missions to accomplish

 Facebook memory was a photo from four years ago of a banana flower in my backyard.  And fruit actually was produced and it was delicious, and I got to learn how and when to harvest it, store it, etc.  New tricks for me.  

And there was a completion to my time in New Orleans with that, having gotten to finally experience what I'd always wanted.  I grew up very far away from the tropics, so I am beguiled by tropical things such as fruit.  

There is a bit of method to my madness of moving so much - it's that I want to experience so many things.  A work colleague compares me to Alexis on Schitt's Creek, how I have all these random stories like she does, which amuses me.  (She very much doesn't want to like me but she can't help herself, and that also amuses me.)  

I do not just read things, I want to do them for myself.  And once I can do them, I don't want to keep doing them forever, I want to move on to something new.  I have always been this way; when younger, many things came very easily to me.  I was quite good at music, encouraged onto the oboe, and then scouted by a professional orchestra who flew me in to perform with them.  And while I enjoyed some aspects of the trip - staying with a family I often stayed with on school trips, they were always so loving to me - I remember being on the stage thinking, "OK, done it, over it."  And I shortly after that quit music altogether.  I was only 14 or 15, but I was done, on to the next thing.  I think the next thing ended up being smoking pot with hooligans in rock quarries, but I survived that too and moved on to the next things.  

I think I'm just wired differently from other people who find comfort in experiencing the same things over and over.  Maybe I have ADHD or some other neurodivergence, I have no idea.  I do certainly get bored very easily and can be hyperfocused until I am, but it's just who I am and I don't usually hurt people along the way.  And when I'm bored, it can be physically painful to keep doing the same things.  It's the opposite of comfort to keep doing them.  

LIke my job, of course.  If I were given the financial opportunity, I would quit this instant.  Not show up where I need to go in half an hour.  Go do something else.  I've always wanted to be a barista.  But of course that pays of a fraction of what I earn now, so I need to keep doing the things for about two years and seven months more.  

Tomorrow I have somebody coming to look at my front porch and I'm hoping they will charge a reasonable amount to fix the bricks and mortar.  I really don't want to put a lot of money into it, in part because I don't know that the person who buys this house in three years won't just remove the brickwork.  It does look outdated, maybe they would care about that.  I don't care about it, in part because I never use my front door and don't look at it.  

I really need to start cleaning the exterior of my house, it's bothering me.  The white gutters and trim are looking dirty, as is the light colored siding.  I'm sure there are easier ways to do this but I anticipate I'll be out there with a ladder, bucket, and rag, scrubbing it all down.  It's something new to learn.  Yes, I've owned houses before, but that's another advantage of moving so often - not having to do some of this deep cleaning.  I am also afraid that this will become a bigger project, such as if I need to repaint trim or break the screens and need to repair or replace them.  But, this will be a good weekend to start this project - a three-day weekend, can do it early in the morning before it gets too hot, but it will be warm enough to dry the house well (unlike the past week in the 60s).  

Time to start rolling towards work ...   

+0.8

Gained weight this past week.  I did have a few meals that were bread with cheese or with peanut butter, so not that surprising, but still, it's always disheartening when but for that I'd stuck to the lean eating and the other meals were vegetables/tofu or lentils.  

I just spent about an hour and saved $468 for the next year on internet services.  They also tried to save me on mobile phone but I was finished when they tried to require my social security number. That's not happening.  SSNs are for taxation purposes only and I resist any other demand for its use.  I understand that anyone can buy it on the dark web and I just had recently somebody use it to try to get a credit card in my name, but I do not have to make it even easier to use fraudulently.  I feel quite strongly about this, refusing to include it in medical information, etc.  I understand it's easier for them to come after me for debt, but I//my insurance always pays.  In fact, about 25 years ago, a lab fraudulently sent me to collections - they had never sent me bills (and this was when I lived in the same place for three years, so it wasn't a mail forward issue) and I had no reason to expect a bill (believing it was fully covered by insurance), and then they sent me to collections and years later once I started looking at things like my credit report I had to fight.  Turns out the lab had been sued for these practices - and lost.  But it was on me to prove all that to clear my credit.  

So yeah, fuck you to anyone who wants my social security number if you're not my employer or the IRS. 

I think it rained a bit last night which is very nice.  And now I need to get out with the dog to walk but my gut is unhappy so I'd rather stick close to my toilet.  

**

Made it ok, it was a very nice walk for us.  I saw all the dogs off at the distance before my dog did and was able to do quick turns and go-arounds to avoid contact.  It's never fun for any of us when she sees a dog and freaks out about the egregious injustice of their existence.

Then I swung by a breakfast foodtruck near my house that I've been meaning to try.  The prices are good and we had a nice chat (she even let me see inside her new-to-her food truck which seems a quite nice size), but the food is SUPER salty.  To be fair, I always undersalt my food to the extreme, but this is almost inedibly salty.  Oh, and now my stomach is rebelling.  It's a very large portion, two servings worth for me, but I'm afraid I'll have to chuck most of it, sadly.  It's really more for people like roofers who are sweating a ton and need the salt.  I do not need the salt.  There's also a flavor with the potatoes that I very much do not care for.  I usually only taste it in prepared camping meals and the like, so have never been able to identify it.  Yuck.  Oh well, had to try it, wanted to support her.  I may try once more with something very different.  If she asks, I'll tell her, but she had good reviews so maybe it's just a me problem, or maybe she accidentally double-salted.  It can happen.  

OK, time to roll outside soon.  I see the neighbor already pulled the dead lavender bush (that he killed) out for me and I need to do some other clean up.  Then to feed the old garlic rows and put in winter brassicas - collards (two types), broccoli, and a "perpetual kale."  And some turnips.  Then pick berries, clean, freeze.  Inside chores: make kale/white bean soup, read, quilt, caulk the windows if I feel up to it.  Caulking a lot is definitely a chore I do best when I feel up to it, when I have the focus and strength.  People sometimes marvel at how well I caulk, and I can be on par with some professionals (though not the best ones), but the trick is to be in the right headspace and not too tired.  Also, I just got a pretty nice caulk gun that makes it a pleasure. I would prefer to be in the right space to do all the caulking at one time, but we'll see.  Friend offered me her battery-operated one but that's probably too much as I need to control it well.  

A big event happened in the book I'm reading (The Hunter by Tana French) but it's only halfway through so clearly it's not the actual climax.  i think she did that in the last book, too - a huge surprise in the middle that turned out to be not as a big a deal as it seemed.  But I am hooked to see what happens next.  It's a former large city cop from the US who settles in small-town Ireland and navigates those relationships and personalities, and fortunately written by an Irish person who researches well.  So, I may finish that today, then move on to Stone Yard Devotional, before The Wayfarer comes available from somebody returning it to the library - that's quite a long book so everybody returns it late.  There's one more book in the Tana French series with these characters that she recently released which I will for sure want to read.  Oh, 63 hold requests for it already? Yeah, I better jump in that queue.  Sometimes the holds move pretty quickly - when I joined for The Correspondent I think I was #124 and now I'm 96 just a few weeks later.   I had gone to pick up some free tree collards from a FB post and the person came out tearful saying she'd just finished that book and it's so good, so I jumped on the library queue.  The other books I'm queued up for are a a range of new fiction highly recommended, with health and financial planning for a woman of my age. 

OK, time to tip that breakfast into the trash and start working outside in this wonderful weather - overcast and 60 degrees, just how I like it.  What a gift to have weather like this in late June!  

**

I'm close enough to finishing my current projects that I'm looking to the next one, and getting the mortar on my front porch repaired is moving to the top of the list.  It's quite deteriorated and one brick is now totally loose.  I hope that I can find somebody to do a good enough job without it costing a lot.  I could probably do it myself, but it would be stressful to be sure I'm doing it right (and one more thing!), and I'd have to buy equipment.  I don't want to buy any more equipment.  I only have brick on the front of my house so I can have them check it all but I think the rest is ok.  They may ask me about redoing my driveway, and yeah, it doesn't look great, but I don't want to spend money on that, because if I think about something like that, I should think about residing my house, and I really don't want to pay for that.  So yeah, keep it simple.  That's the rule.  But a loose brick on a stairwell is a safety hazard needing repair that I can pay for. 

**

 I am really looking forward the road trip about three years in my future.  I've been noting places I want to go (I'm really focused on the Badlands and I really want to spend more time around The Wave and Coyote Buttes, and New Mexico, and North Carolina, and Big Bend National Park in TX, and NYC, and Montreal, and Louisiana of course the land of  my heart, and Florida from Cuban culture to manatees, and friends along the way, and maybe some Workaway stints).  I think of how to configure my Subaru Forester and gear to maximize camping potential (and watch plenty of videos).  I want to practice on short roadtrips around here before embarking on what I expect will be several months of exploring.  Because I expect it will be my last big road trip like that.  I could be wrong, but I don't any more really enjoy the 16 hours per day of driving for thousands of miles to get to a destination with a deadline.  My body does not appreciate that sitting still so long.  But a road trip where I"m in no rush and I'm just looking around, that can be fun.  POking around and kicking tires to see if any place piques my curiosity to follow up with about becoming home.  

And the other planning piece is starting to gather books for the road.  OK, I've only gathered one so far, Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon.  I started it from the library but then realized I'd really want to read it when on the road.  I may pick up Travels with Charley (John Steinbeck) and Democracy in America (Alexis de Tocqueville), travelogues I quite liked when younger.  I have questions about what we have become and how I fit into it.  I have spent years in smalltown midwest and the South, but things have changed recently, I think, but maybe not.  Maybe it's all just hype.  But I don't think so - Arlie Hochschild set off my concerns Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. 

Yesterday I heard a snippet on the radio of two British historians who mentioned that the American Revolution is not a big deal in the UK, eclipsed by the French Revolution and other events.  Then one went on to say that the American REvolution wasn't necessary and don't Americans recognize that?  Look to Canada and Australia, aren't they just fine, and they didn't have to go through all that revolutionary bother.  

And it really made me laugh, how he so missed the mark on who we are as Americans.  OF COURSE we needed revolution.  My anthropological training is rather rudimentary - actually, no it's not.  I trained in it through PhD coursework twice, once with an excellent academician and learned all the big ideas very well.  i just couldn't stick around either place long enough to finish a dissertation, though my projects along the way were quite good (and I also was trained in it at the masters level at yet another university). 

So I have these big questions to consider along the road, and I imagine numerous evenings camping and reading.  I do read quite well when camping, fewer distractions.  So, I think I'll start a pile of books for the road.  Three years is not that far away.  I need to enjoy what I have here while I still do - this too-large for my house and yard, a passionate dog, bicycle commuting, a good salary, etc. - and also look ahead.  

made it to noon

 Three plus hours of yardwork wears me out - I plan to sit for much of the rest of the day.

I planted, I tied up plants, I weeded, I laid a bit of mulch, I emptied out and moved a compost bin, etc.  My heartrate definitely got elevated at various times.  A good bit of exercise I'd say.  

I finally figured out why my boss is getting an additional person for us - I knew it had nothing to do to help us. No, there is an intern she really really likes, so she's trying to make her get the job.  The timing of it is weird and everything (the position is open exactly when the fellowship is ending).  And this person is not great.  She's ok, but she requires a lot of work for the rest of us.  On her fellowship type thing, she carried less than 20% of the rest of us, but commandeered so much of everyone else's time because she didn't know what she was doing and demanded so much help.  She should absolutely not be hired for our office.  Her skillset is sucking up, which is not what we need - especially because the only person who has fallen for it is my boss. 

And now to the indoor tasks - canning beans, clean out the coffee grinder, make rice for the next meal, etc. etc.   

My pear tree is super overloaded - I think I say this every year, but this year it seems so heavy that I'm kind of overwhelmed thinking about the harvest to come.  Very few of the pears are pristine - they are very high up, they fall, I gather them, they need to be eaten or processed quickly.  First I dehydrated a lot, but tbh I don't eat much dehydrated fruit.  Then I canned them in apple and white grape juice (watered down significantly), and those have been tasty all winter, but today I realized two other things: surely I can make a pear sauce like applesauce to bake with?  I'm not getting apples this year (the few on the tree are already being eaten by scavengers) and pear sauce seems a great thing to have on hand to replace oil and sweetener in baked goods.  And also - why not make my own pear juice to can the pears in??  No need to buy juice.  

To the other side of life, I think that a big part of why I want to be footloose and fancy free as soon as I can is that I am so stuck right now physically.  I can't take my dog anywhere, and leaving her is also problematic.  I also always seem to have yard and house chores.  It makes me all just want to go to the other extreme and be free.  Obviously these are choices that I'm making, but I do love my imperfect dog and make sacrifices for her.  

But when she is no more, I want to do a lot of nearby camping trips to try out different gear and setup before I embark on a massive cross-country roadtrip.  I've driven everywhere from Alaska to Florida, but usually I'm on a mission to get someplace.  I will want this roadtrip to have shorter driving days, more stops.  People to see, things to do.  

Like, when I went on my camping trip last year about this time, I was focused on a national monument which was super worth the trip, but I also made stops and found a rock formation I'm now almost obsessed with returning to, checked out hotsprings and river and lake, found some other trails, and stopped in a small town museum which was super interesting, and then lunch in another small town which was kind of creepy.  Then i came back and found out the dog had snapped at Friend, and it put a damper on things for me, but that's what I want to do a lot more of.  And hopefully increase the amount of hiking I can do.  

from the berry patch

Just went out to the berry bushes and got another 3/4 pint or so of berries.  Ate some, washed the rest to go into the freezer with the others, and when I have enough I'll make one batch of jam, and then keep the rest frozen to use throughout the year.  I don't have a sense of how much longer this season will last for raspberries, though I see the blackberries have yet to ripen.  What is confusing too is that I think I have about four different types of berries out there.  I know for sure that I have triple crown blackberries because I bought those on recommendation - they're thornless, nice flavor.  I bought two of them just over two years ago, and I think I put them in the ground a year, maybe year and a half ago.  They are now huge and sprawling, and I think I'll do an arch with them.  There are soooo many berries ripening, I'm excited for that to happen.  But all the other berries were free to me - Dear Friend brought me some, I got some off a guy on Facebook, and I think from a woman on FAcebook or maybe a neighbor.  There are definitely different types in there, obvious by growth habit and appearance, and by taste.  I like the ones best that are right by the blackberries, because they seem like a raspberry/blackberry cross, and they're very good, but they're also hidden.  

The berries of course want to take over the whole yard, but I want to keep them in a small space, just one row of maybe 15' long.  And I very much like being able to just graze, and now also to pick enough to save.  It's very nice.  

The dog thinks it's nice, too, and is always right beside me begging for some berries which she eats delicately.  

So ... I may not need to go picking or buy any raspberries/blackberries this year which saves me some cash for sure. 

The leaves are eaten by bugs pretty bad, but I'm not seeing damage to the fruit, so that's fine.  

Speaking of that, I just smushed five caterpillars from my tree collards.  I just cannot get over how well they're doing in the pots - again, free from a woman on Facebook.  I see a happy future for them in my yard, producing greens for me year round forever.  Well, or for at least the next two years for me, then hopefully the next person will like them as well.

People are so weird here about greens, not understanding them, thinking only about kale.  No, no, no.  Turnip greens and collard greens give me life, as do cassava leaves and sweet potato leaves.  I grew up with no dark leafy greens, like ever, but life in the South and Africa showed me the joys.   

**

And now it's Saturday and I had planned to go to the farmers market to get greens to cook to eat with polenta (so good), but then I remembered that I have some other meal plans first.  There's still a bunch of kale to make into soup with white beans, and a head of green cabbage to cook in some way, and frozen winter squash to make into curry (though I do need some more greens for that ... though maybe I could pluck enough little turnip greens from the garden, or maybe even a collard tree leaf or two to top off).  That should get me at least for awhile.  I do though want to stop at the grocery store tomorrow after dog walk because I saw they have jackfruit on sale and I didn't know it was shelf stable, but now that I know where to look for it, I want to try it.  And I'm getting back on the tofu train - I have a block frozen that I'll thaw and shred and season and eat with pasta and sauce.  Another block I'll bake in squares to put into the squash curry.  My snowpeas were really not very productive this year and usually I look at pulling them out around now but I'm nurturing them along to see if I can get more.  The zucchini is taking off and i won't be surprised to see flowers soon.  

And I really need to organize my freezer because it's seeming full.  Get the newest blueberries to the bottom, rotate the stock.  I think I used up all the vegetables in there but it's worth another look to be sure.  

OK, it's not raining right now though it's expected to drizzle later.  What a treat this cool wet weather is - usually it's hot and dry now (and it was just a week ago, almost 100 and so dry).   

I do like days when I don't have to leave the house, even if it's just to the farmers market.  I have a lot of outdoor chores I'd like to complete today and then also indoor things - I need to finish a Tan French book this weekend, which can be a fairly easy read but it's a lot of pages, and to finish the quilt binding this weekend.  I took a break for a couple of days because of hand cramping, but I should be able to get it done this weekend and then launder when it's nicer outside to hang it out to dry.  Outdoor chores including weeding and mulching and filling the green bin, tying up some vines, putzing around.  I may empty the Aerobin to harvest compost, and I want to plant some winter brassicas once I've fed where I took out the garlic.  

The dog has been very cuddly, and last night she paced around and finally convinced me it was bedtime so that she could snuggle in with me for a bit.  She was such a jackass when friends were over last weekend, and I think she's just over people except for a very few, mostly just me.  And that's ok.  She used to be much more social but now I think they just make her anxious, and of course then I can't trust her not to snap.  

I've been toying with different configurations of leaving my job - what if instead of quitting in 2.5 years, I just started taking my vacation time in big chunks once the dog passes?  Go to Australia for six weeks and hang out with friends. Go to Japan and eat okonomiyaki and all the other good vegetables.  Go to the chard festival in Croatia and kick around the Adriatic.  In theory it's great but the reality is really hard because of the work we do.  I can't just pop in and out, the way that I've made this work actually sane for me is to do a shit-ton of early work.  If I prepare early, I can handle the chaos close to events.  I finally got at least some of my team on board with this strategy, and it's worked really well.  So if I'm gone for a big chunk of time, when I get back I have SOOO much more work to catch up on.  So maybe I took off two weeks to check out Iceland, but then when I come back I have to power through 60 hour very stressful weeks.  And I don't see any workaround to that and still do an effective job, because I hate surprises.  So what about a sabbatical which I'm contractually entitled to?  Take off maybe six months, which at least in theory would have a lot of things reassigned, and then I could do some international travel and also my big cross-country road trip that I want to do very leisurely.  Advantage would be that I'd be able to maintain health insurance during that time and have a job to come back to.  Disadvantage is that I don't want to come back to this fucking job, I want to get out of it.  

Another consideration is that my house is estimated to have increased in value by 10% in the past three years.  Which ... at a quick glance I was thinking it'd increased 10%/year, but no, just about pace with inflation (though maybe it will sell for more because of the upgrades, though they are budget upgrades).  If I sell this house and then decide I want to live here because it is a pretty easy place to live in many ways, would I even be able to afford it?  I mean ... maybe?  I could put the sale proceeds into CDs or high interest savings accounts which may at least keep pace with inflation.  The realtor cut is always a killer. And of course, it could also sell for less, who knows what the future holds.  A home isn't a stable investment.  

My lab results are dribbling in slowly and now the website is down, but late last night I did see that while my hsCRP is high, it's significantly lower than the last time tested, so that's good.   

OK, coffee is finished, time to move gently into this day.   

things I can't change, things I can

My lab results are trickling in and overall they don't seem alarming.  The things that are high are mostly outside of my control.  Like my wonky autonomous thyroid, high red blood cell count, and now I learn about my elevated lipoprotein a.  Not elevated to the point that I need medical intervention, I'm assuming though will talk with my doctor, but high enough that I need to be aware and reduce other factors that I do have control over.

Also a few elevated things such as triglycerides and LDL and glucose, but they are all just a couple of points outside the range.  Like, triglycerides are good up to 150, mine is 153 (which is drastically better than a couple of years ago); glucose "good" up to 100, mine is 102.  (I would like to understand that a little better - this testing was done right after a very stressful event and I'd eaten quite a lot of sugar the two days prior.  The A1c was 5.4, within normal range, and lower than the 5.7 I saw last time that concerned me.)

But I also always need to remind myself: these "normal" ranges are not "optimum health" ranges.  If I were fully healthy, the numbers would likely look different.  

The good news from my perspective at least (again, will talk with doctor once everything is in), is that there may be further lifestyle modifications to make (increase regular activity, reduce stress, take vitamin D and B supplements) but no drastic intervention required.  This isn't exactly a clean bill of health, but nothing stopping me from extended travel or requiring medical supervision.  

I do believe that the basics are helping a lot - the plant-forward diet, the improved sleep, the better hydration.  Need to really solidify those and then figure out what increased activity will look like.  I absolutely will not go to a gym, hate it.  Walking was always my go-to, but with the feet arthritis it's a lot harder.  Biking is wonderful for commuting but not a fan of it for recreation (boring).  Rowing machine is SO boring.  But maybe I can get with like some qi gong and calisthenics, prioritize and maximize the time spent. Exercise a bit more willpower for better habits.  

Though I don't want to be too harsh with myself - I do actually practice pretty good willpower about many things, and it frankly takes a ton of bandwidth sometimes.  It can be exhausting.  this is why I have to slowly stack the health improvements rather than trying to change everything all at once.   

Oh crap, I agreed to cover a remote meeting for someone, forgetting I'm baking bread at that time.  Crap.  Need to figure that out - maybe try to bake earlier.  Oh, actually the bread is rising faster than I expected so maybe this will work out ok.  Vigorous sourdough for sure, yay.  

OK, time to start this workday.   

 

reclaiming my time

 Little in politics resonates for me like Maxine Waters persistently reclaiming her time in Senate hearings - refusing to politely allow people to just take away what was hers.  It represents resistance, speaking up to power - and the uncomfortable reminder that even when a Black woman is in power she has to continue to remind the room that she has earned that place and it will not be taken from her.  I have great respect for her.  

It also has a more quotidian meaning for me, the reclaiming of my time from a job that takes all my bandwidth.  Part of the issue is the hybrid remote culture, so my computer is always staring at me in my home; part is the constant access expectation of a cell phone.  And part of it is just my limitations, how hard it can be for me to shut down work when I'm dealing with complicated matters all the time.   

And while work is always busy, it should actually be manageable right now.  I make my list of tasks and they should not be taking me 10 hours a day to finish.  Yes, again, part of the problem is me - I allow myself to get sidetracked by calls for help.  I respond timely to every request.  I take on what isn't always my responsibility when I see a need.  But I'm getting better - I'm no longer volunteering to every request from my boss, and I'm no longer putting effort into making things better structurally.  If somebody is doing something wrong, that doesn't have to be my problem.  I don't have to figure out why there are glitches and poor procedures - while I'm very good at that, it takes time and effort, and it's not my job.  I startled my boss and office manager when they were trying to put something on me - I had volunteered for a small thing and they were making it bigger and I would not accept that.  "That is outside the scope of my responsibility.  Here is what I'm responsible for and am completing with this message: XYZ."  And I'm sticking to it.  

My brain hasn't caught up yet though, as I still spin on the complicated problems.  Sometimes I come up with helpful solutions in my dreams, but I want to have downtime without work consuming every space.  

So, I continue those efforts.  

I was up too early this morning because the dog thought it necessary.  The problem with being awake at 5 am is that I've promised the neighbor that I won't let the dog out until 7 am (because she barks and wakes them).  On the other hand, that neighbor's husband just burned my lavender bush to the ground, so I'm in the position of power right now in our relationship.  He clearly felt bad, came knocking on my door offering to buy a replacement plan, apologizing.  He was burning weeds and somehow killed that old lovely bush, one of the few non-natives I kept because it was quite nice.  His wife's concern was that he'd torched a plant near our fences and was going to ignite our neighborhood, so he doused it fully with water.  In the scheme of things it's actually not a big deal; i'll probably just cut it out and replace it with gaillardia, one of my favorite flowers.  And I was laughing when talking with his wife about it.  But maybe this is my leverage to ask him to help pay for the fence that I put in three years ago?  Maybe not.  But I am taking it gracefully even though there's this scorched bush in my yard that I now have to deal with.  Why on earth be an asshole about it, I know he didn't mean to do it, and he feels bad.  I'm glad he didn't take out one of the natives that has been filling in the back space nicely. 

Anyway, it's Thursday and I'm already gearing up for the weekend because I believe our heatwave is over for now.  I"ve got milk heating on the stovetop to make yogurt before work, and just fed starter to begin bread today to bake tomorrow morning as it looks like I can work from home then.  I plan to bike to the office today for the morning, then stop at the library to renew my card (it's so annoying they make me do that - it's about limiting non-residents' access).  I'm already making my list for the weekend so that I can begin today.  Finish the quilt, finish cleaning the interior window sashes, cook the snap peas I gathered form the garden with tofu, pick the favas that are browned before it possibly rains tonight, vacuum, weed behind the berries and dogwood and move more mulch there, tie up the native vines, fill the green bin with branches, weed along the fenceline for ivy that keeps encroaching, etc. etc.  The cooling of the weather definitely motivates me.  And this weekend I may work some more on compost and definitely want to plant winter crops from where I just pulled the garlic.  

And I want to start zero-summing my workhours.  So far this week I"ve worked 9 hour days, so I want to work a couple of 7 hour days today and tomorrow.  I'm not even doing the lookback to earlier weeks with much longer days, I just want a little balance right now.   

And I make these lists because otherwise work just consumes me.  It can be hard for me to even take time to hydrate, I get so hyper-focused on work.  Though, I do commend myself for doing much better lately with hydration and sleep, my two current goals.  It definitely makes a difference about how early I fall asleep if I take a book to bed instead of a laptop, so I try to go with the book.  And so much more water drunk.  I still have an occasional flavored sparkling water (no sugar of course), but mostly I'm just drinking chilled filtered tap water.  I used to fill my Berkey maybe once a week, now it's about every other day.  And these two things, sleep and water, seem to be really helpful with my well-being.  I stacked these on top of the healthy eating (plant-forward, reduce ultra-processed foods).  Once I feel a little bit more secure with all three of those things, I'll be more focused on activity.  Yes, I get activity with garden tasks and commuting and such, but I can be more consistent about getting sufficient activity almost every single day and including bursts with accelerated heartrate, and I really should start to focus on resistance strength training.  

**

Well, I did not do well with cutting back my work hours.  People always want too much of me, I need to stop being so fucking responsive and helpful.

But also, I made yogurt, prepped bread for baking early tomorrow morning, renewed my library card, bicycle commuted, and cooked snap peas and tofu for dinner.  So, that's pretty good with taking my own time. Glad to be getting back on the tofu kick - have two more boxes in my fridge to use up before I can justify returning to Costco.  Getting their organic extra firm tofu makes my day; it's like $5.49 for a 4-pack, and I like the flavor and texture a lot.  

magic

 One of the things about this town that I find so hard is that there's so little magic.  The sort of moments in New Orleans, West Africa, other places I've lived, where it's not just about how it seems - that there is something magical working on.  Like, going for a walk on a perfect spring day and running through the most amazing scent and looking up to find the most striking architecture that draws me in and makes me daydream.  Not about something so gauche as commercial aspects of purchasing it, but about the craftsmen who made the gingerbread cutouts and who they were, the forgers who made the square nails and what their ironwork meant to them and the community, and catching a peek of a hidden garden with lusciousness.  Or the blueberry buckle my neighbor's mother tells me about and shares the recipe when I take over some okra from my garden.  Just, these interactions with people and places, it keeps me alive. 

That doesn't really happen here, and it makes me feel less alive.

But one person provides a little magic; she runs a soup kitchen type thing and today messaged to offer me heaps of coffee grounds and compostables.  Sure, I'll start another compost pile, why not?  Swing by, pick up, she always has more for me, whether it's offers of other things or ideas.  She's just such a cool person, I really like her, and the magic of compost that she creates for me.  Five big buckets today, and I'm running low on leaves, so I'll start using the ground up spruce tree I recently got as the browns.  We'll see how it composts down.  I'll just keep saying yes to her.  I also saw her post about volunteering in the soup kitchen this weekend, so I may try to make that happen.  If I can get my act together during the week.   

hot but cool

 It was supposed to be a scorcher these days, upper 90s.  That got adjusted downward, though my patio is registering at about 95 degrees but my house stays fairly cool until about 5 pm.  Then I make sure curtains are closed, turn on the ceiling fan (which is now going the correct direction), and usually that's good until the sun goes down and I can open up the windows, get it to cool down until the next day, start all over.  Not always - I have run AC a couple of days this year - but it's really different from in the South when I was basically running AC nonstop for months on end.  And I do think that my attic insulation is helping, and i could put up some sun shades outside to make it stay even cooler.  

Nearing the end of the quilt, stitching the binding on, taking that slow with breaks because of arthritic hands.  It's so incredibly exciting to finish a project after 18 years!  I was even getting out cross stitch that I started probably about 20 years ago, dinosaurs for an archeologist friend; the pattern is a photocopy in German and I vaguely recall copying it from a German friend, and I haven't seen her in many years.  We used to be close, living together, but she isn't someone I've stayed in touch with as she can be a lot and I do not care for her boyfriend.  

Finishing these projects brings up so many memories.  Mostly good or neutral.  

I feel not industrious today and I'm hoping for a workday with no emergencies.  Just want to chill a bit.  

And before that workday, I need to get out and water the sideyard, with the seedling cucumbers and squash.  The zucchini are taking off well; others are limping along though the heat seemed to help them.  Another couple of warm days and then some promised respite and even rain, which is nearly unheard of in summer here.  In excitement I've already put away everything I don't want to get wet and set a bucket out to catch any water.  

OK, time to start moving ... 

impossible until you do it

 So, the work thing did wrap up earlier than planned yesterday, and yet I still worked a long day, unable to shut myself down.  Today though, the day after, I'm kicking back.  Work awhile, then take a break and set up the patio.  Work awhile, scrub down the window sashes' dried paint.  I tried scraping, no go.  Back to the drawing board.  Isopropyl alcohol does the trick just fine, yay.  I won't get them perfectly cleaned but I'll get most of the yellow off this way.  First pass on first window completed.  This project is not impossible.  Once I get them cleaned, I'll caulk them well.  That will be a nice project to finish. 

And no, I'm not stealing company time or anything like that.  I significantly exceed expected work hours, and when I'm working on days like this where I'm not 100% focused only on work all day, I'm still available to take calls, handle emergencies, etc.  Even though I'm salary I have to record time actually worked and which project to bill it to, so today is a short day, and let's then look at all the long days.  Also, when working in-office, there's always a lot of wasted time - walking clear across the office to the printer, chatting with people, trying to find a hole punch that works right, etc. etc.  

Yes, I'm convincing myself about this because it's hard for me to not be a workhorse all the damn time.  And next week is also a little light with required meetings and events, which I want to maximize for getting done some of the lingering less-urgent projects, but I also want to start late, take lunch, leave early.  I want a sane work schedule for at least a few days.  I will of course continue to always stay 100% honest about my reported work hours, and if my boss wants to say "Hey, you only recorded projects to 4 hours but you didn't take vacation time off," well, she will get an earful.  She won't, that's just in my head.  And yes, I could take vacation time, but actually I like developing a rhythm of job and life, not being totally consumed by job.  Maybe I can reset myself to better taking lunch hours, only working 8-5, etc. ("only" - honestly, 8-5 is too long of a workday; 8:30-4:30 would be nicer).  

**

And now it's Saturday, back to the testing lab.  Yesterday I went, and the doctor's office screwed up the order.   So today I went to a different lab which the doctor is more familiar with.  While I was sorting out its location, etc., my co-worker happened to call and she gave me the lowdown, and I'm grateful for the tips.  It was fine, even though I didn't have an appointment, a coverage phlebotamist took me right away, and she was good.  We'll see what the tests show.  It was definitely a lot ordered.  

I feel like crap today, which is probably the adrenaline still dumping.  On day of stressful event, two days ago, once I was free, I stopped at the store and got a container of candy and gobbled it.  It's a crutch after stress as a way to keep moving.  It's not great, but it's pretty effective.  Then yesterday I was still productive at least at home things.  AFter work I even went over to see our visiting Australian friend and to invite him over to dinner tonight.  To get in a car and go somewhere after work is a high bar, but I was feeling pretty good, and we had a good chat.  

Have a bit more housecleaning to do today and soon I'll start prepping food.  He's been traveling for work for weeks and tired of restaurant food so I'm going health - I think I'll make a roasted red cabbage salad with quinoa and heaps of herbs, spiced lentils, chard and potatoes, and probably cook up some chicken sausages as Friend who will be there is a big meat eater and it's tasty with the chard and potatoes.  And then for dessert, the millet-berry dish I like so much.  That I prepped last night and it's waiting in the fridge to be baked.  I'll make the cabbage this morning as it's nicer when it's been sitting for awhile for flavors to meld.  Same with lentils.  

IF I can get moving.  It's not even 8 yet and I've already been out to test and back so that's a win, but there's a considerable amount of pain and fatigue today.  I had a really long to-do list and I think I'll cut it back a lot.  I still have two weekend days after today to do things, and hopefully a light work week, and in two weeks I get another three day weekend.  Plenty of time to get chores done.  And if I start feeling better, maybe I'll take a short hike.  

OK, just canceled my HBO Max.  I'll move on to another streaming service, or not.  Maybe I'll try to read more instead. 

**

OK, just made the roasted cabbage salad.  It's so good.  Needs more nuts but I can add those later.  

Here's a hill I'm willing to die on.  I saw a video of a woman making a salad; she's famous for a cupcake chain or something.  She was showing how she chops up every ingredient to exactly the same size, saying it makes a "perfect bite."  I strongly disagree.  I deliberately often don't chop things exactly the same size, like this salad.  The cabbage and onion I roasted, I make different sizes because they'll be different levels of doneness - some soft, some crunchier, all cooked well within a good range.  Bits of date, not so big, same with nuts, and who wants a big chunk of parsley?  Not me.  I like a mix of sizes and flavors and appreciate how it can come together.  All the same size is boring AF.  No thank you. 

Off to clean the kitchen for the next round: spicy lentils.  I did get all the garlic harvested and hung to cure, yay.  I keep forgetting about the shallots but those need to come up too.  Just waiting for the favas to turn so I can harvest the seeds - they're flip flopping all over now, making me crazy.  

**

Now it's Saturday, and one of the last things I saw last night was a post from a blueberry farm that they're opening u-pick this morning and berry bushes are loaded.  That wasn't on my schedule for today, but I think I may start my day there.  It's supposed to be a bit cooler today, mid-70s, and right now it's overcast, so I'm hopeful that I can still do my outside chores later in the day as I have plenty to do.  I seem to feel a bit better today than I did yesterday, so that's nice.  And I shouldn't be out there for more than an hour, and the berries don't require crouching like strawberries, so hopefully it doesn't take all my energy, and I can gradually clean and freeze them.  I don't need a ton myself, but I always stock Friend's freezer with them as they're her favorite.  U-pick raspberries are expected to be ready around 4th of July which is good timing for me, another three day weekend, and I"ll want some of those.  I am also getting a lot of raspberries from my own bushes, about a pint yesterday, so that's very nice, and there are a ton of blackberries ripening now.  Looking ahead ... the pear tree is overloaded, it's amazing.  I'll be canning and dehydrating a ton of those.  Very few apples this year - it alternates.  Also not a lot of plums, but I still have some jars of dehydrated in the freezer; I use them more for cooking but also available for snacking.  I only planted two tomatoes this year because I can easily buy more; I think it's time to can up a bunch more salsa.  ADvantage to doing it myself is I can put it in smaller jars than I can buy at the store.  I think I'll not do peaches this year - I'll eat some fresh, but I don't need to freeze and can them.  I think I'm still good with relish and pickled jalapenos but I should check.  I planted my peppers too early and they're stunted.  Oh well.  Live and learn. Maybe some will pull through.  PLanning out the food preservation this year ... 

Garlic is all harvested and hanging in the garage for a month; I need to pull the shallots too.  I'm told it's time to plant overwintering brassicas, so I'll dig through the seed box and see what I find to put in this weekend.  Collards for sure, I think some broccoli too.  The tree collards I got for free from the woman on Facebook are in pots and doing well in a mostly shady spot with regular water.  They weren't well rooted but they seem to be fine.  I'll just tend them in pots for now and plan to put them in the ground in fall when the ground is wet again.  PRobably near the rhubarb, in that corner near the dogwood and gooseberry.  When we'd arrived to get the tree collards, she excused herself for crying, having just finished an excellent book, The Correspondent.  I went and added it to my library wishlist, #124 on the queue waiting for it.  

Dinner last night was fine, chill.  They didn't even come into the house so I guess I cleaned just for me.  The patio was lovely thanks to all the work I've done on it, a nice spot to hang out.  The dog was a pain in the neck, something is off with her.  She also believes she's an outside dog now - a door slammed shut from the breeze through the windows, and it so freaked her out she ran out and wouldn't come back in for hours until I begged her.  She's also got upset stomach and eating grass, and hacking cough.  But without fail she is directly at my feet if I go to the raspberry patch, eagerly awaiting berries.  I got a bunch of the mini-totes from Trader Joe's as gifts - they're a viral sensation which would mean nothing in Australia but they're still cute and likely helpful with the children aged 2-10 as well as adults.  I told him he needs to show the videos of people brawling for the bags, how he saw me bruised and battered from obtaining them.  One of the adults is very trendy and did live in the US for awhile and keeps her finger on the pulse of things, so she at least will appreciate the style of it.  

OH, weather forecast now is saying it's going to get sunny later today, so I shouldn't dilly dally.  I'll grab my favorite bucket to fill with berries; it's food grade, reused from a woman who'd used the whole 4 gallons or so of apple pie filling to make treats to share with people, and then she was so done with it but I grabbed and cleaned it of its stickiness, and it's been such a good bucket for food gathering.  I have such a funny fondness for such things as reused buckets.  My outside buckets, the ones I use for hauling dirt and mulch and weeds, are all mostly falling apart, but many of them were salvaged too (or were free gifts from stores) so I can't be too upset.  

Compost update: the leaves that I gathered from last winter have turned very nicely and worms are in there finishing the job.  I'll clear out the three pallet bins to fill again with leaves this year - walking around the neighborhood with a wheelbarrow was good exercise.  A co-worker didn't believe me when I said I didn't need to chop up the leaves for them to compost well, so I sort of want to dump a bucket of it on her desk.  (Clearly she annoys me in other ways, and she'll be leaving soon so i don't have to make efforts.)  I did go light on oak and other leaves that take a long time to break down.  They broke down tremendously, and I used them as the carbon in my large Aerobin composter where I put food waste.  I"m letting the Aerobin cook down and am now filling the compost tumbler so we'll see how that goes.  I also got a large barrel composter but it doesn't seem to be doing much.  I got it mostly for windfall apples since it's rodent-proof, but that's a next year problem since this is an off year for apple tree.  Also, I got that composter because it was free, my favorite price.  

**

Oy vey, the blueberries are fantastic!  They were so abundant, I picked 12 pounds in less than an hour.  So tasty.  Dropped off a bunch for Friend, got the rest cleaned, freezing in batches to package up.  That's definitely what I plan to do going forward - that farm, u-pick.  I think I got picked last year and they were not as tasty; the previous year I u-picked and they were not as tasty.  Maybe it's just this year's weather.  Anyway, they're great, I already ate a ton.  

I was driving past a place not far from my house (like 13 blocks), a relatively inexpensive vegetarian diner, wishing it were open, thinking it wasn't in business.  I assumed it was shut down after a failed attempt to start up.  But no, it has limited hours and I just never drive past when it's open.  Definitely adding to my list to try it out.  There's also a vegan raw foods place that people rave about that is also about 13 blocks away that I never try because the hours are so limited, but I'm adding it to the list.  Not for right now, I have a ton of leftovers in my fridge.  But when I'm running low, I'm going to one of those places.  I did go to another vegan cafe also not too far away and it was ... ok.  More expensive, hard to park, not very friendly, food was only ok.  I feel some urgency to frequent these places because a place I'd wanted to try went out of business before I did, and another place I went to a couple of times and quite liked went out of business.  My main go-to for falafel comfort food is still afloat but I was in there not long ago and they were saying how slow it's been, business has been bad.  

And no, I'm not vegan.  But I definitely prefer to eat plant-forward and I'm always looking for good ideas.  The diner has baked tofu that looks great in the photo so I'm excited to try it, and they have a lentil bowl which would be great the weeks I'm low on lentils (which is rare of course - lentils are one of my primary foods, for any meal).  I committed to cooking lentils at least once a week (so to eat several times), and found some things I really quite like, and Dear Friend's spicy lentils are great (though I didn't eat them today because i had beans to use up with tortillas, and I had a red lentil "protein biscuit" for breakfast).  Lentils are just such a great food - cheap, healthy, filling.  

Some of my lab tests came back and so far, not too bad.  My thyroid hormone is high, as it always is (free T3), and my glucose was slightly high (102, supposed to be under 100), but my A1c was down to 5.4, and my fasting insulin was in normal range - though of course the normal ranges aren't ideal.  My vitamin D and B12 are both low, my red blood cell count high as usual.  I'm mostly interested in the pending tests - inflammation markers, triglycerides and cholesterol, etc.  No bombs have been dropped so far, and once again I'm super glad that I rejected medication - my A1c was up to 5.7 last year and the nurse wanted to treat me like I was diabetic, and I was like, um, no.  

I feel like I was lazy today, but I also got some other things done like harvesting shallots and trimming the quilt edge and getting the sewing machine out.  I may have figured out the tension issue.  I have no idea why the me of 18 years ago didn't figure it out, but I think I did today.  So the next steps: stitch together binding, iron it, machine stitch it on, then hand stitch the back, then make sure all the markings are gone, wash in water alone, check again, and then launder, and then nicely fold it into the linen closet.  Oh, and take a photo for the person who gave me thread, and maybe for FB when the memory comes up from when I started it.  I now know for certain I started it in 2008 not 2007, because I found the quilt magazine and pattern.  Anyway, I'm very close to done, which is super exciting.  And then I'll turn to finishing the other quilts that I have tops for, that I made when I worked in Africa (and my boss asked me to take up a hobby other than sleeping around so much with men I met professionally - so quilting it was).  I think there's three more tops.  And then there is some fun New Orleans fabric that I'd meant to make a throw from.  And THEN I'll be done, and I can give away all my supplies.  Somebody will be happy to get the cutting mat, hoop, etc. etc.  I know for sure the quilt today isn't perfectly squared, and I frankly don't care.  It's good enough to be on my bed.  I realized that the bad thumb pain I had - it was the quilting most likely.  When I finished quilting, the pain evaporated.  Just another sign that it's time to let quilting go when I finish these projects, as i previously did with knitting and crochet and weaving.  BUT, upon further contemplation, once I finish this current quilt I need to stop the momentum, pack everything up, and stay focused on outdoor chores for summer.  These can come out again in fall when the rains come, to be a nice balance with all the cruising the neighborhood with a wheelbarrow for leaves that I do.  But now, my outdoor chores are a long list, including a lot of cleaning and probably painting and screen repairs.  I will be so happy when these chores are finished.  

**

Yay for Sunday mornings; someday I will not have to go on truck drives to walk the dog every Sunday, and I will appreciate that.  For now, we make it work.

Scale says I'm down 1.0 pound so that's good news. I'm back where I was in April before I started gaining again.  I don't mind bouncing around a bit, a few pounds in a direction, but I really would prefer to get back to losing instead of gaining.   

The lab tests made me remember something - when I worked in West Africa and malaria took a beating on me, a colleague gave me some vitamins that were amazing and made me feel so much better.  I remember they were Bayer brand, chocolate coated.  Maybe a B vitamin?  I don't know, but I did try later to find some good substitute and nothing worked; multivitamins don't do anything for me except make me pee neon yellow and gag on them.  Maybe my issues are a vitamin deficiency?  Oy, I would sure be mad at myself for missing prime years of life for missing that easy fix.  But also would be grateful for more prime years ahead if that's the issue.  And I feel that i do consume quite a lot of B12 - tuna, yogurt from fortified milk, nutritional yeast.  

Got up about 6:30 and jumped straight to getting blueberries off trays and into vacuum sealed bags, then freezing one more tray.  I also washed off the raspberries from Friday picking and now I need to go pick more, wash them, get them on a tray to freeze before taking dog for walk.  (Tray = baking sheet with parchment paper)   I should probably pick daily but thought it could go another day.  I should probably rig up a sun protection sheet over the berries for the scorcher we have coming in, but we'll see.  I do not like coddling plants.  

try to be selfish

 I have a big stressful work thing that starts today and it might actually end early, like before noon today, and I want to be selfish with my time.  I'm required to work 8-5 every day with an hour lunchbreak, but especially lately I've been working more like 10 hours a day and I'm exhausted.  We don't have comp time, etc., but I want to shift my brain to home things and putter about during the workday in blocks of time.  I so very rarely do this - I know many work from home people use the location to their advantage by doing laundry, etc. while home (or more), but I am generally locked in, often from 7-6 honestly.  But the work schedule, if this ends early, is pretty free the rest of this week and next, and while I don't want to take vacation time, I want to work more like six hours instead of ten.  Average out all these long hours lately.  I want to take a lunch break (which I very rarely do) to run errands, maybe, or prepare food longer than sticking Sunday-prepared leftovers in the microwave to eat while working.  Or start my workday late because I was doing garden chores in the cool morning.  Shift gears between work tasks to take a break and vacuum, scrub the kitchen floor, etc.  

Usually my work is super intense and demanding all the time without break, but the few times I've been able to do this sort of shifting because of a reduced job work load, it's been pretty great.  Makes me think how normal people do things.  

I was talking to a colleague who works in another area of the state about how hard it can be for me when I have to work weekends as I can never flex the time later.  She was like, "You just have to do it.  Like, I cannot be reached after 4 pm - I'm not staying late.  I have young children."  

And I don't have young children, but why do I think that I don't similarly have a justification for work-life balance?  

So, I got up far too early this morning, around 5.  I don't need to be to my event until 9 am, so I wish I'd slept later, but oh well.  I'm making a long list of to-dos for the long weekend but also the informal flexing of time that I really want to push myself to do.  

In my last job, I felt so much more productive when I worked short days (9-4 with an hour lunch I think I remember), took lunch breaks to go home, etc.  I also had a fraction of the workload that I have now, so maybe that was an illusion. But I was certainly happier with that work-life balance.  

My boss announced yesterday that she got permission to hire another one of us because we're busy, so that can help too perhaps.  She was very proud of herself for actually doing something for us.  She so rarely does. 

96 more Mondays ... 

And the doctor finally ordered labs so hopefully I can do those tomorrow.  He ordered much more extensive than usual, including hormones and such, based on recommendations from medical experts.  We'll see how much insurance covers.  At this point, I just want to figure out what's wrong.  And I may need to continue my focus on sleep and hydration but also add in more activity regularly.  Some days I get a lot but others I'm sitting around a lot.  

Friend's niece's husband is going to visit here for a few days; they live in Australia but he's here for a work thing.  We've never hung out with just him before.  His wife is such a wonderful person, known her since she was quite little, and he seems great, very happy for them.  He and i just don't super click but no disrespect.  I do though want to be sure we get along well enough that he won't balk when I say I'm coming to Aus for three months.  

Maybe I'll have the bandwidth to proceed with the quilt binding.  Sure would be nice to finish that project.   

garlic

 Today when I looked out my large dining room window to the side yard where I grow most of my food, the garlic seemed very peaked.  Spoiler: it's lying, I think it needs more time, especially the hardneck today.  I'm definitely NOT going to water it despite this heat, but what surprised me when I just tried pulling a hardneck (which seemed not totally developed) is how cool and moist the soil is under the mulch.  Hot damn, that's what I've been going for with this mulch.  I haven't watered the garlic at all.  Maybe once I did when on autopilot but I don't think so.  I planted it in early ... wait, I thought I planted it in November but that was the favas.  No, I planted the garlic on September 20, so that's almost nine months, which should for sure be enough time.  I think I'm going to pull at least the softneck.  Softneck is in the southern row, hardneck in the northern, and I'm hanging it on string in the garage with hardneck to the east towards the doors, and softneck to the west, towards shop. Making sure I remember this for my next planting in a few months and for which to eat first.  (Eat the hardneck first, they say)  

I underutilize scapes, but I did just use some I'd picked a few weeks ago in the red cabbage/garbanzo/peanut salad I like so much, and they give a nice kick to it.  Waste not, want not.  So yeah, go harvest and hang for curing all that softneck today and hardneck next weekend.  It's a long weekend, thankfully.  

oh, and correction: my salary hasn't increased 33%.  I was extrapolating from after tax amounts, etc.  My gross pay has increased 57% in three years.  A huge chunk of that was that they had miscounted my experience for putting me on the ladder, but there are also salary advancements most years.  And, various taxes and fees have drastically increased, so net increase is probably closer to 33%.  But still,  I find that astounding and it puts me into a very different situation than I'd expected to be in when I accepted the job.  And the only real lifestyle creep I've had is this house.  The car I bought wasn't really lifestyle creep as I'd been saving for it for nearly a decade so paid cash.  And while yes, it's indulgent to buy a brand-new car and I doubt I'd do it again, a Subaru isn't exactly a Rolls Royce.  So I am proud of myself for staying frugal even when I see others with fancy cars and expensive clothes.  Though, most folks aren't actually demonstrably wealthy.  A lot of my colleagues are still paying off student loans and beginning savings accounts for their just-born children, and I think their wealth is probably in their homes which I don't see.  

 OK, I have to focus back.  Drink more water, harvest more garlic, hang it, shower, start laundry, cook the Persian fava dill rice dish (or bastardize it shamelessly), clean.  And stay cool.  I didn't turn on my AC yesterday though it did get up to about 90, though it'll be hotter today so I expect to as it's already feeling stuffy in here despite having had windows open all night.  It's ok.  It's why I got this energy efficient system.

And I think I'll make a to-do to track down the person in the neighborhood I met yesterday who's trained as a landscape architect.  I realized after we talked that actually her yard had been motivation for some of the things I've done, so she gets it.  I would really like to focus this year's rainy season on finalizing all the landscaping install so it can look somewhat mature when I'm ready to the sell the house, and not such a work in progress.  She was super encouraging of all the work I've done, but I still see a lot more, and I think an expert would be a good help now.  I've just been discouraged by some past people I've worked on this, as they didn't really listen and were trying to push what they thought rather than what I want and value.  From our long conversation yesterday, we were definitely vibing and she was not looking for work.  Also, her dog, who is reactive and challenging, seemed to vibe with me.  When my dog lost her mind about him being in the backyard and I said ok, we need to go, he kept pace and heeled with me, ignoring his person and trusting me.  It was interesting.  He also appreciated how I wasn't getting in his sapce.

OK, back to finish outside.   

calculations and assumptions

 It's going to be a hot Sunday and I stayed up too late and then slept in too late, but I'll get moving soon.  Walk dog, water what needs it, and I think I need to harvest the garlic and shallots (which didn't really grow).  I need to get a ladder and hang a line.  Last year I cured the garlic bulbs in the cardboard trays that berries come in, but i want to try hanging this year.  

Had a realization recently that the reason I keep being so surprised at how well my retirement financial plans are going is because I make such conservative estimates.  I forecast my IRA compound interest with a 4% rate of return, when a more accurate rate is 8% (10% over past 30 years, 6.9% when adjusted for inflation).  I know that we're in a bubble now that will crash because the market is based on death and despair and lies, but compound interest is still magical.  I also estimate high on spending so I almost always exceed my savings goals (which will go to house pay off if I don't move first).  I did undersave last month when I dropped $2,100 for a "concierge doctor" (which I'm so far very not impressed with), but generally my spending is tight, around $3,200 per months (and over $2,200/month of that is mortgage, so that's less than $1,000 each month on auto gas/maintenance, dog, food, utilities, etc.).  And also I'd underestimated my income, which has frankly soared far beyond my expectations when I moved here; I'm earning 33% more now than when I started three years ago.  By far the most I've ever made in my life.  It's always wild to look at my social security statements and see how little I've earned over my life and how it's been fine.   

All this to say - I'm amending my prognostication of being able to retire to two years.  I won't have enough to pay off my house then but I would be able to recast the mortgage to a drastically smaller principal amount, which would make the payments manageable.  I could also pull from my retirement to pay it off but I don't really want to do that unless I make a determination that this is my forever home - which I really dont' think I will do because it's more than I need once the dog is gone.  She loves the huge backyards to roam, and while it's been fun to grow things, I look forward to a different setup in my future, like perhaps more community living and sharing garden space.  I also love my two-car garage but I don't need that kind of space, nor do I need three bedrooms.  It's a pretty small house (1300 sq ft I think) but I could happily go considerably smaller.  Or again, community living may be the vibe.  

AT five years in my job, I can request a sabbatical, and I've been mulling that over.  It sure would be nice to know that I have a high-paying job to return to after six or so months off, just in case I'm actually not as financially set to retire as I think I am.  But I don't want to waste my time.  One of my primary goals as soon as I retire and I'm dog-less is to find where I want to be and then be there.  I want to check out a bunch of different communities and engage and see what fits for me, and I want to join while I'm still physically of value.  I want to spend my 60s finding and then developing home.  I am in a very secure place right now but all this security comes at a cost to my health especially in terms of work stress.  The idea of a sabbatical is a very nice one, but I think I need to just fully shed this comfortable skin and move to my next incarnation.  

and now I need to finish my coffee, weigh myself, and get out to walk the dog before it's scorching hot.  I'm really hoping I feel better today than I did yesterday.  OK, scale says up .4 again.  I was mostly on track this week, though there was McDonalds one day and two desserts.  Also, my thyroid has been feeling really whacky and I'm afraid of what that may mean for me needing treatment for it after refusing for 30 years.  I have a lot of health needs to address in the lowest intervention manner possible, and the doctor is not nearly as responsive as I'd expected.  But hopefully that will change as I'm pushing. 

OK, on to the day.   

more with favas

 Finally made the red lentil barley stew I've been meaning to make for about a week.  Want to use those herbs up before they turn bad.  But still some leftover cilantro so I think I'll make the red cabbage peanut salad I like so much.  And there's also leftover dill and I don't want to freeze it and I don't want to make beets right now (since I didn't buy any) which is my usual dill usage, so I did a little searching. I came upon a Persian recipe with basmati rice, favas, and dill.  Why yes, I do have fresh favas in my yard that I can harvest.  I'm letting many go to seed, but I've got plenty.  What I don't have is basmati or any white rice, but it's not the end of the world to substitute brown rice, which is what I do have.  No, it will not have a fancy tahdig, but I'll make do.  I also don't think I have saffron, oh well.  I don't actually like the taste of saffron.  

Anyway, I'm low energy today and I'm taking it pretty easy, though i did shell the favas while watching Josh Johnson's special on HBO.  I plan to also peel them tonight to have them ready tomorrow for the rice dish.  This probably is the last favas for the season; up close it looks like the stalks are starting to yellow.  I havent' watered them ever (I planted them in rainy season) so maybe it's that, but maybe it's also just time for them to dry.  

 Anyway, here's another thing that I don't really want to talk about, but I'm still just putting it down to get it off my mind.  

I think that I was always somewhat estranged from my family, which came into focus when they were moving out of my hometown without even telling me.  I was living abroad and heard it from someone else.  I caught them just days before leaving to cross the country to move and this was in the 1980s so no cell phones or emails or way to contact them once they left, and my mother said, "We've just been so busy, I forgot to tell you."  That shows how close we were and how much we communicated.  And how valued I was by them.  

I think in all my adulthood my parents visited me one time because I lived near a conference. There were times in my young adulthood that I made more efforts, but it seemed like it was left up to me to make the effort.  My sister made more efforts, she visited me a few times, I visited her.  She told me long ago that the reason she was close to our parents was because she made efforts.  Even as a teenager I remember her talking to them and wondering what the hell there was to say to them, but she found things.  I couldn't.  

A couple years after they visited, I left that house and job, and I went on a trip round the world.  I didn't tell them.  It's not like we had much communication, and when I thought about making sure to loop them in, I remembered how they hadn't informed me that they were selling my childhood home, so why was this on me when I hadn't heard from them in ages.  I remember when the plane landed when I came back months later, and there was a voicemail from my father, something about "It's been a while, thought I'd call."  It had probably been six or more months, and there was one voicemail.  And I remember waiting to be able to disembark, thinking I'm just done making efforts.  

That was like ... maybe 2005.  I never said anything, because as my mother had told me a million times, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all."  So, I just didn't.  No fight, no uproar, I just went on with my life and made no efforts. I think I got maybe a couple more calls from my parents over the next couple of years that I didn't return.  I moved to New Orleans in 2006 and I got a letter once from my mother, something about them celebrating a big anniversary and going on a cruise with the whole family and they would pay my way.  It struck me as very strange and clearly all about them, not wanting to have to tell people at their big anniversary party why I'm not there.  I later realized that my brother had fraudulently run a credit check on my social security number as though I were to buy a car.  Glad I didn't care about my credit score then.  That may have been how she got my address but it felt incredibly violating.  I think I got one more letter after that.  And my sister emailed me once that I remember, attaching a photo of her children whom I'd never met.  And my mother tried to Facebook friend me once.  Never anything from my brothers or extended family.  I just disappeared and it took them half a year to notice and probably never cared.  Why would I make efforts?  Even before estrangement, I don't even remember getting something so basic as birthday cards.  

Then in about 2014, my mother and sister showed up on my doorstep in New Orleans, pounding until I answered.  I do not like surprises and I don't like random appearances.  If they knew my address, why didnt' they send a letter saying "We'll be in New Orleans at a conference on these dates, can we please meet up?"  I probably would have met up, but I felt so violated by them pounding on my door with no warning that I was angry and told them that was not appreciated.  They'd clearly been so proud of themselves and hadn't even considered how I'd feel about being blindsided.  

And I never heard from any of them again, until a sister-in-law, because apparently a brother married again, FAcebook messaged me last year to say that my mother had died.  I realize now that my mother was probably diagnosed with Parkinson's when she pounded on my door, because my sister had said something about "If we don't know your contact info, how can we tell you when they die?"  

And yes, I understand, I am a fully-grown adult who could have continued to put effort into a relationship with my family, but clearly they have always been just fine without me and I without them.  

But it does suck that my mother didn't try again, understanding her mortality and its finality, and she never apologized to me for not being capable of loving me.  Of course that's completely fucked me up and an acknowledgment would have been nice.  I understand that she was also very fucked up by her childhood and she wasn't malicious.  But it feels like a big fuck you to not try again as approaching end of life, or of even including me in a will for any little gesture, or anything for a positive farewell.  Of course I could do math and realize they are elderly and there would soon be no more chances, but ... I guess I was just expecting some notice, and she knew about her diagnosis for years and deteriorated, according to information I've seen on-line.  She had opportunities, including ones that didn't feel so violating as pounding on my door out of the blue, in a dangerous neighborhood where I always had to be on guard.  I had opportunities too but I didn't get any warning.  Nothing really ever shifted in me to want to make the effort again and I just kept waiting for that shift.  And I guess I thought I would have gotten some official announcement of their passing, or a warning, since anybody can find my contact information on the internet these days, but only the sister in law, somebody who doesn't even know me used Facebook, which was nice of her and probably had nothing to do with me, but her own moral compass.  Something from an executor of the estate, kind of thing.  Obviously they want to punish me financially for not being a good daughter, and that's fair.  But not even a gesture of a letter or something feels pretty shitty.  

So now I'm even more fucked up, but the good thing is that I'm not passing this attachment disorder on to any children.   

grazing days

 Lately I've been spending time grazing - snap peas here, raspberries there.  It's wonderful.  This weekend will stress the peas which will be sad but hopefully they make it on as I haven't eaten a ton of them yet.  It might be time to harvest my garlic which is pretty exciting. 

**

Well, that was an early to bed Friday night and now and early to rise Saturday morning, which is great for getting all the deep watering done early and trying to cool down the house before it turns into an oven.  I got some things finished up at work right at the end of day on Friday so I don't think I'll have to do work for job over weekend, which is fabulous because I'm so burned out.  I worked very long hours this week.  Also, all my safety planning because of dangerous person seems to be paying off because I feel at ease with the situation.  I think that I'm just on a different timeline than other people - I need to sort this shit all out days before, not immediately before.  Hopefully it pays off.  It usually does.  I can feel the tension has dissipated because of this prep.  

Anyway, it's supposed to be hot, up to high 90s.  i do also want to run to the farmers market for some goods right when it opens, and I need to plan and prep the fuck out of meals this week so I don't fall again (I had McDonalds yesterday, that's how bad things got for me).  Even though I've been getting at least a dozen raspberries the past few days that I just eat while standing there, I still want to buy some more from a local farm.  They are so good fresh.  Maybe next weekend I'll get some for jam and freezing.  The blackberries in my yard are also looking great and bountiful - I couldn't wait and tried a couple that weren't quite ripe, and they were very good.  I'm hoping they don't get too sun scalded.  I will deep water them today.  

ONce again when I went to the store on the 10% off bulk day, the clerk was like, "Wow, you got a good deal on all this!"  No girl, the 10% off isn't what makes this whole bag of groceries only $18, it's because it's full of reused containers of oats and flour and beans and more beans.  I'm not buying fancy things or deli food.  Oats are cheap.  That's why the bill is low.  I think that's the second time she's said that and it strikes me how little she understands food costs.  And I do also buy more expensive things there, I just don't always do it on the day I try to hit for the discount on bulk foods.  I definitely want to support this store all I can - not only is it the closest to me, but it's very local and ethical.  It also cracks me up how many times I'm reusing the same old cottage cheese containers to get bulk foods - how many bulk bin numbers are crossed off.  I may run out of space on them soon.  Also, I do make bad choices sometimes, like the golden kiwis at Costco that I just had to have because they were on sale.  It still ended up to be like almost $2 for each kiwi, which is not a good price especially when I can get a half pint of organic local raspberries for $5.  I was just stuck on it and couldn't let it go, so I enjoyed them.  

I'm excited to start on this project to try to scrape old dark paint off window frames and then caulk them, especially before we get into fire season (when smoke can get into the house through those uncaulked windows).  And I'm always happier after cleaning my house, so I have that to look forward to.  It'll be weird to turn on the AC today, for the first time since probably ... September of last year maybe?  

**

OK, watering mostly done.  I got interrupted in the front yard so I"ll pick that up tomorrow or tonight.  People are chit chatty including a landscape architect who does a lot of maintenance work as her job.   She seems really cool, and I let her and her dog into the backyard to see what I've done there too, and of course drama ensued because my dog heard us and the windows are open and I moved us out quickly because she could feasibly launch herself through the screen.  So that was more excitement than I was hoping for on a Saturday morning but we'll survive.  Have a protein biscuit toasting (made with red lentil mush and spinach), then I'll head over to the farmers market to stock up and hopefully it won't be too busy.  I'm not running that late, just a little, and I think this neighbor conversation is important.  And I also learned my other neighbor's dog's name.  So, a productive morning in one of my ongoing life goals, of meeting all the dogs.  

I finished the last episode of Hacks last night and it was good.  I had stopped watching the show earlier because it was mean, but it turned sweet with an edge and I liked it a lot.  The Jimmy-Kayla relationship is probably one of my favorite ever, and how he always maintained his integrity and she appreciated it while not sharing it.  

I don't think I'll start another series on HBO.  I very much enjoyed The Pitt, Hacks, Rooster, Perry Mason, and watched some of others but mostly quit them.  Like Veep is just way too mean and Mare of Easttown just too unhappy.   I like integrity, humor, and touching development of friendships.  So I'll cancel HBO until the next season of The Pitt and move on probably to Hulu for a beat.  Oh but first I need to finish Sinners and watch the Earth Wind and Fire documentary.  

time

 Earlier this year, a woman I used to know popped into my head and I emailed an old email address.  

I'm embarrassed to say but she's one of the first people who helped frame for me wanting to be planful for retirement.  I truly had no idea how to do this.  I thought you just worked until you didn't - there'd be social security or pension or whatever.  Fortunately I have a saving and frugal nature so my ignorance hasn't harmed me too badly, but I had no idea about planning.  

Once I was out at her house.  TI was a magical day actually.  Just across the Mississippi River from where I lived, I'd gone to an event but somehow I had the date wrong.  I knocked on a door and it was like a caretaker to the property.  NOrmally I wouldn't bother somebody like that but I was really confused.  He didn't know what I was talking about but he invited me in and I could see he wanted some company, so I agreed.  We spent time talking and I learned a ton and he earnestly invited me to return.  He had so much knowledge and he was so interesting.  

When I left, I realized I was near this woman's home which she'd told me about.  She and her husband and carefully planned and built it as their forever home and they were putting in trees.  So I texted and said I was in the neighborhood and she invited me over.  Their home was immaculate and exactly right for them and their yard was being developed.  It was so neat to see a plan come to fruition like that.  Neither of them were in a high-paying job or profession, but they both worked so hard to reach their dreams.  Her job was stressful and she joked about quitting and he mock scolded about she laughed then turned earnest about how they had everything mapped out and she wouldn't even consider quitting sooner than planned - they wanted sufficient money to live their dreams and they'd still be in their early 60s.  They really had it all figured out and I was impressed and inspired and it started me down a different journey, of feeling much more in charge of my future.  

I didn't hear back from the woman and I looked at the job's website and she wasn't listed in her role so I assumed she had retired per plan and imagined her off doing all the things.  They were always such busy people.  She was very very good at her job and everything she touched.  

But, no.  

Right around the time she was on my mind, she was dying of pancreatic cancer.  It doesn't even look like she was able to enjoy retirement - her diagnosis would have been around the time she expected to retire so she likely stayed on for the insurance as long as she could.  Her obituary was a loving truth that she clearly helped write herself, honoring her life and her loved ones, including a very close group of friends.  

This makes me so sad.  She was so full of life and hope for the future.   

Also, she was only four years older than me, so it definitely frames my future in a different way.  She was healthy and active - did all the things.  I don't know her genetic history, but the only negative health factor I know for her was stress from work.  There was a lot of stress.  She managed it and was professional, but it was pretty bad.  And that likely had a role in killing her in the prime of her life.  

This pushes me back to not playing around with my retirement planning and getting out of this very stressful job.  And no, things like meditation don't help me and I have no interest in having to be medicated to make it through my job.  The only thing that will help me manage the stress is quitting.  The plan is three years from now or when the dog dies, whichever comes first.  Going to stick to the budget and do the things to get there as soon as possible.  

I think she would agree.   

tame dog

 After nearly 11 years together, my dog has decided that she will start listening to me.  

I'd like to think this is from over a decade of building trust and authority, but it happens to be tied to me regularly making sourdough dog treats with sardines and pumpkin and peanut butter.  She doesn't get many of them, but she has fully changed her behavior for the once a day special treat (usually given at night when she comes back inside after doing her business without barking).   

Yesterday she stopped barking at the neighbors when I just rapped on the window, running back inside without fuss.  This weekend, she stopped killing a possum when I asked her to (and when she picked it up to carry it inside and I shrieked no, she dropped it at the back door).  Dear Friend had noticed that she listens better than before, and that made me realize what's different with our relationship.  And of course there was that incident a few weeks ago when I left the gate open and she ran out but then came back in when I asked her to (and I ran the other direction to get her to chase me, but she's too smart to fall for that without wanting to).  

She's always been such a wild animal from her formative months/year on the mean streets of New Orleans.  She trusts no one, fends for herself.  Girl, same.  If I'd had her since she was little, I'd like to think she's be a totally different dog, more like my previous dogs who had very good manners and could be fully trusted.  Just as if I'd been raised differently maybe I could form healthy attachments.  Oh well.  We're both damaged goods.  

Maybe her age is catching up with her - she must be approaching 12 years old.  She was SO much calmer and reasonable with Dear Friend especially when compared to when they first met.  

But the listening?  I don't know if that's age.  Maybe I just put in the time and tamed this wild beast.   

But it's probably the special dog treats.   

And to be fair, she is wild and aggressive and has caused me a lot of grief, but she also provides me a considerable level of security.  Nobody is going to get into my house or yard unannounced, nobody will harm me so long as she lives.  This is very helpful now with the death threat from work, and takes away some anxiety.  I don't want to get a gun, or security cameras, or any of that.  This dog takes care of me, in her own crazy way.  I'll miss her terribly when she's gone, while also being relieved with freedom.   

southern writers

 Many decades ago, a friend from Texas introduced me to Flannery O'Connor, and I was intrigued.  

Look, I'm from Alaska, and we have more than our fair share of peculiar people, but this was something different, the way she described people and their peculiarities.  And that intrigue with welcoming weirdos is what eventually led to me moving to the South.  Yes, I moved specifically to New Orleans, which is different from the South, but I also spent a lot of time traveling around Louisiana, knowing many people across the state, and then also living in northern Louisiana.  And there is a je ne sais quoi about southerners' essence that I love. 

Also southern cuisine, love it too.  All those greens gave me Popeye strength, and now I have to grow turnip greens myself because they're not sold here.   

My latest southern writer of interest is Carl Hiassen.  I haven't read his work yet but I will because I really loved the characters in Bad Monkey and now in RJ Decker.  The nuance behind "Florida Man" absolutely intrigues me, and the environmental bent.  I too want to hang out with manatees, and fight developers.  His characters are embroiled in the most bizarre scenarios which they take with an easygoing shrug, and I always appreciate the loyalty which is missing in most of the United States (especially where I live now).  

I do think I need to go spend some time in Florida.  I've spent time at the beaches like Destin, and some time in the Everglades (with a quite disappointing kayak adventure).  But the heart of old Florida, that I want to experience. 

pile

 That pile of woodchips on the street by my house is shrinking for sure.  I might guess I've taken away as much as 40% - well, me hauling and it composting down.  I could possibly finish with it in another week or so, depending on my energy level, weather, etc.  That's waaaay faster than last time, though I do think last time was a double load maybe.  I vaguely recall that conversation with the driver.

The thing about these chips and why i want to not think about them anymore, is that they killed birds.  At least one bird but I think more, maybe a nest.  There are bits of bird throughout the pile.  It makes me very sad.  So I want to finish and be done with it.  

 **

I don't know if it's the manual labor, but I've been sleeping better lately.  Friday night I got really tired by 9:30 and headed to bed shortly thereafter, asleep by 10:30 I believe.  Awake at 5 am, so still not enough sleep, but better.  

And now it's Saturday morning, and the dog just announced the weather conditions (rain), but I think I'll still get out soon for woodchips.  So far I've inventoried and organized the freezer (there are two small containers that I cannot remember for the life of me what they are - why would I not label them??  I was so sure I'd remember - oh wait, it's canned pumpkin for making dog treats - maybe I should label it now).  I also have jars of beans in the pressure canner to restock my pantry.  I've made some cooking and shopping plans.  

From time to time I look at job boards for other states where I've worked, and I think through what it would be like to be in that job.  And overwhelmingly, I do not want to.  At all.  I don't want to work in my career, I'm so over it.  SO over it.  Which tells me that I need to keep on where I am until I'm financially secure enough to not have to work again.  Latest is a remote part-time gig with somebody I used to work with, and I almost emailed her to say hey, that sounds fun in a few years.  But when I really thought about it, my stomach turned.  I really do not want to do this work any more, and I don't want to start a new career.  I would be fine doing entry level service job like being a barista or home improvement store clerk (to the point my body can handle it), but my profession?  SO. BURNED. OUT.  Past the point of no return.  

**

Well, made a BIG dent in the woodchip pile.  Now taking a bit of a break and then back out to it because I think I can actually finish it all today.  That is amazing.  Monday is calling for heavy rain which I hope comes, and that can wash away what I'm not able to shovel off the street, and it will be like this never happened.  But for all the woodchips in piles and spread around.  So, that's outstanding.  Wish I had good leftovers but I may have to turn again to PB&J to get me through.  On whole grain sourdough, with very low sugar jam, and 100% peanuts, so it could be worse.

There is a blue bird (don't know what type) that has been coming around today, even tapping on the window behind me, and following me around.  I fear its mate is the blue feathers I found in the woodpile.  That is so sad.  

**

And woodchips are done!  And I made tofu and broccoli.  Productive Saturday.  And I want a productive Sunday.  A number of foods to make to use up the herbs and foods in my fridge and freezer, including red-lentil barley stew, cabbage salad, sweet potatoes with ground turkey and snap peas from the garden, lentil loaf that I like for breakfast, and maybe fava bean mint pesto (have a chunk of nice hard cheese to use up, some mint that won't last much longer, and a TON of fava beans).  I'll need to check the shape of the herbs to see what can wait and what can't.  And the usual cleaning and house chores, some weeding.  And I also need to put some hours in for my job.  It's been too hard to get some preparation tasks finished during the 8-5 because of too many other things grabbing my attention, and I'm up at a hard deadline soon.  

**

Fuck it, I'm not working for my job on this Sunday.  I need a break.  I'll work longer hours during the week instead (which is why I need to prepare food for the week today) and maybe stop being my responsive self to people all day every day.  

Last night was some drama when the dog caught and "killed" a possum, and when I called her off it she picked it up to carry it in the house.  She begrudgingly dropped it right outside the door, and thank goodness it was gone this morning.  I was not looking forward to a possum carcass stewing in my garbage can for over a week in the high temps we'll be having soon.  

The blue bird is back this morning, pounding at my house again.  

I have a bad cough this morning, hoping it's just from the mulch.  I did mask up when handling it, but it still could be.  I really do not want to get sick before a demanding event in a week and a half is over.  

I'm still just so tickled with myself and all this finishing.  The quilt (though do still have the barrier of the binding and my sewing machine issues, so not quite a completion celebration yet), that woodchip pile in five days.  That's a new record.  It wasn't the largest load I'd ever received, by a longshot, but it was still a very sizable pile.  Several of those days I didn't want to move them but I talked myself into just doing a few loads, that I'd appreciate it later, and it worked.  Yay.  

As I drink my coffee this morning before I walk the dog, I also cooked the lentils for lentil loaf that I'll bake later (and freeze in portions to heat up for breakfast).  I also want to add strawberry jam to the to-do list for today, as Dear Friend left a bag of mashed berries that I can top off.  I may also try to roast beans to put with the cabbage salad - I've not had great luck with doing that before but I'll try again.   

And now I'm finishing up the coffee and can start moving with the day.  Oh, should weigh myself.  OK, good news is I didn't gain since last weigh-in two weeks ago.  Bad news is I'm not losing, and I'm back to where I was eight months ago, five pounds above the lowest of about four months ago.  Sigh.  and yes, I know the past few days I was eating PBJ toast for meals because I didnt' have bandwidth to prepare anything more elaborate, but I want to lost more weight in a way that can be maintained, and I feel very stuck.  Every time I carry something heavy and feel how my body responds to that, I think of the weight htat I have lost and how it feels better without it.  I want to lose another heavy bag's worth of weight, but I really do not want to gain it back when I stop being rigid about my eating.  sigh.  

Oh well, off to walk the dog.