sundrenched

 I got up late this morning, like after 7, and the world is sundrenched.  What's remarkable about this is that winter here is so very gray, but today is so bright and it's everywhere because I'd left curtains open.

I'm inspired to hang the clothesline outside, to plant seeds, to bicycle further, to run around with the dog.  I won't be able to do most of that today because I work for a living, but I may do some.  I won't be fooled - I know that winter is not gone.  It will still get cold at night, we could still get snow or ice (I hate ice).  But it's so sunny that it's astounding.  

It makes me glad that I sprung for some transition lenses that I'll get in a couple of weeks.  I'd forgotten how bright the sun gets. 

In addition to working for a living, today is the day for tree trimming (I better check that I have cash to pay) and truck oil change which was last done nine months ago.  I do not want to put the vast amounts of money into my truck that it would take to fix the engine, etc., but definitely would like to keep it limping along for as long as I can. 

white flour blues

 For lunch I went to a baby shower and had pizza and a cupcake.  And now I feel like crap, and I cannot help but connect the two things. 

Do refined foods now make me ill? Well, that both sucks and is great, because I do generally stay away from things that make me ill.  I feel like I have the flu - I'm achy and congested and cold.  I'm curled up on the couch looking for a movie.  

I did push myself for a healthier dinner, some quinoa and squash reheated, with a sardine on top.  i would love to love sardines - they would make my life easy.  But I'm not there yet.  I'll keep trying.  Now I'll have dessert of cottage cheese and peaches, and hopefully I'll right whatever train is falling off the track.  I did also bike to work today, and in the past I have gotten ill from physical exertion, so that is another possibility but one I do not want.  And, I continue to struggle to drink enough water.  So, it could be anything.  But this sucks.  

Also, I wish I hadn't gone to the shower - it was awkward and i felt ill at ease.  By the time i realized how badly I did not want to go, it was too late.  I wish I'd known myself better and not even tried.  Blah.   

And the pizza was pretty good but the cupcake was not and I fortunately it was little and I swooped all the frosting away because it was disgusting.  So not worth it.  None of it was worth it.  

What has been worth it is eating "clean."  So long as I eat regular healthy unprocessed meals high in fiber and nutrients, I feel good, it seems.  And FINALLY it seems like I can feel weight loss.  My pants were a little looser today.  My skin was feeling looser, which maybe feels strange.  I've lost 10% of my body weight and my goal is to lose 20% total.  These results are the same - according to the commercials - of what I would be losing if I were on the injections.  Which I will not do. 

 

fruit of labor

 As I enjoyed this morning's coffee before work, I was somehow driven to organize the canned goods in my pantry.  It's only home-canned goods of course, things that I've produced over the past year and a half.  Lots of plums and apples from that first year when I didn't know what to do with the overload and before I hacked back the plums - and I still don't really know what to do with them all, especially as they're with sugar.  Maybe I'll start making one fruit-based dessert each week - an apple crumble, a plum pudding cake - and have one serving and give away the rest.  Even with this weekly plan and not adding more, I'll be swimming in canned fruit until 2026.  

And don't even get me started on tomatoes - I had about six plants and they went gangbusters, and I have tomato sauce and paste and diced along with salsa and pizza sauce for days.  

Nestled alongside the tomatoes are the other vegetables I had so much extra of from the garden and needed to process faster than I could eat - the squash and beets and beans.  

So while I do need to keep going to the farmers market now for greens, and I need to plan another full garden, I also need to focus now on using up what I've processed.  The luxury of moving as often as I have throughout my entire adult life is that I purge everything every couple of years.  As recently as two years ago, everything I owned fit into the back of my trusty pickup.  

And if I can't find ways to timely use up all these canned goods, then I need to stop canning them.  I'll need to instead find ways to share them through the little free refrigerator, which usually means putting them into meals.  

Wasting food is not a good thing, and I want to be sure I'm not doing that.  

these are the good days

 Finally back to biking to work, and how glorious it is.  Why glorious?  I don't know.  It's just deliciously subversive to the status quo.

I cornered someone I know professionally and asked what he thought about how my job could be affected.  I know he's right wing but I think we have a good professional relationship, and I told him that I"d be looking to work with him if I lose my job.  He doesn't think that this extreme measures will stick - "It's a lot of chaos, and chaos is not a good thing."  It's certainly not efficient, I agreed.  Obviously he is not the spokesperson for the president that he voted for, but it was still helpful to hear.  He has definitely worked with unethical people, but I don't think he's unethical, and I would work with him.  Don't know if he would want to work with me, but I could ask - he appreciates my hard work and evenness.  Hopefully it doesn't come to that, as I want to keep my job.   

Today I also did some fancy dancing to take heat off and redirect to somebody else, and I made a suggestion that turned the ship around.  I felt sneaky but I think it's better for everyone.  I am good at my job and fuck anyone who says different.  

The phone rang minutes before a meeting, a bookstore to say this book Mutual Aid had come in for me, and the shop is just right around the corner from my office so I could duck in.  For some reason I hadn't ever thought that I liked this bookstore - it seemed too snooty or something, and it's in an area with parking meters, and there are plenty of other bookstores.  But it's so convenient to work that i'd requested the book, and I'm so pleased I did.  I do not buy books as a rule, but I wanted this one.  And for all my future bookbuying needs, I've got a good hookup.  

 i almost went to Whole Foods for lunch but I had snacks in my desk that got me through the loooong meeting, so that is TWICE in one day that I avoided supporting Amazon.  And avoided fossil fuels.  So I'd say this is a winning Tuesday!  

is fiber the answer?

I have significantly increased the fiber in my diet, as I turn to beans as a primary source of protein, which I eat with grains and vegetables and nuts and seeds.  I've always been a fan of fiber, going for the whole grain options and liking legumes, but this is next leveling it.  

Verdict?  I'm feeling satiated while eating less food.  Sometimes I'm reaching for some protein (I have nuts and beef sticks on hand) and occasionally some sweets (usually fruit, occasionally low sugar chocolate), but I'm generally not hungry, which is great, and I've got to be getting great nutrition from all these foods.  Example of what I'm eating today: for breakfast will be a whole wheat pita (5 g fiber) with a salad of farro, carrots, leeks, white beans, radicchio, feta, erba stella (10 g fiber).  Lunch is lentil & shitake shepherds pie leftovers (9 g fiber).  Dinner will be roasted winter squash with quinoa and black beans (and I may bake some salmon as well) (7 g fiber).  = 31 g fiber, not including nuts and seeds or snacks (such as whole grain sourdough toast and dried fruit)

The foods are also very tasty thanks to a lot of fresh herbs.  Frankly taste better than any food I can buy prepared in this town.  

And, using all these different grains (farro, quinoa especially) reminds me that they are quicker to cook than rice, which I've not been loving lately, and I can easily prepare one of these meals after work especially if there was some prep done in advance.  Yesterday I chopped up and seasoned the squash (which I had grown) so today I just need to bake it while the quinoa is cooking, and it'll be on my table within a reasonable time.  

I need to convince myself that this way of eating is sustainable and that I need not backslide.  So long as I can plan out in advance so have ingredients on hand, I need to remind myself that its just as easy to prep a dish as it is to go out to eat or pick up takeaway, and my food tastes better and is much more budget-friendly.  

Speaking of budget-friendly - I tried making a bare bones budget and there is just not much fat to cut in my budget.  Reduce utilities?  Well, I already keep my house at 61 most of the time so dropping colder doesn't seem necessary.  I'll save $2.90/month by having my 2nd green bin removed, so I'll make that call because I do plan to build my own compost bins soon - but then there's the issue of cost of construction, so ... yeah.  I will keep one bin for all my noxious weeds - it's got a heap now of Spanish bluebells which I'm eradication tour of.  I could hang my clothes to dry, but I'd need to rig up an indoor clothesline or get more racks, and then it will increase humidity in my house which is already on the higher side - so I think it makes sense to continue to hang clothes to dry in summer and use dryer in winter.  I could replace my water heater with a hybrid heat pump, but that will cost a lot more money to install than I had expected.  

There are all these investments that I make to cut costs, reminding me that it's expensive to be poor. 

I can lean more into my garden for food and eat through all that I've canned and frozen.  That's probably a next goal.  I'm pretty proud of myself for having only three jars left of jam, meaning I made the right amount last year.  I did give away a lot of it when I realized I only really like strawberry and raspberry now.  That's fine - I'll make more of that this year, and I'll make it low-sugar.  I made it without pectin last year so it has sugar, but I will use Pomona pectin this year to significantly reduce the sugar.  And I'll freeze up a bunch of berries again - they taste SO much better than what I can buy already frozen.  I was shocked when I bought some frozen berries while at Friend's house, how insipid the strawberries tasted.  Fresh from the field is the way to go.  And I'll freeze more peaches this year - those have been wonderful to eat with cottage cheese or chia seeds.  I don't care if they brown - that doesn't bother me.  

Well, it's Monday.  Time to start getting ready for work.  Sigh. 

-2.4

 My weight has finally dropped back down to where it was after that weird spike a few weeks ago.  Don't recall what spiked that, but it's good to see that it's been shed.  

Also of note is that I've been eating A LOT of carbs.  Lentils and quinoa and whole grain sourdough and garbanzos and the like.  I ate about 1/3 of a loaf of sourdough just yesterday, so I thought my weight would stay higher.  But, no. 

This is good because meat is really grossing me out and I don't want to eat it, and getting my protein from plant sources is carb-heavy.  Yes, it's complex carbs, but still.  

So, I shall carry on as I am.  Roasting vegetables today for a couple of dishes that I'll eat with vegetables, grains, and beans.  After the dog walk, and she is so eager to walk. 

so if I might be on the spectrum, what do I do about it?

When I took the RAAD-R a few days ago and scored so high, it was a bit of a shock.  I mean, I've always been odd, but autistic?  

It explains so much.  Why I feel so much more comfortable in places where I'm visibly an outsider - when language and skin color marks me as different, there's usually a lot more tolerance for my difference.  When I'm in a place like this, surrounded by educated white people, there is so little tolerance.  I've been giving clues, like asking if I'm missing a social cue, saying my brain works differently, saying I interpret literally - and people think I'm making a joke.  I'm not making a joke, I'm high-functioning because of a lot of luck, but there are legitimate reasons that I fixate on things like how a room will look when I have to speak and who will be where, why I have to go in certain orders with tasks and if taken out of order I will not be able to catch what I missed, why I don't like snarky people who phone it in, why I get so completely exhausted by being around people and why so many people don't like me (I thought it was my earnestness, and maybe it is), why romantic relationships have been so difficult and intense and also not very desirable for me, why I change jobs so often, why I interrupt people because I thought they were finished and it was my turn, etc. etc.  The more I read up, the more I'm like, oh, yes.  I thought I was wicked good with administrative tasks, but it's because of all the rigid rules and timelines I have for myself in completing them.  Another characteristic is rigid thinking and oh goodness so many people have accused me of that even when I think that I'm being very flexible.  It's why I've always struggled with the "gray area" and wanting black and white (according to my mother).  It's why a dear friend insists that I am so much like Hannah Gadsby.  It's why I respond so quickly to emails which I'd gotten in trouble for before - but my working memory struggles to hold thoughts for later in a conversation or email.  As the boss at that time said, I excel at work tasks but less so at the "soft skills."  Wowza, that should have been a wake-up call for me - but the reality is that I have been always able to navigate this when it mattered.  I didn't realize this was so much harder for me than other people.  It's only really in this job where I intend to stay for a few more years that the recognition that I am odd is being used in what feels like harassment against me. 

So what do I do about this?

The truth is, I like how my brain works.  I continue to maintain that this is a really weird culture of toxic positivity and that someone who is German or Dutch or Liberian, for example, would similarly struggle because of the refusal to bring things to light to improve them.  Spending my early 20s in Germany profoundly affected how I relate to the world, and it does not jibe with this fake nonsense.  I think that my neurodivergence is not so profound as to interfere with my work performance - I mean, nobody has even noticed, they just think I'm odd or rude - but also a lot of people appreciate me and my focus and clarity and guidance and forthrightness.  I'm not universally loathed or anything - my boss just doesn't like me and the office environment is unhealthy and I have no interest in navigating through the backstabbing and personal biases.  The truth is that my boss has done exactly zero to support me - she doesn't even always respond to me, rarely speaks to me and then only when required by the office procedure and then she does everything to get out of it.  She hasn't liked me from day 1.  So I don't want to make this all about me - this is mostly about her poor management skills, and I'm going to keep focus there.  The next time she wants to talk, I now know it's a trap because she has never once asked me to talk for anything other than to chastise me for things like not being appreciative enough of others or for being too stressed (when I'm not), and I'll ask for union representation and I will push back.  She may be the boss of the office but she is not the queen and she is bad at this. I will demand that if she is sharing a complaint with me that there be actionable steps and not just "change your personality to make people like you more."  That is bullshit.  And if she won't stop this hiding behind policy which actually is more like bullying, I may well file a complaint against her.  I am getting hints that she has done this tyranny of niceness to others. 

I thought for a few days about if I should pursue a diagnosis to protect myself as having a disability, but I think in this current political climate that I should be careful with that and it may well backfire.  Instead I will frame any response with clear demands that are best practice for everyone such as to demand actionable steps, specifics (she's always been SO VAGUE and made so many incorrect assumptions), etc.  

What I really need to do is start better documenting things.  I just hate doing it because then I have to relive it rather than move past it.  But there is a clear pattern here of poor management and I'm not taking the fall for her.  

And no more sleepless nights of being upset because of her coming for me.  While I am far from perfect, I am not taking on the burden of her poor management.  I'm going to protect myself better.  

When it feels safer, I can pursue diagnosis and be outspoken to demand better acceptance of people who are neurodivergent.  Just in general, to demand better acceptance of people who are different. 

checking out

 I realize that I've been checked out of politics for a really long time.  I don't really understand the financial crisis of last decade and the Occupy Wall Street movement.  I've been out of country and doing ok for so long that I've had a privilege of ignorance.  I mean, I read and listen to NPR each day, and I always vote, but it's a very superficial understanding of the world. 

So I'm trying to check back in, in some ways.  Got subscriptions to Wired, Mother Jones, New York Times (thanks to discounts).  Reading books by people like Naomi Klein about the state of the world.  Trying to better understand how we have gone so far towards tyranny that it's now such a crisis.  And I'll try to engage in collective actions.  I'm not a big fan of protests and the like, but I can show up.  I can call my legislators.  I can boycott.

Which leads to a goal now - of checking out more from the global economy.  Buy less, reuse more.  Bike instead of drive, eat local season foods that I prepare myself.  Sourdough is rising now and I'm fixing to bike to the farmers market this morning once it opens before the rain comes.  I can also bike to the shop where I like to make my bulk purchases and I've organized jars to take to fill up from there instead of using bags - we'll see how that works.  (I also usually just stop there on my way back from the dog walk on Sunday mornings as it's right on the way and there is a good place to park to leave the dog in the vehicle while I shop.)  

Did you know that the victory gardens of World War II produced 40% of the produce in the United States?  I'm aware that it's easy to spend a lot to prepare a garden - what's that book, the $64 Tomato?  And I just spent $30 on rabbit manure from some folks down the street.  But soon I'll be creating my own compost again (I need to engineer how to not harbor rats and then I'll build compost bins), and I'm not building expensive raised beds, and I'm trying to save seeds, and I'm sharing what I produce.  

I'm not traveling, and I upgraded my heating system to heat pump and insulated my attic - plus our electricity here is like 97% renewable.  I'm cutting my meat consumption.  I'm not buying more clothes unless I absolutely have to.  I'm not buying any more cleaning or other products from big manufacturers - it's just going to be me and Dr. Bronner's from now on (I do love Sal Suds). 

It's nice how things that are good for the environment are also good for my bottom line, because I need to implement some austerity measures.  I have legitimate fears about losing my job and I need to SAVE SAVE SAVE.  (No regrets about all the money I spent on the bathroom and kitchen though - the upgrades will make it more possible to sell this house when I need to.  And I do love my quartz countertops!)  (And here's hoping all I'm doing with the yard will help or at least not hurt, too.  Looking forward to all the native plants growing in and filling the space nicely.)

And in addition to good for the environment and my finances, also better for my health in many ways - the fresh food from scratch, the bicycling.  

So this kind of checking out is the good kind.  But it's time to check back in on politics and do my part.  

it's looking like a sick day ahead

 Tomorrow is not a crazy day at work and it's not supposed to be raining, so I think I'll call in sick.  I rarely do that, and it sounds like a good idea.  A big project was going to start today but it's not going to happen after all, and part of that is because of how hard I worked to make it go a different much easier track.  So I'm a little self-congratulatory and want to celebrate. 

I have a list of about 20 things to do, from rehinging and repainting a bathroom door to hanging pegboard to cutting up cardboard for recycling to digging out heaps of bluebells and digging in 80# of bunny poop I just procured, so maybe I'll pick three things that I want to do and if I accomplish them I'll call it good and spend the rest of the day doing whatever the fuck I want.  I do plan to start another batch of sourdough, and I have an appointment for the eye doctor and to get glasses.  My current glasses are fine and I don't expect a change to prescription, but I may spring for some transition lenses to wear in summer.  It does get bright here.  Oh, I just stumbled across old glasses - maybe I'll reuse some frames, or maybe not.  I have money to burn from my FSA which will expire soon.  I'll plan to bicycle to my appointment which feels pretty badass and subversive in this crazy world.

It's hard to not despair with the insanity all around, but little things like bicycling to errands help.  And getting healthier.  I've been consuming large quantities of food but it things like bok choy, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, garbanzos, red cabbage, pistachios, arugula, carrots.  These things make me stronger, which I need to be.  We need to be, for the fight, the resistance.  I need to be clean and lean with my food, activities, spending, energy.  Hunker down, be ready.  I wish I were exaggerating.  

ASD

 I was sitting today with a woman I know professionally who was changing a process to accommodate my pointing out an issue, and I said, "Look, if I ever send you a curt email it's because I'm trying to respond timely, not to be rude."  "Oh, my autism appreciates your timely short emails!"  "Oh, I didn't know you had autism."  

And so began a very interesting conversation that ended with her sending me a valid instrument, which I took and it puts me strongly into the autistic side of things. 

I guess ... duh?  Everyone knows I'm peculiar and have idiosyncracies.  I'm not everyone's flavor.  I'm fine with that.  But as I look a little deeper, it really resonates.  Like, rarely stays at one place more than a couple of years?  Hell yeah that's me.  Why?  We get so socially exhausted we have to move on.  Fussiness with foods?  Um, yes.  Like now as I eat this quinoa salad, I'm carefully making sure it doesn't touch the side of my tongue where there are certain tastebuds that would reject that taste and mushiness.  How people think I'm rude and I don't understand? That's what I'm living now.  And what's interesting is that this is the first place I've been really harassed for that, as a professional.  I had some missteps with the first college I went to and some jobs when young, but this is different - this is my fucking career and I want to fucking retire, and I'm getting these vague admonitions with nothing actionable - just "we don't like you because you're not like us" in essence.  Well, fuck that.  

And that is the one reason I would consider going for a professional diagnosis - because then there would have to be accommodations, and the only accommodation would be to stop harassing me for having a brain that isn't normie.  And maybe I would learn other things about how I move through the world.  I'm fortunate that I've let negative vibes flow off me rather than taking things in and letting it hurt me.  This is honestly probably a good thing about having been born and raised in the same place until I graduated - I never would have been able to enter a middle school as a new kid without harsh struggles, but I was more tolerable as someone who's always been around (plus I was always top of my class and helped people who asked or showed a need, and I made friends with new people).  

It's kind of astounding to see all these autism spectrum attributes that I thought were just me being who I am.  

So, I have to decide if I want to pursue a formal diagnosis and use that to protect myself from my boss's behaviors.  Because as much as I would like to leave this job after two years like I always do (usually it's about 16 months, really), I want the benefits of staying another few years to be able to retire.  I know that I can do something else, get another job, but this is the easiest path to me getting to retire, and to stay in this house until my dog dies and not force her to move again, and fuck some normie trying to steal that from me. 

could I eat the same thing every day?

 I have a notoriously picky palate, and one of my issues is that I cannot stand to eat the same thing repeatedly.  I'm in awe of people who just eat the same thing day in and day out without complaint because that is not me.  Except for bread.  I eat whole grain bread every morning for breakfast, usually with cheese, as it's about the only thing that doesn't give me diarrhea.  But I cannot live on bread alone, as much as I would like to.

I do not know what it is about my unwillingness to eat leftovers repeatedly.  Things do start to taste off to me after two days, so there's that.  But is that the meat?  What if I'm preparing vegan food - does that give me four or five days before being off?  I'm one day 3 of the lentil-potato-carrot-arugula soup and it's still tasting good.  I had garbanzo-carrot-peanut salad on whole grain pita this morning for breakfast and it's tasting good, and I think that's day 3?  i think I made those things on Sunday and today is Tuesday.  Could they last me the week?  Also I'm super excited that I can eat the garbanzo cabbage salad for breakfast without the issues that most breakfast foods like eggs give me.  

And what about starting to come home for lunch?  If I'm biking, why not?  it's only like 10 minutes each direction and I technically have an hour off for lunch, so that's plenty of time.  I say technically because it's a rare day that I take a lunch hour.

I made sourdough but it is very flat - combination of underfed starter and cold kitchen (60 degrees).  It came to life when I put it in the oven on proofing temperature, but it just isn't great.  It's fine.  Not my best work.  I'll make more this weekend (I have a lot of rye and whole wheat flour to use up) and I think I'll take it over to the little free refrigerator with some other food.  While I like the idea of food prepping on Sunday for the whole week, I can still make enough to share.  It seems like people like my cooking - things always disappear quickly.  

final renovation bills paid, shift focus back to frugal

Just received final renovation bill and to my great delight, the contractor did not overcharge me.  All the additional items are fairly priced - and the plumber even itemized as I asked - and I am happy to write these final checks. I had left myself a fairly significant cushion just in case of additional costs, and that can now get diverted.  The one outstanding charge is for the bathtub refinishing, and I expect that bill soon.  Subtract returns, calculate final amounts, enter into my spreadsheet.  These bathroom and kitchen projects are just about behind me.  Hallelujah.

And I'm in slightly better financial shape than expected, so I am able to rebuild my savings more quickly than I'd planned.  I absolutely need at least six months of expenses readily available.  We're living in scary times and I could lose my job.  I need to move money around to designate a savings account just for the emergency fund.  I'm almost halfway to the emergency savings goal, which is a good feeling.  I need to be very focused on refilling that and on patio repairs, and no more outside budget non-emergency purchases until then.  I already requested my paycheck be split - into the checking account for the monthly expected payments, and into the savings account for the rest.  I've never done that before because I'm usually very good about more actively directing into savings and staying within budget.  But I feel under the gun now, with this insane political climate and my boss not liking me.  

I should probably get into hyper-frugal mode until I have my emergency savings built back up.  Be critical of every expense, make do with less.  Cook at home, eat more beans.  Drive less, bicycle more.  Keep the thermostat down.  Use the library, do the hobbies I already have.  Do things for myself instead of hiring (though tbh I have no regrets about hiring the contractor to do the bathroom - friends and I would still be struggling with that).  

This feels like an exhale.  A good one.  

Next focus. 

electricity

 Well, if I'd doubted my decision to put in my ductless heating/AC system, those doubts are gone.

Tbh, I never doubted.  I would be miserable some days in summer here without AC.  

But I just got my electrical bill for the past month - and despite me not living here at all, my electricity usage nearly doubled.  About 80% higher.  

How on earth?!  

Well, for one, they turned on wall heaters and baseboard heat.  Yes, I'm grateful for having these heating systems and I'm not removing them even though they're ugly.  But I never have any intention of using them.  They are horribly energy inefficient, as this bill shows.  

I'm wondering how much electricity my frustrating bidet will use.  It's ridiculous that it doesn't flush when no power and that the battery backup is so difficult to access. 

-1

 Scale says I lost a pound from next week, which is still high, but I'll take it.  I'll be getting on track again: more fiber, more vegetables.  

What a glorious fucking day to be alive.  I'm elated to be home again, and everything is going my way.  Dishwasher not working?  I fixed it.  Taking the dog out for a walk in pouring rain?  It stops when we arrive at our destination.  Noticing store on the way home?  Easily stocked up on goodness.  

and we're home

 I've done about 20 loads of laundry, and hopefully that wraps up soon.  I think I got the dishwasher fixed - looks like they just didn't turn on the water supply.  Phew.  

The house is so clean.  It will likely never be this clean again, though maybe I should take a week off every spring for thorough spring cleaning of house and yard.  

I'm so happy to be home.  Everything is more comfortable for me here.  The dog is sleeping so deeply though also not letting me out of her sight. 

So grateful for two more days off to finish things up and get back into cooking.  Shopping and such.  I went to the farmers market today for greens and it did not disappoint.   

***

Oh, I slept hard.  The dog woke me up midway through the night as she demanded to sleep with me, but I fell right back to sleep.  Silly dog has two couches, a bed, and a futon she could sleep on, but it has to be in my bed, fused to me?  

One of my resolutions for this year was taken from a cooking show, to spend Sunday afternoons noodling around the kitchen, taking time to enjoy meal prep. I have two Sundays this week since I'm off on Monday, which is a delight and helps me reorient.  Things I plan to eat this week to prep today: salmon with baby bok choy and sweet potato medallions; quinoa lentil Mediterranean-style salad; red cabbage peanut salad with garbanzos; winter squash with black beans; mizuna with potatoes and sausage. I've made shopping lists.  I got a bag full of food containers that I can use for leftovers to the little free refrigerator.  (Friend buys A LOT of premade foods, a lot of ultraprocessed foods as well.)

First I need to walk the dog, and then I'll head out for errands, and then I'll be home for food preparation and house organizing.  Oh, some garden chores too - I need to plant some raspberry plants and onion sets, and it's about time to plan the snowpeas.  Oh, and there are some more Spanish bluebells coming up for me to destroy.  

So, a very good day ahead.  The pain that came from spending hours contorted around a toilet to try to reassemble it is mostly gone, alhamdullilah.  

weary bones

 I finally am moving back home.  Tonight is the last night I plan at Friend's.  I took today off work and cleaned, but the biggest chunk of my day was fighting the bidet toilet.  It was hours - including the time on with customer support until they were sexist and I hung up on them, and then trying to get a defective part to reconnect.  It was so difficult because of how it is built, and I don't think it will last long, which is really frustrating.  Friend had to come hold things after she left work, and we were both beat up.  

But, I got a lot of cleaning done and most of the dust is gone.  Rugs are cleaned and drying overnight, and tomorrow I'll go finish the rest of the mopping (which I do on hands and knees of course), vacuum the rugs again, and start moving things back in.  I did a slew of laundry so curtains and washable rugs can get put back.  I have to make a run to the dump and to the tailor, and then I'll pick up the dog and bring her home.  She needs to tell the dog next door to shut the fuck up because it keeps barking at me.  I thought it was just visiting, but apparently it lives there now.  It's a nervous little miniature husky or something similar, and I frighten it.  As I do. 

Grateful for the long weekend because not only is there clean up but there is life.  I need to bake bread, to can beans, to make yogurt.  I need to plan and cook meals with vegetables and flavor.  And I have so many more little projects to wrap this up - like gluing back together the picture frame of the print I really like which fell off the wall during construction.  So many things like that.  And then I'll be done, and on to the next thing.

At work, some people in the different office like to joke about how on top of things I am - how I complete tasks before they're due.  Once I was one minute late and they were astounded.  It's good-natured ribbing and they appreciate me for it, I think.  But it's true - I'm queen of lists and completion.  Procrastination is zero fun for me.  Not to say I never do it - sometimes I need some time to sit back and contemplate before i proceed and then it can be a little rushed.  But being on top of my shit - at home and work - is who I am.  So, these things will all get finished.   

almost there

 I went over to the house to do some work this afternoon, hoping that the contractor was finished. But not quite.  I've asked a few times for him to clean up the tile edge and he'll apparently have to come back again tomorrow.  Sigh.  The tile installer put it in pretty crooked but that could have just been the wall tbh, so I just want him to make it look better.  It's pretty ugly. 

But that's I think the only thing left.  For him to do.  I still have a lot to do.  I was able to get the kitchen doors back installed - it wasn't pretty (I had to use a drill and a chisel) but it worked.  I did some other things but the big work is for tomorrow - all the hardwood floor cleaning and rug cleaning and so much laundry.  From all the curtains to tablecloths to seat cushions to washable rugs, etc.  I also need to try to fix my dishwasher, install my bidet toilet, and a variety of other things.  I took the day off work to make sure i get it all done and then the rugs can dry overnight and we can move in the following day.  Still so many other things to do, from straightening the vanity drawers (they're fancy, and they'll send me new gliders if I can't make it work) to feeding sourdough to bake bread to ordering a sauna to installing pegboard (a word that keeps escaping me) to paint touchups.  I just want my house back to myself, and at this point if there's something that they need to do that I can, I just will do it. 

Ugh, I just got more plumber bills.  Yikes, I do not understand why they had to do all the work that they did, though to be fair the one time I saw them they were definitely hard at work figuring out install of the fancy toilet among numerous other things.  I had budgeted $2,000 and it's over $3,000.  Ouch.  I'm afraid to get the final contractor bill, though will be so glad to have this behind me and move on to the next thing.  

And I'm worried about the job market with these massive federal layoffs, and I'm worried about the security of my job.  So, after writing these checks, I really don't want to keep spending money.  I spent about $20,000 on my kitchen and about $17,000 on my bathroom (waiting for final bills to confirm that).  The tradespeople were big expenses - the electrical and plumbing and tiling and all that.  They look good now, or they will when finished.  Not fancy though, and I feel like they should be fancier for that kind of money.  That's so much money.  Like, I feel kind of sick about how much money I'm spending on all this.  I was able to do this kind of work for so much less in New Orleans.  But, I want to be able to sell this house and having it updated is important.  I just hope my style decisions were on point.  It's a lot of white.  I mean, A LOT of white.  I went white subway tile in the bathtub surround AND the kitchen backsplash.  That's classic, right?  Gosh, I hope so.  I was worried about my lack of aesthetic skill in choosing anything splashier.  Quartz is a light gray pattern, cabinets are gray, floor is blue and gray.  So it's not ALL white, but it's a lot.  It feels clean, which is what I was going for because it didn't feel clean before with the 1950s kitchen and bathroom.  Bathroom is white vanity, white tub, white surround, white toilet, white shelving, white trim ... but the walls are blue and the floor is gray and the hardware is matte black.  I have a colorful shower curtain coming and I plan to put up some art.  I think it will look fine.  I guess I just fear that I've made bad financial decisions with the house and that I'll end up losing money.  The people before me didn't do much and what they did do sucked - they hired a horrible painter who fucked shit up.  But they did put in beautiful hardwood floors, so that's good.  But god I've put in so much money.  I also have to give myself credit for all the things I didn't overspend on - doing the Ikea kitchen remodel with friends saved thousands, shopping around for countertops saved thousands, shopping around for sales on everything also probably saved thousands.  So yeah, I think I did ok.  Barring the total collapse of civilization, I'll be ok.  

getting closer

 We're getting really close to finishing up the house, or at least the main bits.  The parts that I don't do. 

The tub looks fucking amazing.  I will do anything to keep it in such good condition, including weekly gentle cleaning.  Usually I clean the tub considerably less often than that - I always seem to wrench my back on it, so I'm averse - but I will do it.  I am having a hell of a hard time finding cleaners to work on all my surfaces - quartz, marble, tile w/grout, refinished tub, fancy electric toilet, wood floors.  These things are all so fucking fussy, sheesh.  I may be ok with diluted SalSuds.  I love SalSuds - it smells so good and I have happy memories from where I first encountered it.  I use it for dishes and cleaning.  I think that I can put it in a spray bottle that I can shake up, and use that for cleaning everything.  I may start using it for laundry too - I'll see how that goes.  Wow, that frees up my undercabinet space if I get rid of all the other things - the Comet, the Soft Scrub, the 409, the Clorox wipes, the Murphy's oil soap, Tide, etc. etc.  I do like cleaning supplies.  But if it could be all just handled by Sal Suds, then I will buy it by the fucking gallon and just keep refilling containers.  

One gut response to the horrors of my country's politics now is to want to cleanse myself and my surroundings.  I'm going to do such a deep clean of my house and I want to stay on top of that.  I want to eat "clean" - more vegetables, less processed foods.  I want to keep my mind "clean" - read more, less TV (not that there's anything wrong with TV, but it's become a crutch for me). I want to keep my house clean and with more natural cleaners (the stronger cleaners were burning my nose and lungs anyway).  I want to keep my transportation clean, using my bike more and less fossil fuel.  I want to keep my yard clean - I'm so excited to have a new plant nemesis of Spanish bluebells.  (Fighting invasive plants is a delight for me in a twisted way, but ivy and blackberries never stood a chance with me and the morning glory is dormant in winter, so I'm facing this new scourge with appropriate devastation energy - though they've one-upped me by growing out from under a big front yard tree, bulbs wrapped up in its roots - so this is wary.)  I'm really thinking about getting a sauna to keep my body clean.

These reactions seem healthy, unlike the reaction I feel to want to hide under a rock for four years.  These steps make me stronger and more able to act.  I can share my clean food with others, I can have others in my clean house.  And not using my car is good for everyone.  I bought a too-expensive house specifically because of it being on a bike path, and I very much appreciate the bicycling infrastructure and want to keep using it.  The stronger and healthier I am, the better I can resist.  

I am also going to trick myself into thinking I'm making less money than I am, so that I stop spending it.  Mind you, my budget is pretty "clean" - there's not a lot of fluff.  But now I'm thinking about where to spend more money on my house - a new water heater?  a repaved driveway?  And I need to stop.  So I am having about 40% of my post-tax paycheck (the same amount goes directly into retirement accounts pre-tax) go directly into a savings account, with the remaining amount what I have budgeted for living expenses - housing, food, auto, dog, etc. I am in an ongoing process with my budget to keep it lean, but i'll do another deep dive, like by tracking all food spending to see if there are areas to reduce.  Last time I did it, I realized I was spending like 65% of my budget on produce, so I leaned into growing more of my own.  

I need to position myself leaner in case I lose my job and income.  I could feasibly get two roommates to help cover mortgage but the house isn't made for roommates so it would be a big adjustment for me, and the dog is such a wild card.  Now is a shitty time to try to sell a house here.  And I'm not trying to sell the house - I want to enjoy it for a few years before moving on.  I'm just worst-case scenarioing it because of how many professional people are losing their jobs right now without any notice and how devastating that is (plus of course now my boss really hates me because I called her out).   I have to build up my savings reserve to weather a bad storm.  Of course, I fear for my retirement savings whether it be in the bank or stock market or pension, because all that that the president's men want to do is completely destroy our democratic institutions.  It's very very scary times in so many ways.  I need to be ready in so many different ways. 

+3.6!?

 The scale says that I gained 3.6 pounds over the past week, which is insane.  I did have a large cookie yesterday and bread, but definitely not 12,600 calories worth.  

My diet has deteriorated the past week as I'm focused on other things, but I've tried to minimize the negative effects like yesterday getting a side salad with a meat pie.  But my body allows no wiggle room.  This is disheartening to say the least. 

Once back into my house I'll focus back.  Hopefully in a week.  But today is Sunday, my usual food preparation day, and I absolutely do not have the bandwidth to shop and prep.  

progress

 The house is wrapping up, thank goodness.  Tub refinishers will be in on Monday or Tuesday, then a few final touches while fumes from that vent, and I get to move back in.  This weekend I'll be there working, from cleaning the kitchen thoroughly to touching up texture and paint surfaces to replacing an outlet and cutting down a cover plate to make it fit or hopefully some other way to finish that out.  Quite a few things.  Projects are my happy zone?  I won't be bored, finally.  Friend has had this week off from work and I feel bad that she hasn't had alone time in her home, though she's been productive because accountability.  

One of my former students was in a plane that went down recently and I'm so sad for the very close-knit family.  I wish I could cry because that has really made me want to.  I remember his little eight-year-old self, so earnest, so easily teased.  The family is kind of outcast - in part because of how they act, in part because who they are - but I liked them most of the time (though there have been some really bad judgment calls).  I like Facebook for letting me see glimpses of lives of people from my past.  

This is just a normal weekend that I have to get through and then another week of work, and then I have a four-day weekend to really move back into my house.  So many things to do.  And then I'll start looking in earnest at my calendar to take more time off.  I'm tired.  It will be soooo good to get back into my house after removing the dust and stranger juju.

delays

 Ugh, more delays to my remodeling project.  Now maybe I'll get in by the end of next week.  That will be six weeks for a project expected to take three weeks.  

Sigh.  I know this is the way it goes, but still. 

I'm just so eager to be home - work and Friend's house are so much just sitting.  I'm so tired of going to the office all day, every day, then coming home and a TV being such a focal point.  I have so many things I want to do in my house that are not screens.  

Another thing is that I'm eager to get this all wrapped up financially.  I want to pay all the bills, return the returnables, etc.  Wrap it up.  See where I am financially.  I have this dread now, of thousands of dollars of unexpected expenses with this project, and i just want to know, pay it off, then start intensely saving for house payoff.  

I know that I am an impatient person, and this living in limbo is not helping.  Oh well.  Soon, hopefully. 

end of the world, as we know it

 What the actual fuck is going on right now?  Elon Musk and his unqualified guard are shutting our government down left and right, gaining access to secure treasury information - to what?  It cannot be good.  

I have fondness for USAID because i've worked on a number of projects funded by it, but my knowledge of how it helps goes beyond my personal experience.  Can it be improved?  Sure.  Everything can.  Should staff be locked out and projects defunded overnight?  Absolutely not. This is beyond appalling.  

It's easy to feel overwhelmed, but I'm grateful for the news sources coming through on Blue Sky.  I'll call my legislators and jump onto any call bandwagon to shut shit down (like the "DEI reporting line" and others).  I'll contribute to the resistance.  I'll figure out what else i can do.  Because this is unprecedented shit that must be stopped. 

In completely banal news, I believe I've finally prepped my last winter squash.  I might have a couple more at my house to use up, but I brought several here to Friend's house and I cut and seasoned it last night to roast today and eat with salad and salmon (Friend will have another meat).  Last night I made Kenyan greens and ground beef.  I need to get into the habit of eating a lot more greens.  It's just one more thing that the South does well.  I went to a southern-style restaurant last week, and while most of the food was meh, the collards were great - seasoned heavily.  I think that a side of collards is usually a good idea.  I need to grow more, buy more, eat more.  

I miss the South tremendously, though I do not miss the realities that elected Jeff Landry as governor of Louisiana.  He is so awful.  

The hope is that I will be able to move back into my house in a week or so.  The shower surround was tiled and hopefully grouted yesterday - the tiler was impatiently waiting for the contractor to bring the correct grout.  They will need to seal the tile and I will need to ask about that.  Hopefully the bathtub refinishers are coming soon, and then the plumber will finish up and all the touchups can begin.  And then there is the kitchen of course - the backsplash hasn't yet come down to be replaced but hopefully that will be soon.  I think all this could be done this week but we shall see.  My first step upon them finishing is to change the door code, and then wash the floors.  I think then I can move the dog back, and I'll clean every other surface, shampoo the rugs, wash the couch covers and curtains, scrub heating filters, etc.  I'm so ready to be home.  

It's Monday morning and I am not loving the grind this week.  It's easier to handle when I can be in my house for it - that reminds me of why I work this job, and it is so much more comfortable than going to the office all day every day.  Blech.  

-1.4

 Thank goodness I'm back on track with weight loss.  It stalled out the past month and a half as I tried to play with glucose monitoring and reducing spiking, but 1.4 pounds is a solid loss and hopefully the new trend.  I know that losing this first 10% of body weight is the easiest and it's a rockier road ahead, but that's ok.  At the point at which I am losing no more weight while eating a healthy diet and engaged in healthy amount of activity, I will be ok with that.  I think.  With my wonky thyroid and systems, adjusting the set point is a long game.  

Yesterday I read "Always Hungry?" by Dr. David Ludwig, and while I am not down to be on the diet that he laid out (I didn't realize I was such a picky eater, but I am apparently), I want to take its tenets and build my own (and maybe try out some of the recipes when I'm back in my house with my kitchen gear).  It makes sense that my fat cells are wonky.  My body is paying the price of what I've been spending for decades.  Like when I've lived abroad and had a hard time sourcing healthy food and relied too often on fake pringles and Turkish cookies (they produce so many for export)?  Yeah.  Too many things like that.  

There are other pieces to this, like improving sleep.  I've been sleeping well this week, ever since shit went sideways in so many ways.  I guess I've been waiting and now it's happened, so no more worries about what if.  

I've come up with another plan B - if I can just stay for three more years, my house won't be paid off BUT, I could go back to school and get another degree on a graduate fellowship, and then that degree would help me pivot into my third act.  Doing something kind of in the same field as my job but with more outside and more saving the world.  I've been looking around at other jobs in the world and the three that caught my eye would all be attainable if I had this additional degree.  Tuition is so steep now, it was shocking to see.  When I went to school here 35 years ago, I mostly worked my way through school.  I took very heavy courseloads and worked at least two jobs, and I think I only borrowed something like $5,000 for the whole degree.  Which was of course a lot of money, but I paid it off quickly.  Now that is impossible.  Tuition only is like $17,000 per year, and living expenses are so high.  BUT, when I was a grad student here before, I taught a first-year course, and my tuition and fees including healthcare were paid and I got a salary.  Not a huge salary, I think it was like $648/month, but that plus another job and I was fine.  (I dropped out after two terms because I didn't have any interest in the graduate program - I had no idea what to do after graduation and a favorite professor asked me to stick around and teach.  They ended up fucking her over by denying tenure when she was awesome, which was more evidence to me that academia was fucked.)  

Anyway, I know that I don't want to live in academia - especially how it is now - but I do like to go to school.  Reading, discussing, researching, applying, writing - I love that shit.  It's a holiday for me to go to school.  

My life would have been a lot easier if I had understood compound interest when younger and had sufficient savings now.  But here I am, figuring shit out.  No regrets.  Well, maybe a little regret.  But oh well.  I've been lucky AF.  

As I think about what retirement would look like, I'm rather dissatisfied with the paths I can figure out.  I do like elements of working - I just don't like the bullshit that comes with some offices and bosses.  I don't want to HAVE to work as a grind - I want to figure things out and work hard and then take breaks.  Sounds like doing contract work could be fun, but I'm also going to be very tired of the specifics of what I do now.  I don't want to keep doing this.  I want to get through three more years and then move on.  But, my dog may not be dead then, so how do I afford to stick around in this town for a couple more years since I never want to have to move this high-anxiety dog again?  Could grad school be my answer, especially with covering the health insurance piece (I sure did like the student clinic when I was there before)?  Maybe so.  Or maybe something else.   

I have some time to sort things out, hopefully.  I was really trying to make the push to retiring to stop working, because of my health struggles.  Trying to just bear through a tough job because it pays well.  But now that I'm feeling somewhat better and realize that my life expectancy is closer to 90 years than I'd previously realized, it reframes what my 60s - and beyond - can look like.