job because of health related absences. (I'm pretty sure it was illegal, but I was a broke college grad who had no means of reliable income to even think about suing the call center. And, honestly, at the time I was more concerned about what was going on with my health. Having asthma attacks so bad that you wind up leaving work in an ambulance is worse than losing said job after that ambulance ride.) A few days after I got fired from that job, my parents kicked me out. They said it was because I needed the life experience.

Fortunately, my grandparents had a rental property that I could stay in. My rent was based on keeping the place in decent condition which translated to cutting the grass and keeping things clean. Unfortunately, the location really had nothing for work and I relied on a part time retail job, food stamps, the generosity of my fiancee and my grandparents. My parents were outraged by this. That year was nothing but a mess on so many fronts. It's still hard to talk about it. But, aside from learning that my bout of near penumonia at college left me with scarring in my lungs, I had undiagnosed asthma, and developed a dangerous allergy to ibuprofen, I think the biggest transition I passed through was the realization that I had past trauma from when I was small and that my parents really weren't on my side.

The wedding planning was a fiasco in many ways that turned out well in spite of failures that happened. I have a lot of anger surrounding that. My husband and his family were awesome. My side of the family showed their true colors in a way that didn't fully hit me until years later. (For example, Mom and Dad took issue with the fact that I wanted to wear a dress that wasn't white, but Mom showed up at the wedding wearing a black sequined knock off evening gown. Black is worn to show disapproval of the union, if you're going by the same rules that said a bride must always where white.)

The years after I got married, I was busy with my own marriage and all the stuff that went together with being an adult living their own life. I got a lot of grief from my side of the family for not being around. There was some sense of insult over the fact that when I was unable to do something my husband went in my place to handle it. Apparently, they felt he wasn't good enough and I was too lazy. That sort of backhanded hostility has marked the entirety of my relationship with my parents and siblings (and some of the extended family as well). It has left me feeling like I wasn't wanted and a burden.

I also noticed a distinct pattern. I was supposed to go to them. They didn't come to visit me. They didn't call me to say hi or invite me over. I was supposed to court their good favor and be at their beck and call, regardless of what ever I had going on in my life. When I didn't do so, the reasons I had for not being there were never good enough for them. It didn't matter if I was sick to my stomach, I should have showed up to babysit. It didn't matter if I didn't know there was a big family dinner going on, I should have just shown up with precognitive awareness such a thing was happening.

I stopped talking to them after my second son was born because of insane behavior and outrageous threats that my mother had made to me. I called her on it. I made my father aware of it. And I was rejected by him because he said that "sometimes parents say things you don't like to make a point." So, I stopped talking to my parents for about five years. As I was concerned about my Mom creating a scene or doing something hurtful, I didn't go to annual family gatherings like the 4th of July party, Thanksgiving, or Christmas dinner.

Then I got the message from the dead family (because I really am psychic) that I was needed by the whole family. So I reached out to my parents (I had maintained contact with my grandparents the whole time.) and a week later came the cancer diagnosis for my grandfather. It was a long and painful year. Two years later, a few moths shy of my grandfather's death from cancer, my grandmother died. After that, I stuck around for my eldest niece to graduate high school and go off into the world.

I had thought that I was going to try to stay in contact with my side of the family beyond my nieces and an aunt. Then I got sick. I was really, really sick for months. When the holiday gatherings came up, I didn't attend and informed them that I was ill. They never called to see if I was well. They never sent me a letter.

That was when the decision to walk away crystallized. It's been a year. My maternal grandmother stopped writing me since I hadn't written her back. The last few letters were passive aggressive demands that I make nice with my parents because they were the only parents I have and it would make me feel better. I didn't write back a because those passive aggressive guilt trips had been coming in the mail attached to pretty much every other form of correspondence. It was when it was tucked in with one of the kids' birthday cards that I finalized that decision to go no contact.

It was my decision to walk away. I did it for my mental health. I did it to protect myself and my family from the toxic influence of problematic people whom I happen to be related to. It still hurts that they never bothered to call me. It still hurts that they rejected me with their silence. I never wanted this. I know that they tell each other that I only come around when I want something. They tell each other that I'm the broken one and I'm a coward. These are things they've been telling each other and me for as long as I have been alive. They're not saying it to me now, but I can still almost hear it.

And it hurts.

I kept silent about all of this because I was worried that my Mom was reading my blog here. I was ashamed of my failed relationship with them. Today, however, is a new day. And my self respect demands that I lay my cards on the table. I'm not going to tolerate emotional abuse, slander, or gaslighting. I had enough of that in the years before now. Aside from the holidays being hard and various points during the year when trauma anniversaries popup, I'm healthier now than I ever was dealing with them. I am going to continue to grow and thrive, even if I am disabled, because I'm not letting them hurt me anymore.

And, Mom or any of my other relatives reading this, I'm not answering the phone for you unless you're on the short list. And the people on the short list know who they are. And I'm going to block comments and other social media escapades from you as well, because you're unhealthy for me. It is you, not me. And I'm not apologizing for this.

Menu week of 11/27/17

Here's the menu for my place this week. 95% of it is using up leftovers from last week's meals.



 
    Date
    Breakfast
    Lunch
    Dinner
 
 
    Sun
    Donuts
    Sandwiches
    Naan Pizzas
 
 
    Mon
    Scrambled
eggs &
toast
    Kids - School
Beloved- Peanut
noodle leftovers
Me - soup & salad
    Hamburgers,
carrot salad
 
 
    Tues
    Poptarts
& fruit
    Kids - School
Beloved - beans &
rice leftovers
Me - Salad & soup
    Tacos w/
fixings &
mexican rice
 
 
    Wed
    Scrambled
eggs &
toast
    Kids - School
Beloved - burrito
bowl & hard boiled
egg
Me: taco salad
    Baked ham
mashed
potatoes
peas
 
 
    Thurs
    Cereal /
pop-tarts
    Kids - School
Beloved - ham sandwich
& chips
me - mac & cheese w/
ham
    Southwest
MooShu
Chicken wraps
with pork fried
rice
 
 
    Fri
    Eggs /
pancakes
    Kids - School
Beloved - leftovers
Me - leftovers
    Pork korma
quinoa
tossed salad
naan
 
 
    Sat
    Eggs &
hash
    Leftovers /
salads
    Spaghetti &
meatballs
 

Na-NOPE.

So, I'm just done. I am frustrated with my NaNoWriMo project. And there's no way I can make up twenty something posts in a few days with out being annoying for the NaBloPoMo thing this month. I'm tired of feeling like I have failed some how. I have made the executive decision to set this stuff aside and focus on getting things that make me feel better done instead. And finishing off Yule preparations.

While I don't have the 12 days of Yule stuff done up for Beloved, I have a pretty good start on something for the kids. I'm trying to decide what awesomeness I am going to whip together to finish off the pile of small Yule gifts. The most frustrating part of all of the gifts is not going to be wrapping. It is going to be final assembly on two gifts. One is made of small parts to be sewn together. The other is a bunch of small parts to be drawn and such. At least I know that I've got the stamina for that detail work. LOL

Incoming Sarcasm, be advised.

So, I'm finally over the cold I had at the beginning of the month, the gastro-intestinal bug that hit after that, and the flu. That was great fun. I got a lot of stuff done. It was mostly hacking up gross stuff and feeling like death on toast. I attempted housework. It didn't work out so great. And I attempted to write a novel.

Said novel is in a notebook sitting on the desk across the room from me right now. I have been struggling for the last hour to summon up the mental energy to work on it. It is hard to do because I feel like it is garbage. I feel like NaNoWriMo has defeated me for a second year. A part of me says I should just give up on writing books because of it. My mood isn't too great at the moment because I feel kinda like a failure for not completing this thing.

I'm attempting to get past all of the horrible stuff I keep seeing in the news. It is really upsetting me to keep reading about things like people murdering transgendered people, gay people, and persons of color because they're there. And the relative impunity of said actions is part of what I find particularly distressing. The deceased could be people whom I love dearly. I see these news reports and I want to cry, scream, and burn everything down all at the same time. I find myself afraid of what these people would do to my children simply because they're autistic. (Because there are quite a few people out in the world who seem to think that autism is something that means you should just be dead. Same people have similar feelings about people with mental illness and disabilities that are not visible.)

I am struggling to be social because my social phobia is acting up pretty bad right now. I tell myself it is because it is the holidays and I made the mistake of going to the local wally world this Saturday. I'm not so sure though. I have an appointment coming up soon with my psychiatrist. I'll be bringing this up when I see him. I need to make an appointment to see the psychologist he has on staff, but my anxiety keeps getting in my way. It's really upsetting. It is getting in the way of doing other things that are necessary, like applying for disability or whatever it is that I qualify for because I'm disabled.

It's just been a rough November. And the grief of the deaths of my paternal grandparents has been hitting me pretty hard. All in all, I'm looking forward to January so that I can just put this time of year behind me and pretend it doesn't exist. The 'holiday spirit' just doesn't happen for me anymore. I feel badly about this because my kids get so excited and happy. And I just can't get into it. It make me feel like I'm broken or something. Because I'm not happy when everyone else around me seems to be.

So, yeah, this was a *great* November. And I've got five days left to screw it up still. Oh joy.

NaBloPoMo Post 2: Ugh, rain.

It is right now raining. Fortunately, the roof is not leaking. It was the one repair that the landlord made sure got done. I'm still trying to get the guy to fix the bathroom sink. It's been over a year now that I've been trying to get it fixed. I think we've gone through three plumbers. Honestly, I'm tempted to say fuck it all and fix it myself.

My shoulder is killing me right now. But my head is not because I found out I could take Sudafed. It's amazing what that stuff can do for a terrible headache when you've got a head cold. Now I'm just trying to rest and get some writing done. Aside from that, make the menu for next week and write up my planner (including the grocery list) are on my list of stuff to get done today. And one well earned long, hot shower. I think the last of the blue hair dye is going to wash out today. I'm a little sad but I'm going to be bleaching my hair in the not too distant future to do this all again and actually have it show up. Because apparently my hair is far darker than I thought it was. Though the grey REALLY stands out right now.

NaBloPoMo 1: Sick, again.

May be a head cold. May be a sinus infection. But I'm sick and feel pretty awful. Still attempting NaNoWriMo. And trying to finish my project from last NaNoWriMo.

While my head is killing me and I have an intermittent fever. So, as the meme says, I need a bigger NOPE. I want to get stuff done, dammit.

Feeling are not facts.

I feel terrible. I am not a terrible person. I feel depressed. My life is actually going more or less ok. I feel worthless. I am an invaluable part of my household. I feel like I don't deserve to be loved, that I have not earned the privilege. Everyone deserves to be loved. It is not a privilege, it is a basic necessity for life.

This list goes on and on.

I'm fighting myself pretty hard today. It is exhausting. I find myself swinging somewhere between utter apathetic despair that I am going to be like this for the rest of my days and absolute grief for the horrors happening in the world, for the things I've lost in my life due to Bipolar, and for all the potential that could have happened between me and people who are just not healthy for me to be around.

And I hurt, very, very deeply.

A part of me wants to give up on everything writing related because nothing will ever be good enough. Another part of me says that if I give up, I will lose another vital part of myself and this is committing slow suicide.

Good thing I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow, though I am dreading this appointment. And my PTSD has been in high gear for various reasons. I'm exhausted but sleep doesn't help with this form of exhaustion. I will keep putting one foot in front of the other. If nothing, I am stubborn.

Menu week of 10/22/17

I'm working on pre-cooking some things for the week. I found a recipe for how to make a big batch of scrambled eggs in the oven. I'm going to be starting on that in a few minutes. I will be cooking up a small beef roast tomorrow in the crock-pot to be used in making pulled beef for enchiladas tomorrow evening. I'm also going to store some of that pulled beef in the freezer for another dinner on another night. The guys all seemed to enjoy bbq pulled beef last week. (I was going to make the pork roast and discovered it had gone bad in the time I thawed it to when I was going to cook it, a few days later. Thus, I pulled out the beef roast and cooked it.)

The teriyaki meatballs are going to be made with Grandma K.'s recipe. The stuff using ready made meatballs and teriyaki marinade is ok. But Grandma's version is better. So, I'm going to make a big pan of meatballs and save some for later. I also have a partial bag of meatballs from the store that I'm going to use on Saturday in the spaghetti. At some point during the week, I will be making spaghetti sauce. Ever since I got the 1.5L crock-pot, I've been making things like soup stock and sauces. The salsa came out a little too salty, but I think I can fix that by cutting the half batch I have in the freezer with a can of crushed tomatoes. I have been using the McCormick spaghetti sauce spices with crushed tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce. It came out really well and made dinner last Saturday a lot easier.

I'm beginning to think that pre-cooking things for the week may be a habit that I want to cultivate. I still have to finish cooking down my chicken stock. But, as I work at it, my plan is to turn that into the base for a pot of perpetual soup over the next several months. Stealing an idea from generations before me and what not. End results of the change I have made thus far in how I handle how much I am cooking has helped me cut down on food waste and how much we spend at the grocery store.

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	Eggs & kale / donuts	Sandwiches	Naan Pizzas
Mon	Pop-tarts & donuts	Kids - School Beloved- Spaghetti Me - spring rolls	Hamburgers, carrot salad
Tues	Cereal	Kids - School Beloved - Turkey sandwich & chips Me - Salad	Beef enchiladas with beans & rice (tossed salad?)
Wed	Eggs / Pancakes	Kids - School Beloved - burrito bowl & hard boiled egg Me: taco salad	Sweet & sour pork roast with quinoa and garlic green beans
Thurs	Cereal / pop-tarts	Kids - School Beloved - cuban sandwich & chips me - bbq pulled pork with mac & cheese (non-dairy)	Teriyaki meatballs pad thai & Thai chicken coconut soup (peanut noodles for kids)
Fri	Eggs / pancakes	Kids - School Beloved - leftovers Me - leftovers	Sloppy joes with biscuits & tossed salad
Sat	Eggs & hash	Leftovers / salads	Spaghetti & meatballs

Menu week of 10/15/17

Hi there,

It's been kinda busy over here. I'm trying to stay on top of stuff. It's a bit hard, because it seems like everything is happening all at once. That said, here is the menu for this week. I changed things up on Sunday and yesterday. Sunday was roast chicken. Because I really wanted to have roast chicken. And yesterday I was out of spoons early on. So I had Beloved pick us up some takeout while the kids had their favorite sandwiches and some chips.

Lunch has become less complicated with how the school lunch thing is getting back into the swing of it all. (There was a hiccup because I filled out the form incorrectly and added an extra zero. This has been resolved and the boys are back on the free lunch program.)  I'm not going to post yesterday and Sunday's menus. Because we're done with that. But here is the remainder of the week:

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Mon	---	---	---
Tues	Cereal	leftovers / chili w/ biscuit / school lunch	tacos, salad, & mexican rice
Wed	Pop-tarts	Leftovers/ salad	sweet & sour pork roast w/ rice & salad
Thurs	Eggs	Turkey sandwich w/ chips / chicken salad wrap & veggies	pulled pork mashed potatoes broccoli
Fri	Cereal	Turkey sandwich w/ chips / leftovers	chicken korma w/ rice & veggies
Sat	Eggs & bacon	Leftovers/ Sandwiches	spaghetti & meatballs
Sun	Eggs & hash	Leftovers	Pizza

Diet & Healthy Food Stuff.

Be forewarned, this post is really heavy on the picture content.

It has been quite a while since I updated anything. I keep emailing myself pictures of things I've made for dinner and then forgetting to put them up anywhere. So, in keeping with today's theme of housekeeping and managing paperwork, I am going to try to get blog work done too. (After this post, I'm going to go wash some dishes to be followed by a post on one of my other blogs. Because blogging makes a good reward after doing dishes.) I have been gradually switching my diet to something more vegetarian-ish. I have also been in the process of cutting carbohydrates out and getting rid of dairy. (Discovering that one of the sources of my stomach related misery was diary made me sad, but I'll live.)

For some reason, the picture of this meal didn't send. I had beet noodles (made using a Vegetti spiral cutter) that I sauteed with summer squash (also cut with the spiral cutter), cashews, and spinach. I then topped it with some goat cheese. Along side, I had 3 bean chili with textured vegetable protein crumbles that were seasoned like taco meat. Alas, the chili was a loss and the goat cheese made my stomach unhappy later - though it tasted amazing.

This was kale along side grilled chicken in chicken paprikash with yellow sweet bell pepper in it on noodles cut from summer squash. The high diary content wasn't great for my lactose intolerance, but this was the meal I had shortly before the proverbial penny dropped and I realized what part of my problem was.

The day that I had this for dinner, I had a relatively low carbohydrate meals for most of the day. Breakfast has been a bowl of cereal with some dehydrated fruit thrown on top of it (usually dehydrated strawberries) and a cup of coffee on the side. Lunch is usually a salad of some sort.

I am finding that I really enjoy kale in pretty much anything I can get my hands on. I also have been really enjoying beets. My preference has been for pickled beets, but since I started taking Agestin, I have been all about pickles of pretty much any form. Direct result of this is that pickles have been a regular between meal snack.

Zucchini cut into 'ribbons' with my vegetable peeler comes pretty close to fettuccine. I had this with alfredo sauce on it. I then threw italian seasoning and red pepper flakes on top. It was ah-mazing. I highly recommend it. Because I was basically having nothing but a whole zucchini for dinner, I didn't add anything else to this meal for myself.

Dinner that night for the guys was spaghetti and meatballs.

This night, the guys had sandwiches. It was oppressively hot that day and I just didn't have the will to heat up the kitchen to cook burgers as I had planned. So, I broke out the flatbread that I picked up at Aldi's and then put a combination of romaine lettuce, bagged salad remnants, hummus, and tuna salad on there. Next time, I think I'm going to use a little less filling for the wrap.

Now, with the diet changes that I have made, I am allowing myself more than one wrap if I am super hungry. My thinking is that one tortilla or flatbread is pretty much the equivalent of a single slice of bread. Thus, two slices of bread worth of carbs is not going to be a big problem.

I have also been finding that romaine lettuce is a bit hard to roll up down the length of it because of that strong central rib. I am thinking about trying out using them in place of bread at some point. A friend who has gone ultra low carb and gluten free for health reasons has said they even work for hotdog buns.

My diet is not just veggies and I still allow myself tasty food. I have been making indian and chinese food a lot more often. This pic is from before I went from regular sized plates to using a salad plate for my meal. It has more carbs than I usually eat in a given meal, but it is also from right at the beginning of this diet change.

The chicken korma was fantastic. Aldi's right now has the korma simmer sauce. I don't know if it is going to be a regular part of their stock. It has been there for a few months now. I kinda hope it will be because it is delicious. I also picked up the garlic naan there as well. The spiced lentils are from a recipe that I found and put up on my Pinterest cooking page.

Of it all, the rice was probably the most basic part of the meal because it was plain. But that was because I wanted to use some of that korma sauce on it. (I love rice with sauces on it and with butter. It is something that isn't the healthiest thing for me, but it is a small vice I allow myself when I make this sort of stuff even now. I just have a smaller portion.)

Huh.

So, it looks like Etsy suspended my account because I didn't give them a credit card to bill. I guess this means that I am going to have to take a slightly different approach to selling stuff that I have been making. I just am not sure where to start. I mean, I don't have a credit card and I am not planning on getting one just to make Etsy happy.

I have been looking things over and thinking carefully about stuff like my attempts to sell things that I have been crafting and trying to make money via Keen. I need to sit down and do an inventory of what sort of things I have to sell. I also need to sit down and make a solid business plan for Keen. I may be disabled, but I would like to have some kind of income. It is demoralizing to not be able to say 'I have this physical item for my work.' I didn't realize how big of a deal this was for me until I started taking a hard look at what manner of things trigger depressive episodes.

One of my biggest triggers is not having tangible things to hold up and say 'Behold what I have been compensated in for my work.' It looks like Keen right now is going to be my biggest option for getting some kind of income. It is really hard for me to do Keen, though, because I have really intense issues with social phobia.

Still, I think if I make a plan and stick to it, Keen will prove worthy of remaining involved with and maybe even help me get past some of my enormous social issues.

Wish me luck, I suppose.

Menu for week of 9/10/17 & update

Hi again,

It has been a really busy week. School started last Wednesday. Beloved and I celebrated our anniversary last Monday. And somehow between then and now, I have been busy doing stuff like organizing everything and being cranky. I think this means I am in a mixed episode. It isn't that bad. I'm just extra cranky and extra focused on cleaning/organizing. No wild feelings that I must buy all the things. Though, I confess some annoyance that my brain is going faster than I can write at the moment. Nothing does a better job of making sure you're going to have typoes than trying to spell the word you're thinking instead of the one that is supposed to come next in the sentence.

Meals this week are a little bit easier now. The boys are doing school lunch. We qualify for the free lunch program, so this will actually be a big help. I am still packing lunches for Beloved. And I am still working on mastering the healthier lunches for myself. It became pretty clear last week that I need to stick with a low carbohydrate diet. The issue that created for me is cleared up now, but I must focus my enjoyment of carbohydrate rich foods into something done on the basis of much smaller portions than I have had in the past. I also am replacing my carbohydrate rich foods with ones that are lower in carbohydrates or completely free of them.

I tried making my own veggie burgers but it made a complete mess. I am going to eventually master how to make these things with out a ton of rice in them. Aside from that, I'm going to keep doing the veggie noodles. I am afraid that I am going to have to limit how much I can have by way of sweet potatoes and potatoes. For some reason, I thought that they were relatively ok to have instead of the wheat based pastas. I was wrong. They're better than some of the wheat pastas but just as carbohydrate laden as the others. It's tough because I want something with the same mouth feel as regular pasta. Thus, I am going with portion control. Instead of a normal dinner plate for my meals, I am using one of my fancy good china salad plates. While I do have salad plates from the everyday basic set, the fancy plate makes me feel a little better about my smaller portions because they look kinda pretty.

Here's this week's menu.

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Mon	Eggs	Sandwiches	Hamburgers w/ fixings
Tues	Cereal	Spaghetti & meatballs / salad w/ hummus	Pulled chicken enchiladas & mexican rice
Wed	Pop-tarts	Leftovers/ salad	BBQ Hotdogs w/ fixings, salad & chips
Thurs	Eggs	Turkey sandwich w/ chips / chicken salad wrap & veggies	Spaghetti & homemade meat sauce w/ salad & garlic bread
Fri	Cereal	Turkey sandwich w/ chips / leftovers	Pork chops w/ sweet potatoes & peas
Sat	Eggs & bacon	Leftovers/ Sandwiches	Roast beef w/ root veggies & broccoli
Sun	Eggs & hash	Leftovers	Pizza

Menu for the week of 9/4/17

Hi there!

Today has been a busy day. It is my wedding anniversary. We were out to lunch this afternoon and we enjoyed some quiet time as his folks watched the boys. It was really nice to just get some alone time with Beloved. Also, the new Mexican restaurant in Geneseo is pretty good. I highly recommend it. The service was excellent. The food was excellent. And the atmosphere was excellent. We also got a giggle at the random song that was playing with elements of Felix Mendelssohn's wedding march from A Midsummer's Night's Dream while we were eating. We both agreed that the coincidence had Flame-Hair's fingerprints all over it.

This week school starts up again. It makes for lunch time to be much quieter starting Wednesday during the week. I still, however, am going to make lunches for Beloved and myself, obviously. The goal is to get to where we are both eating super healthy meals. We're making good progress on that. I have been doing a reasonable job of staying on the low carb diet. It helps that I love zucchini and it is in season right now. (Gods bless the gardeners and the farmers who are sharing their bounty with the rest of us.)

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Mon	Pop-Tarts	Sandwiches	Leftovers
Tues	Cereal	Spaghetti & meat sauce / salad & sandwiches	BBQ beef ribs w/ salt potatoes & garlic green beans
Wed	Pop-tarts	Leftovers/ salad	Pulled pork w/ apple slaw
Thurs	Waffles	Cuban sandwich/ mac & cheese w/ pulled pork	Tacos w/ fixings & Mexican rice
Fri	Cereal	Burrito bowl / taco salad	Chicken korma w/ jasmine rice & raita
Sat	Eggs & bacon	Leftovers/ Sandwiches	Roast chicken w/ mashed potatoes & broccoli / carrots
Sun	Eggs & hash	Leftovers	Pizza

Fiber Fluff: Miss Gus's bonnet.

My grand-dolly, Miss Gus & My pattern notebook

So, I make stuff when I'm anxious. Kids have fidget toys, I have yarn and stuff for making yarn. Yesterday, my brain was a bit off kilter with worry about how the N. Korea thing was shaping up and the matter of Hurricane Harvey. So, I busted out some of the yarn I was donated by LivoniaLily's mom and a crochet hook. A half hour later, I had a preemie/dolly hat.

Gus is a GIRL. Snuggle Bug is HIGHLY offended if you misgender Gus. Gus is also named after a friend from the bus, who is also a girl. I had a proud momma moment over this incident. So, I decided to name this after Miss Gus.

What you can't see clearly on my project notebook is the statement emblazoned on the cover. "Perfect is Boring." It's a good reminder for me to be less hyper focused on turning out perfect results.

Here's the pattern. I think I probably screwed something up in it. If you find any errors, let me know and I'll correct them.

R1: Make a magic ring. Single crochet twelve stitches into the ring. Slip stitch the final stitch of the round to the first. Chain one.
R2: Single crochet 24 stitches (one increase for each of the original 12 stitches). Slip stitch the final stitch of the round to the first. Chain two.
R3: *Half double crochet increase by 1 in first stitch, half double crochet into following stitch.* Work * in the usual fashion around the round. Slip stitch final stitch of round to first. Chain two.
R4: *Half double crochet increase by 1 in first stitch, half double crochet into each of following two stitches.* Work * in the usual fashion around the round. Slip stitch final stitch of the round to first. Chain two.
R5: Half double crochet into each stitch of the round. At final stitch, chain two and turn.
R6 - 11: repeat R5.
R12: Crab stitch across all stitches. bind off.

With DPNs, pick up 3 stitches at corner of final row. Knit an I-cord that is 6 in long. Bind off, weave in ends. Repeat for opposite corner.

The yarn I used for Miss Gus's bonnet is a fuzzy sport weight baby acrylic. I used a 'd' crochet hook. My DPNs were size 5mm. Snuggle Bug will not want Miss Gus to lose her bonnet. So, I am going to make another one. I'll try to post a picture of it before I send it off to donation.

No spoons left, only knives.

I have been taking an unplanned hiatus from social media recently. It started when I was hypomanic because I didn't want to say or do something stupid, offensive, or cruel because in my disordered thinking it was 'clever, funny, or honest.' I continue this hands off approach towards the internet right now because my tolerance for the garbage flying around everywhere is really low.

Listening to the news makes me super anxious. It generally tends to low key trigger me for the day. Which is why I ceased my previously resumed habit of listening to the morning news as I fixed breakfast. It's hard to scramble eggs and make bacon with two small people running around. It's even harder when listening to how the nation is on the brink of nuclear war is bringing out the ugliest aspects of the nation, up to and including rabid white supremacists whom I have such a deep loathing of that it reaches into a visceral urge to vomit when I hear their trash talk.

Watching the disasters unfolding around the world breaks my heart and has me deeply concerned for everyone and everything involved. Hurricane Harvey, the flooding in India and Pakistan, the other man made disasters such as the chemical spills in major waterways responsible for providing drinking water for entire communities and regions... they're all enough to again make me feel ill, especially the ones that are created out of humanity's gross disregard and disrespect of nature.

Thus, I am weary into my soul on these fronts. I had this grand idea of starting a feminist oriented news blog where I and a cadre of similar minded female identified people kept others abreast of the threats to us all. I haven't gotten even the first post done because of how awful everything in the news has been. You don't need someone to point out where the problems are. It is slapped in your face daily.

It also is something that has made it hard for me to write. I literally am struggling with this awful feeling that all of my written work is pure vanity. This is not depression talking here. (I'm at a fairly neutral mental state, actually. This is because the medication is actually working.) It is a sense of being very small and watching the sea draw back for a massive tsunami and having no high ground to retreat to. I look at it all and go "What can I do to help? I am but one woman. I don't even have the spoons to manage all of the balls up in the air in my own household. How in the nine worlds would I manage to do other stuff?"

Horace said "Nil desperandum." Never despair. I am attempting to follow the sage's wise words. It is, however, very difficult.

Monday menu & rambling.

Hi folks,

It's been a while since I posted. The kids have kept me busy. And my own stuff regarding my health has been keeping me busy. School starts September 6th. I am literally counting down the days. We have all the school supplies they need. I may need to buy a few pairs of pants, but we're more or less set on clothes. I have been mending things as necessary. Something I learned was that if you use sport weight yarn to darn holes in denim, it makes a better patch than doing so with sewing thread or with an iron on patch. (The latest issue of Piecework also has a great articles on techniques for how to mend clothes via darning. I highly recommend it.)

My menu this week is super simple and kid friendly. I am just tired of fighting with them over food. I am also in the process of trying to figure out how many spoons I have that I can put towards lunches for the kids. I am leaning again towards the reduced lunch program. A part of me feels guilty about this. I realize, however, I am not in a competition with anyone and the goal is to have the kids eating healthy. Throw in how their medication tends to reduce their appetite, I am thinking about what I can do to get them to eat nutritionally dense foods. I'm still researching that right now. Enough about that now, let's get that menu up here.

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Mon	Pop-Tarts	Sandwiches	Macaroni and cheese
Tues	Cereal	Grilled Cheese	Meatball sandwiches
Wed	Pop-tarts	Pb & j 'Sushi' w/ fruit leather	Spaghetti & meat sauce
Thurs	Waffles	Spaghetti pie	Hot dogs & fries
Fri	Cereal	Octo-dogs w/ veggies & chips	Pork chops w/ cheese potatoes
Sat	Eggs & bacon	Leftovers/ Sandwiches	Pulled chicken (bbq) with tossed salad
Sun	Eggs & hash	Leftovers	Pizza

New glasses and stuff.

Behold, my glorious new bifocals. And disregard my bad hair moment. It has been a bit of a challenge to adjust to these things. I went from occasionally needing reading glasses over the last several years to needing them pretty much whenever I sat down to do stuff that was close up. And then I started having a hard time reading road signs as I was out driving.

So, I went out and did what any other sane person trying to save money did. I procrastinated on getting new glasses. My reading glasses were a bit on the fragile side but I did my best to compensate with cheapie ones from Dollar Tree. The glasses I had gotten when I was living in the dorm was kinda the best I could do for seeing road signs that were for street names because they had some correction for the astigmatism in my left eye. (I honestly have no idea why I was told 20 yrs ago when I got them that the astigmatism was in my right eye.)  When the reading glasses came apart, I realized I couldn't put it off any longer.

So, when I got these I was astounded how much my vision improved. I could see stuff like the clock across the room and it didn't look fuzzy. And reading and close up work suddenly got an enormous amount easier. Gratitude is not a strong enough expression for how I feel about it all.

We've been working on getting ready for the start of school in a few weeks. I picked up everything that the kids needed from their lists from the teachers. I am looking around at the prodigious amount of school supplies we have leftover from last year. I have begun confiscating pencils and highlighters for myself. I have been doing a lot more writing by hand. And I've resumed doing stuff like researching things again. (I haven't busted out the notecards yet, but I am keeping notes in a notebook with references to things like page numbers, paragraphs, and line number. And noting which book, obviously.)

Looking at the piles of crayons, I am really thinking I need to do two things with this. One is to make those melted crayons that melt together into a hockey puck. Some people use cookie cutters, but I don't think mine would stand up to it well. Also, I don't want to use my cookie cutters like that. I suspect I would have a devil of a time trying to get the wax out of them. I am, however, going to use my muffin tin with some liners. (Aluminum foil generally works well if you fold it right. Like the last time we made them (which I think is just about precisely a year from sometime this week), the colors are going to have like colors with like. I will, however, do three in mixed colors from the different parts of the color wheel that are complementary.

I have no idea what we're going to do with these mixed crayons we've made. The kids just don't use them. If I had wicks, I would make a crayon based candle for a teacher or somebody else who'd enjoy it. But I don't and I have literally no idea how to make wicks.

Monday Menu & notes.

Hi there folks!

I've been somewhat all over the place the last few weeks. Some of it is because it has been really busy with the boys doing summer school and some of it is because my ability to focus right now is kinda sketchy. Hypomania means I get a lot of stuff done all the time because I can't sit still and I jump from task to task. At the same time, however, it makes it hard to sit down and work on something that is not super active. Like folding clothes, washing dishes, or scrubbing the bathroom. Right now, I am forcing myself to sit here and type this.

Why, you may ask, and the answer is because I am tired of not posting anything anywhere. I want to get back to my writing. So, when the boys are doing things like playing legos at the table, I am going to do my best to get some writing done. But, as soon as I finish this post, I'm going to go fold laundry and wash some dishes because the feeling I need to move and do something is like an itch I can't scratch.

I forget where I put down my master list for this week with the meals planned out for everyday.

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Mon	Pancakes	Pizza leftovers	Hamburgers with fixings Tossed salad & fries
Tues	Cereal	Sandwiches & Chips	Chicken fajitas & 'Mexican' rice
Wed	Pop-tarts	Burrito bowls	Pulled pork & apple slaw
Thurs	Waffles	Sandwiches & chips	Sweet & Sour kielbasa fried perogies
Fri	Cereal	Sandwiches & chips	Chicken jalfrezi & rice
Sat	Eggs & bacon	Birthday party potluck	Leftovers
Sun	Eggs & hash	Leftovers	Pizza

Eh, I tried using a table generator off of a random site on the internet. I'm not sure how pleased I am with this result.

The 'Mexican rice' recipe is on my Pinterest cooking page. That is also where the apple slaw recipe is bookmarked and the sweet and sour kielbasa recipe is too. I'm pretty sure that Friday's dinner is going to be a situation where I eat dinner before the guys so that I can get out to Buffalo for LARP in time.

I have been trying out this business of batch cooking food for the rest of the week. So far, I am pretty pleased with the results. Taking the time to cook up a bunch of chicken breasts and shred them last week left me with some cooked chicken to use this week. I also am using the leftover pulled pork from two weeks ago this week. (I am also going to be cooking pork roasts as well, to shred and stuff for next week.)

I think I like the fact that it opens up a little more time for doing stuff with the kids.

Tour de Fleece: Week 1

So, I am participating in Tour de Fleece again this year. I have taken the raspberry colored fiber that I was spinning a while back out of the cupboard. I dressed my distaff and am spinning singles on my Ashford student spindle. I have gotten in about four hours of spinning over the course of the week. The weather recently has been very humid and it makes spinning wool somewhat unpleasant.

When I wasn't spinning, I was plying. I have plied the two singles that I had from my drawer pull spindle - the middle weight one. I also wound the singles from the Turkish spindle into a ball for plying. I am trying out that technique I read in Spin Off a while back where you take your two singles and wind them into a ball and ply from that. If it goes well, I may just do the same with the singles I have from my French spindle. I am still trying to decide what I am going to use to ply that. I think I am going to ply the singles from the Turkish spindle on my kick wheel. I would be using the Ashford student spindle, but that is currently occupied with spinning that raspberry fiber. I finished the whole braid of the rainbow colored fiber. When I was winding balls for plying, I wound up with stuff getting tangled up. I estimate my loss on that being around two yards.

I am trying to decide what my goal for TdF is going to be this year. A part of me wants to try to spin that full mile of thread again. The rest of me looks at the pile of fiber I have and says 'I need to use some of this up.' So, I am thinking that maybe my goal will be a certain amount of time spinning every day, like an hour or something and the secondary goal would be using up the fiber I have languishing.

I have one problem, though. My fiber keeps trying to slide down the distaff. I'm not sure how to fix that. I have been doing some reading but what I find is inconclusive. I am thinking about switching over to the skinny stick that I was initially using as a distaff, but I don't think that is a great idea because it wasn't very comfortable to use.