Monday Menu Week of 1/27/2020

Dear Friends,

I am scatter shot disorganized right now. I blame this rotten head cold that refuses to go away. Because of the stupid diabetes and my psych medications, I can't take anything for it. So, I go about my day feeling like my sinuses are packed with wool or with them running constantly. There is no in between. It's getting so annoying. My planner is a bit of a mess. I still have to catch up my notes for the last few days, and I have to set up my pages for next month. To say the least, I have a lot of writing of the un-fun kind to do right now. I am trying to get myself back into the swing of serious writing again. It's been a grueling effort.

I finished that Filianic manuscript that I had started back in October. Now I am editing it. I'm most of the way through the first round of edits. It is mildly disconcerting to see how many spelling errors I have in this draft. Apparently when I write by hand, I am more prone to mashing together words and misspelling them by flipping around letter order in the middle of the word. That finalizes my decision that the next manuscript I write is going to be typed from this point forward. I need to be able to read what I wrote in order to edit the damn thing, after all.

I'm working on getting the kids back into the swing of doing daily chores. Somehow we fell off of that wagon and it shows. I may not be FLYLady's biggest fan but she had some really good points. (I kinda walked away from that program when she got more preachy about her religious choices and less focused on home management. I hope she's happy with where she is and that seems to be the case, but I didn't go there to have some one tell me that I needed to have my soul saved by their god.) So, I have a chart up in the kitchen with daily chores for the kids and their assigned chore for each day of the week. Perhaps it will be more than just wall art this time around. Everybody is going to have a 15 minute cleaning session. The kids will be working in their room this afternoon when they get their homework done. Then it will be time for television or electronic toys. As the kids are working in their room, I'll be attempting to sort out the kitchen. Wish me luck because there are legos hidden everywhere.

Here's the menu for this week.

Sunday: Pizza
Monday: Burgers & salad
Tuesday: Tacos / Taco salad
Wednesday: Meatball subs & salad
Thursday: Breakfast for dinner
Friday: Italian sausage patty sandwiches & salad
Saturday: Chili

The kids have breakfast and lunch at school Monday through Friday. Beloved's lunches have been either leftovers or sandwiches with ramen noodle soup. My lunches have been leftovers. I plan, however, to do some cooking during the day while the kids are at school to get some breakfast things prepped for the remainder of the week and to make a meatloaf for whatever day I happen to run out of spoons for cooking things. I'd be working on that right now, but I kinda have a pile of other tasks that are more immediate need.

"You're so brave." Not for that reason.

Dear Anonymous Women of the Internet,

Stop telling me that I'm brave because:

• I have facial hair.
• I have natural eyebrows.
• I don't squeeze myself into a girdle or similar torture devices.
• I have grey hair at a relatively young age.
• I am disabled.
• I am parenting children with special educational needs.

That's all bullshit to make yourself feel good about patronizing me and anyone else in this situation. Here's a check list for you to use when you consider telling me that I am brave:

1. Would you say it to a man for the same reason?
2. Is it because YOU are uncomfortable with me?
3. Is it because you are uncomfortable with MY CHILDREN's existence?

I'm sick and tired of people telling me that I'm brave for bullshit reasons. I'm 41,  over weight with diabetes, a disability due to mental illness, and absolutely zero tolerance for this patronizing prating. If you think I'm brave because of the fact that I simply exist, you deserve a kick in the goddamn teeth. I know there's people who are going to say, "But, Deb, that's a person who is being NICE to you." or "But, Deb, that's a COMPLIMENT." I'm sorry to say but telling someone that they're brave for existing is the subtlest form of undermining you can find in town.

It implies that my existence is threatened. It implies that I am some how a wretched being that requires you to stoop and commend me for the minimum effort that it takes to exchange oxygen into carbon dioxide. It tells me that there's something wrong with the fact that I have facial hair and a little extra weight. It tells me that my features are hideous in some fashion and they must be complemented in the same manner that one leaves offerings out for the fey, lest such horrors unimaginable might be visited upon you. (PROTIP: Natural hair isn't hideous. Society's policing of our bodies is what's hideous. Burn your fashion magazines and your hatred of your body on that pyre.)

It tells me that my children are freaks of nature and that I am burdened with raising them. I'm going to be as direct as I was in the above paragraph, if you think that I am suffering or that my children are suffering because we don't fit your idea of neurotypical, you can fuck yourself with a cactus. I suffer in ways that I talk about due to my disability but that doesn't make me unique. I'm a pretty typical case of a person with c-ptsd and bipolar II. It's reassuring that my psychiatrist says that my symptoms and experiences are normal for someone with these conditions. Equally reassuring is my family doctor's handling of my diabetes and telling me that my experiences are normal. And just as reassuring is my gynecologist's declaration that my experiences are normal with having poly-cystic ovarian syndrome. There's nothing especially heroic about my experiences here. 

As for my kids, they're suffering with the beginning of puberty. They're dealing with the challenges of learning complex mathematics (which they hate) and navigating the changing waters of life in school where the social situation turns on a dime and even the most neurotypical child will have a hard time. Their Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis is just as much a part of them as my facial hair is a part of me. Your praise on their existence is equally patronizing and poisonous.

You want to praise someone for being brave, do it when they did something that you know was hard for them, even if it is easy for you. You want to praise some one for being selfless and charitable, do it when they're actually being that way instead of fulfilling their obligations. And if it isn't something you'd walk up to a man and say "Wow, you're brave for [thing]!" don't say it to a woman. About 85% of those "You're so brave about [thing]." comments revolve around the idea of women daring to be themselves. What in flaming fucking hell is wrong with my being my vulgar, dark humored, and sarcastic self? If it's all right for a man to be vulgar, dark humored, and sarcastic, then it's fine for me.

I'm not brave because I flaunt YOUR standards. I'm brave because I survived some horrific shit. I'm brave because I fight people who try to keep my kids down when I walk into IEP meetings. (Those administrators get uneasy when my name shows up on the list for the meeting and I can see them sweat when I walk in wearing anything from sweats to a power suit, because they know I am like a bull dog and I won't give them an inch with out making them fight for it. If you're in an IEP meeting and don't understand wtf they're talking about, demand they explain it. They hate doing it, but if you're vocal and make them explain what they're talking about and planning, you can better advocate for your kids.)

So, as I was saying at the beginning, if you're telling me that I'm brave because I have facial hair, go have an intimate date with a cactus. You don't know who you're talking to and you don't know what the hell you're saying when you spew that garbage.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

If you made it this far and you are one of the people who genuinely know me. You know that I'm not squaring off with you. It's the random asshats who decide to tell me that I look so pretty "despite" my facial hair. Especially when they decide they're going to attempt to reach out and touch it, like I'm some kind of exotic specimen. No one's made contact yet, my glare has kept the hands at bay. But if it happens, someone might be the reason I have to clean my rings out with a toothbrush. 

Random Short story: June

There's an apartment complex in some nameless small town. Hidden away in the back corner is an apartment with a little old woman. She comes out to get her mail. She doesn't really talk with her neighbors. Every Sunday, she goes shopping with some church charity. These are the only times she's really seen - mail and shopping at the local grocery store.

If you were to step inside her apartment you'd find it almost claustrophobic, but organized. Furniture is a mishmash of different eras. The kitchenette is still in the style of the 1950s. A large radio that dates back to World War I crackles and hums even as it plays what you recognize from the local talk radio station. It is not plugged in.

Every chair and all along the back of the couch has the respective crochet antimacassar to protect the fabric from the hair of fashionable men. She sits at the Formica table with a steaming cup of tea, with what looks suspiciously like Belladonna flowers floating in it. Before her is a pack of cards. Perpetually, she plays Solitaire.

When you came in, you noticed sitting on that kitchenette counter is a cake stand with a perfect looking, photo worthy red velvet cake. Beside the cake stand are two plates, two forks, and a cleaver. The old woman didn't look up from her game when you entered.

As you draw closer, you realize the figures on the cards move like holographic images despite laying flat upon the table. She taps on the deck. In the static of the radio, you hear someone's voice begging you to get out. When she turns over the next card, you see yourself in her little kitchenette.

But, the old woman never goes out or talks to her neighbors. No one really knows how old she is. Some say she's been there since the place was built. Others say that there's something not quite right about her. No one visits. No one's been seen going in or out. The kinder neighbors say piteously that she's probably outlived her family.

The police came round. They had your picture, but it didn't move. It was just a regular picture. They knocked at her door and she opened a curtain to look out. They held up your picture and she shook her head before going back to her Solitaire game. Your card moves like a hologram even though it is flat on the table with the others. You're seen beating your fists against something in the foreground, like a window that one is looking through. In the static of the radio, your voice is begging her to let you go.

Fiber Fluff & Ramblings

Shortly before Yule, we got a new landlord. This makes number four, if you're keeping score. It was a pleasant surprise when he and his crew got to work on fixing the building up. There's talk of enclosing the lower portion of the back deck so that it is storage area. We've been told to put the kids outside toy bin down in the storage area of the lower closet beneath the entryway. They repainted the floors of the entryway and the stairs. It looks like a whole new place. It's kinda nice.

Except for the muddy foot prints. Those have been driving me to distraction. As a result, I had Beloved pick up a Swiffer wet jet on his last shopping trip. I wasn't sure how well the thing was going to work on those floors. I am pleased to say that it cleaned things up nicely, despite the neighbors going back and forth over the walkway as I was working. I have a feeling that I'm going to be cleaning the entryway on a regular basis now because it really irked me to see things as a mess. It may be because I'm coming out of a mixed episode, but it bothered me. I have a bad feeling that this business is going to be like the snow removal from the steps and the walk, an operation handled solely by my household.

I've been doing a lot of cleaning over the last few days. I'm not hypomanic, I'm just still trying to catch up on the chores that fell by the wayside over the course of Yule and the half of last week that got shot to Hel by a migraine and general chaos. As a result of doing the cleaning, I am not getting very much done in my spinning or my other hand crafts. I started work on spinning a 1lb pile of fiber. I don't know who dyed it. It is wool. I think from here in NY. The colorway is called 'Plum and Berries' but I'm tempted to call it unicorn fluff. Lots of purple, pink, and blue in it. There's a faint trace of green. It kinda reminds me of the Unicorn Frappe that Starbucks had as a novelty drink a few summers back. Hence the desire to call it unicorn fluff.

I'm spinning a small handful of it on a drop spindle made from a drawer pull handle and a paint brush handle. It's pretty light. As a result, I am spinning stuff that is cobweb weight. I'm not going to spin all of it with this spindle. But I am going to do a good amount with it. I am going to try to set up my distaff (which I loaded up with about a quarter pound of this fiber) in a way so that I can spin off of it with my kick wheel. I'm not sure how successful I am going to be. I've tried this with various orientations. I'm beginning to suspect that I can't use a distaff with the kick wheel. That frustrates me because I want to start producing more yarn at a greater rate.

I am pretty sure I fell short of my goal of a mile of yarn for last year by several hundred yards. I still have two balls of plied yarn to measure. That requires getting the last skein I wound on to the niddy-noddy off. It's been on there since last November. Hopefully it won't be too difficult to manage. I still have to wet it and wack it to make the yarn bloom however much it will. I don't think it will be that much because the stuff didn't have a lot of halo to it to begin with.

I'm about half way through my sample of Horned Dorset fiber. I've been spinning it on my delgan and I plied it on my Ashford Student Spindle. Plying it was a pain in the neck because the stuff just didn't want to cooperate with me. I am going to spin the other half on a different spindle. It will be, I hope, approximately the same amount of singles out of the process and I can ply that to compare to what I did on the delgan.

Menu week of Jan. 13, 2020

This week hopefully will be a better week than last week was. I was doing ok last week until Wednesday afternoon. That was when the mixed episode began to hit. The mixed episode ate up Thursday, Friday, and most of Saturday. The weird weather we had over the weekend gave me a migraine that lasted a couple of days, that made doing stuff even harder. On top of that, we had the glorious disaster of the kids' room that had to get cleaned up. They worked all weekend on it. It's still not done, but you can at least see the floor. This is what you get when you don't do chores for two weeks and give them a ton of stuff to play with in addition to what they already had. So, the week and weekend were pretty challenging.

On the new and exciting front, Beloved picked up a new vacuum cleaner. It may not be exciting for most people, but I'm glad for it. Our old one is busted, again, and just makes a horrible noise as you run it. I think part of it is the thing needs professional servicing by someone who has more skills than I do. It sat for the better part of ten years going unused because the children have auditory processing issues due to their autism and they were terrified of the sound it made. Only within the last year have they gotten to the point where they can tolerate the sound of a vacuum cleaner. We burned through three electric sweepers over that course of time. Much quieter and less effective cleaning tool, but at least it was something.

With the new landlord making an effort to fix and clean up this place, I'm vaguely worried about my rent going up. My FIL keeps insisting that is what's going to happen. Beloved tells me his father's likely wrong about this because the landlord is working with us to do things like get the entryway sorted out and such. There's a chance that our busted sink will finally get fixed. That would be fantastic because this is the other thing that the children are terrified of. It isn't vented properly and as such makes a horrendous gurgling noise randomly. The kids may be ten and twelve, but they're still terrified of the sink. It wouldn't be so bad if it had been this way from day one. I think they'd have had some tolerance for it by now if so. But, I guess it was about four years ago we had a downstairs neighbor who fancied himself a handyman. He decided he was going to 'fix' the plumbing and made a gods awful mess out of it all. That was when the gurgling business started.

I'm pretty sure there's some valve somewhere in the plumbing that is set to closed that is the reason why the thing has this problem. The problem is, no one knows what it is to fix because the plumbing is a mess down there. But, back to the gurgling thing, the kids didn't have this gurgling going on from day one of being in here. It started as a thing when they were cognizant that scary things exist. Since then, it's been as much if not more of a source of terror as the vacuum cleaner because it is loud as fuck and random. The kids now can somewhat tolerate the vacuum cleaner because we've got 'ear defenders' (they can wear headphones/a pair of earmuffs to quiet the sound of it) and they have learned that it can't harm them at all.

I think it helped that they watched me take the thing apart and service it as best I could. I explained what the parts were as I was working and did my best to explain how they worked. It took the thing from a big scary monster to a noisy machine. Noisy machines are ok, though they don't like all of them up close. The biggest problem with vacuuming now is the fact that there is stuff all over the place here that needs to be purged or somehow put up this way I can actually clean the apartment properly. Hence the big push with the kids on their room this weekend. I hope that by the end of the month, we can have this place fully clean and I just have to do light maintenance on it all with a moderate cleaning session once a week. It's a work in progress. The bribery of allowance helps some but Beloved and I still have to sit and watch them work. I know they'll eventually mature out of stopping in the middle of the job to play with the latest toy they discovered.

This week's dinner menu is pretty simple. The kids are having breakfast at school all week and lunch there as well. Beloved's been having leftovers and ramen for his lunches. I've been working on leftovers as well.

Sunday - Pizza
Monday - Burgers and carrot salad
Tuesday - Tacos / Taco salad
Wednesday - Chicken nuggets
Thursday - Pasta with meatballs
Friday - Pizza meatloaf
Saturday - Chili

One day migraine... nope, two day migraine.

I was so convinced that my migraine was gone and this was just a stress headache from trying to get the kids to clean their room.

Then the feeling of the evil daystar was stabbing me in the eyes started creeping up. I blame this insane weather cycle that we're stuck in right now. I'm watching to make sure that the ice storm goes north of us. It's all supposed to blow through tomorrow. We're supposed to be on the south end of it all.

Gods willing, it won't be that bad. At least my back isn't joining in on the fun. Now to get my glasses.

Fiber fluff: Distaff day & Final Yuletide Project

Last night I finished this fancy table scarf's embroidery. It was a difficult project because the colored portion of the pattern was printed badly over the blue base which was supposed to align everything properly. I wound up having to hold the embroidery hoop up so that I could see where the stitches were supposed to go because having the project back lit allowed me to see the blue base layer of the pattern. I would have had it done a day or two earlier if it weren't for the fact that life got a bit complicated Sunday and Monday.

Distaff day was spent stitching instead of spinning. I've been busy catching up on chores and such. I have yet to measure how much I spun last year. I don't know how close I am to my goal of 1 mile of yarn. I have to do some measuring and some math. I think I may get to doing some spinning with my Scottish drop spindle tonight. (I can't spell the name or pronounce the name of it but I'll share a pic of it once I get the present project off of it, hopefully next week.)

Monday Menu, week of Jan 6,2020

I fell out of the habit of posting weekly menus and stuff about the middle of last year. My depression got really bad for a while there and I just gave up on blogging. I'm going to do my best to fix this. I'm still battling depression right now, but I am doing better than I was a few months ago. It seems that light therapy actually does work.

Sunday: Pizza
Monday: Burgers & salad
Tuesday: Tacos / Taco salad -or- breakfast for dinner (depending which I have the energy for)
Wednesday: Meatloaf and salt potatoes
Thursday: Pork chop fajitas (I have boneless pork chops I can slice up for this.)
Friday: Mongolian beef and riced cauliflower
Saturday: Chili (this was going to be curried chickpea stew, but that recipe didn't work out right)

Rambling thoughts

Today has been a long day. I didn't sleep very well last night. I had surreal nightmares about living under my parents' roof and plotting my escape with Beloved's help. Somehow, Wile E Coyote and Yosemite Sam were about to square off over things too. The coyote of chaos being the one in my corner.

The kids have been ok today when they weren't bickering and getting in each other's face. I put them to making themselves toys out of the remainder of the blank peg dolls that I had kicking around in a bag. I was wondering what to do with them and I realized that I had the instant solution to their boredom. They sat and were coloring and drawing on the peg dolls for about an hour. One was making fire fighters and the other was making extras for their version of Star Wars.

I got most of the dishes washed today. All that is left are a few pans. I am hoping that I can manage to get all of my dishes done this weekend and put them away so that I have room on the counter to chop veggies for my batch cooking this weekend. I started some of that by making eggs in the oven for me to have with my breakfasts most of the week. Next, I have the veggie hash to make. Theoretically, it is an easy recipe.

Tomorrow is going to be less than fun. I have to go get my blood drawn at the lab station in Geneseo. I haven't been there before. I don't know what their bedside manner is like. I am a little nervous about it. It's a fasting blood draw so I can't eat anything until after I am seen. I hope that the line is short and that there are not hiccups in the process. I'm a difficult stick because I have small veins that roll. The lab draw here in town had someone who was really good and got me on one try every time. They're no longer at that site. Maybe I'll be lucky and they were rotated to the Geneseo site and I'll see them there.

I have been keeping within my carb limits, for the most part. It's been frustrating over the holidays. Piles of cookies and eating schedules getting thrown off have made it difficult. Beloved had to sit down with some one and explain to them the reason I had to have my own special pizza and I couldn't eat the homemade pizza (as much as I wanted to) was because the specialty pizza that we buy at Walmart is super thin crust and means that the carb load is low enough I can actually eat it.

I am getting back into the habit of keeping my food log. Between the last two months of depression, busy work, and dealing with holiday stuff, I fell out of that habit. I kept track in my head as I was eating to make sure that I was eating properly. I just wasn't writing anything down. I am now writing things down as I am eating or shortly after. It is frustrating and I am sick of doing it. But, diabetes doesn't take a day off.

Fiber Fluff: Yuletide projects.

I have taken my annual break from spinning to celebrate Yule. I lasted about an hour before I was twitchy and had to have some kind of project to work on. I decided that during daylight hours, I was going to work on embroidery and in the evenings work on crochet.

So far, I have finished a tulip pillowcase that my late Grandmother had started years ago before her dementia got bad enough that she couldn't do embroidery or cross stitch.

I am now working on a table runner with roses on it. The pic isn't the best, but this thing isn't finished either. It's half done.

The crochet project is a purple ombre granny square. I have no idea how big this thing will be when I get it done. I'd post a picture of it but it's kinda difficult to spread it out with out making a tangled mess of the yarn that I'm still working from. When I get it finished, I'll post it.

Just before Yule, I made my annual scrap yarn project. It is a shawlette that's just big enough to sit on my shoulders and keep me warmish as I sit by the window and work on these projects.