Category: shopping

Cool Magic

Yesterday was a wild one here in New Orleans. We were expecting inclement weather–high winds, possible tornadoes, and heavy rain with a strong chance of flooding. I was already planning on leaving work early–PT was scheduled for 3 pm yesterday–so I was able to leave the office without worry as things started shutting down all over the city. It was raining when I got home and hunkered down inside, and it pretty steadily rained all night. I went to bed after watching three episodes of Fool Me Once on Netflix, which we are really enjoying, while checking the score of the national championship game periodically. I was awakened by loud thunder and pouring rain at some point in the middle of the night, but I was able to easily fall back asleep–it really is so comforting to be buried in blankets and warm and dry while it pours outside, isn’t it? Rain always makes me sleepy. But I wound up sleeping very well and waking up with the alarm this morning (Sparky always climbs up into the bed with me when he thinks it’s time for me to get up and feed him, so I know it’s going to be time to get up soon). We still are having high winds today, but no rain, which is great, and Michigan beat Washington last night for their first national title in 27 years.

Good for you, Michigan.

My PT wound up being rescheduled because of the weather, too, so I have to get up at 5 on Thursday, which isn’t great but I can live with it. I do have a department meeting on Friday morning as well, and I’ll probably go into the office for it. I can do it from home, but I think it would be best for me to head over there and be out of the house in the morning, which will get me going on work-at-home duties and errands and so forth before the three day weekend.

And huzzah for a three day weekend, might I add?

I also started working out the five stories I have on hand that may fit for an anthology call (or two or three) that are upcoming, and one–which is just an idea–actually started coming together in my head yesterday while I watched more episodes of War of the Worlds, which took an interesting and slightly insane turn during the later episodes of the second season while I sat doodling in my journal while relaxing in my chair while rain pattered down outside. It also occurred to me how to fix and finish another one that could easily work as well. I need to put my writer’s cap back on and really start getting things finished and cooking on my computer again, methinks. But I also did some more chores when I got home yesterday, which included dishes and laundry, and this morning I woke up to a relatively clean kitchen (we won’t discuss the floors just yet), which was super great. I also wasn’t sleepy, groggy, or tired, which was also awesome. I may actually make it through the day AND the errands I have to run after work today (mail, groceries). I am definitely going to spend some more time with the new Tara Laskowski tonight when I finally get home from everything, and do some touching up so I stay on top of the chores so I am not coming into the weekend needing to clean the house.

I think it’s about time I started feeling like myself again for the first time in a long time, and it does actually kind of feel good. Last year was a cloud, and I just felt like I was drifting through the year for the most part. 2023 started off terribly, beginning with my injury in January and losing Mom in February; it’s little wonder that I sleep=walked through the year, which I’d been doing pretty consistently for a number of years. The pandemic wore me out, with the changes to the world and the changes to my day job, and things had been kind of my control for quite a few years before that. I kind of feel (probably mistakenly) like I have so control over my life again and am looking at things a lot more clearly than I had in years–which probably has something to do with having the right medications. Up until about 2017 or so, I could deal with the anxiety and concomitant insomnia with just Xanax, but the anxiety was out of control from that point on and was when I should have changed my medications to deal with the real problem rather than the symptoms.

I cannot emphasize enough how important the right medications are for your health and mental well-being.

I really do feel like a new person, or the best Gregalicious I can be, which isn’t quite the same thing. I’ve always tried to be the best version of me that I can–because no one, including me, wants to ever see the worst version of me, take my word for that, okay?–which is all I think anyone can do. I do feel more engaged with my work, and my writing, more so than I have in a while, which kind of felt almost like I was writing on autopilot, which does happen sometimes. It’s also kind of ironic that I did my best work during a time period where I really was hating writing and not giving it my full attention, treating it as an odious chore that had to be done rather than trying to do the best work I could. Maybe not trying did the trick? I don’t know. But what I do know is I need to get back on the horse and start creating again, and perhaps don’t goof off as much going forward.

After all, there’s nothing I can’t do if I want to and set my mind to it.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later–one never knows with a Gregalicious, does one?

Goodbye to You

And just like that, the brace is gone! Hallelujah! Not wearing it is going to take some getting used to, but that is something I can live with. I also had my first piece of king cake yesterday, officially marking the opening of Carnival season–and am going to have another this morning, thank you very much. I can’t believe it’s Carnival again already; last year’s was all tied up with Mom going into hospice and dying; I missed the first weekend driving up to Kentucky, and the second driving to Alabama for the funeral. I used to associate Carbival with Whitney Houston dying; she died on Endymion Saturday that year, but I guess now Carnival–and especially Valentine’s Day, will now always have losing Mom as an association. It’ll be rough these first years, I suspect, but gradually it’ll become more of a nice, regular reminder.

My surgeon also moved up my strength therapy, from twelve weeks post to eight weeks post. I have one more dexterity therapy session tomorrow, and then I can sit out until around the 21st or so of this month before I get to start that again. So the recovery is going well, the surgeon is very pleased, and so, frankly, am I. Now that the webbing mesh is off (he removed it) the incisions are so small the scarring is actually going to be minimal, which was an unexpected delight, and the stitches themselves will gradually dissolve. It was so nice to go make groceries and drive without the damned brace, you have no idea, Constant Reader, and going to bed without it was even better. Managing to and from work in addition to the therapy is going to be a bit of a bitch during parade season, but I’ll figure it out somehow. But right now, today, I am going to enjoy the fact that I can type without the inconvenience of the brace–but I also have to pay attention to the arm, and when it gets tired and so forth.

I started reading Tara Laskowski’s The Weekend Retreat, which is quite good and sucks you right in, yesterday and will most likely spend some more time with it today. I worked on filing and organizing and getting the apartment back into shape again for the most part yesterday–dishes and floors and filing, oh my–and there’s a little touching up that needs to be done around here today while I write and read and get things done around here. We also started watching the new Harlan Coben show on Netflix, Fool Me Once, which is also quite engaging, and will probably finish it today. I also watched some more War of the Worlds and an episode of the original Jonny Quest show, which I had started rewatching a long time ago but they didn’t have all the original episodes available. Jonny Quest is one of the first cartoons I can remember watching, and I loved it–the Rick Brant science adventure series reminded me a lot of this show, and is part of the reason I enjoyed it so much. It doesn’t quite hold up in modern times and with modern sensibilities as it did when I was a child with a single digit age, but it was done very well–outside and around the rampant racism that was everywhere in entertainment in the 1960’s. I may rewatch the entire original series so I can review it and assess it here, but the show also pulled me into the world of mysteries and adventure, so there’s always that, too.

I still want to write a series for middle-grade before I die, too.

And this morning’s slice of king cake (and yes, you always leave the knife in the box, unless you’re a heathen) is delicious.

I feel good this morning, which is terrific, and hopefully will last through the morning and the early afternoon. I suppose we’ll watch the Golden Globes until it’s time for me to go to bed so I can get up early and start my work week, but next weekend we have another three day weekend, which is going to be amazing and lovely again. So far, 2024 has gone well, and let’s keep that mentality and energy going, shall we?

And on that note, I’m going to make a second cup of coffee and get going on my day. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one never really knows with me, do we?

Stand or Fall

Twelfth Night, and I just added a king cake to my grocery list. Huzzah!

In a moment, I’ll be getting cleaned up and going to see my surgeon to get my stitches removed and hopefully losing the brace for good. After that, I am making a grocery run before returning to the safety of the Lost Apartment for the rest of the weekend. I didn’t ger as much done yesterday as I would have liked; after completing my work-at-home duties yesterday and the laundry I kind of repaired to the easy chair and just kind of sat there watching television until it was time for bed. I was tired from PT yesterday morning, and I kind of needed the rest. I did watch LSU Gymnastics triumph over Ohio State, which was a lovely opening to the season, and then was just kind of a cat bed for the rest of the evening before I finally went to bed. I slept well, too. Paul had an appointment yesterday afternoon in Uptown, and brought home a pizza from The Midway on Freret, and it was probably one of the best pizzas I’ve had in years. A very pleasant surprise treat, as it were. Plus, it’s really nice to be able to eat pizza again. I always forget about the plethora of good places to eat that has developed on Freret Street uptown, past Napoleon; and I really do need to be better about experiencing the city and writing about it. I’m already thinking about the next Scotty, with him and the boys temporarily housed in the Diderot carriage house in the Garden District.

I’m not sure what my plans are for after I get home this morning. I do have a to-do list that I need to work through as well as update, and if I do nothing other than organize and file, well, that will be a huge improvement. I know I’ll be able to start reading the new Tara Laskowski, which is exciting–big fan here–and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to get some writing done as well. Stranger things have happened, after all.

It rained pretty hard yesterday, starting in the afternoon and continuing to just come down like a waterfall through the evening. It was a street flooding kind of rain, which is probably the best way to describe it, and of course, coupled with the cold it made me lethargic. It’s sunny but cold this morning, and soon I’ll have to start getting cleaned up and ready to head out for my appointment. I do feel good and rested this morning and awake, which is always a good sign. I do know I am going to make something in the slow cooker either today or tomorrow; it will depend I suppose on how I feel when I get home from everything and put the groceries away. But the kitchen/workspace definitely needs some work before I do anything this morning. There’s dishes to clean and a dishwasher to empty, and I need to clean out the refrigerator and maybe organize it a little better. Heavy sigh. I never have seemed able to get caught up on everything that needs catching up on, you know? Maybe this weekend will be the time…

You have no idea how badly I want to ditch this brace, Constant Reader.

And on that note, I should start getting ready for the appointment. I may be back later, one never knows, and if not, have a lovely Saturday.

Space Age Love Song

Work at home Friday, and I have PT in a little while. Tomorrow I finally see my surgeon again, and here’s hoping that the brace will be a thing of history tomorrow, so I can throw it in the trash and be done with it once and for all.

One can dream, at any rate.

Yesterday I started feeling low energy in the late afternoon before I came home, and was a bit on the tired side once I did get into the apartment. I did do a load of laundry before settling in for Real Housewives Ultimate Girls’ Trip: Legacy, which Paul came home during and we watched this week’s Reacher as well as Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. I went to bed shortly after that, which was nice and once again I slept well. I didn’t really want to get up this morning, which means it must have gotten really cold last night. It’s about fifty outside now. I am going to run a couple of errands after my PT this morning before returning home for work-at-home duties and other chores. Next weekend we do get a three day weekend again, which will be nice, and I am hoping to get some things done this weekend. I have my surgeon tomorrow morning, and will probably make a grocery run immediately thereafter. I’ve also picked out Tara Laskowski’s latest, The Weekend Retreat, as my next read, so I am looking forward to getting started on that later today. I loved her first two novels, and I am sure I will enjoy this new one.

And here’s hoping the weekend will be a productive one, you know? The kitchen is finally starting to look less like a disaster area and more like a comfortable work space again, for the first time in months. I plan on doing the floors at last (and finding out how Sparky feels about vacuum cleaners; he does not like the hand vac at all), which will make a difference, and I also need to start looking at ways to make my eating habits more healthy. (While the goal is to eat healthier, anything that’s already in the cabinets or the fridge is being grandfathered in rather than wasted, which seems logical and fair to me.) I’ve lost around twenty pounds, give or take, and my stomach is noticeably flatter than it was several months ago. Why give up on that progress? My goal weight for 2024 is 200; I am already down to 205. I also need to be more physically active before I return to the gym once all the healing and PT is over with, which will make returning to the gym that much easier.

I also saw a call for submissions yesterday that looked like something I may have something on hand that would be perfect for; I’ll of course do more looking into it and then I need to decide which story would work best and revise and reedit and rewrite accordingly. I know there’s one other that’s coming up, and maybe working on a short story tonight before the gymnastics airs will help kickstart me into getting truly back into the swing of writing again. I do enjoy writing short stories, and one thing I think I may do this weekend is also looking to see how much work the next short story collection needs before I can turn it in. Oh, there are so many things in the files that aren’t finished…maybe I should focus on getting everything finished that’s in progress before starting anything new? I don’t know. I’m no better at figuring any of this out than I was back when I was getting started over twenty years ago…

And on that note, I am going to get ready for PT. I may be back later, one never knows.

Athena

Up ungodly early to start off the new year with PT and then off to work. I slept well last night, and feel rested this morning; there was no tangle of blankets this morning, so I wasn’t restless, and I don’t feel very tired this morning, which is good. The other nice thing is now getting up at six tomorrow will feel like I’ve actually slept in some. I feel like I’ve rested enough now, although all the time off from the holidays is going to make going back to work five days a week challenging, to say the least.

Yesterday was a decent day, really. It was a low energy day, for some reason, and while I did get some chores and things done yesterday, I didn’t do much of anything for the day. I did read quite a bit of Danielle Arsenault’s Glory Be, which I am really enjoying, and then settled in to watch the LSU game, which they did finally win in the last minutes, 35-31. I think the offense going into next year is in pretty good shape, but the defense needs a lot of work still. We then watched Michigan rally to beat Alabama, and I watched some of the Washington game before going to bed–and woke up to see the national title game will be between Michigan and Washington. Good for them, and now I have no need whatsoever to watch that game, either.

And it’s a new year, which means all the things I’ve not been paying attention to, or responding to, has to be picked up and taken care of this week–like emails; I definitely need to clean out the inbox. I also am behind on day job in the office duties that I will have to get back on top of this week as well. I need to do some things around here when I get home tonight, too, so I hope I am not terribly tired when I get home the way I was last week when I had to get up early for PT. I will have to get the mail on the way home, and maybe even swing by the grocery store…I don’t know. Tomorrow is also pay day and pay-the-bills day, too. (It always seems a little brutal when the first pay day of the new year is in the first week of January, a brutal reminder that bills never take time off as we start a new year.)

I have finally started feeling more like myself lately, which has been really nice, too. I have felt a little off ever since the surgery, which I suppose is normal. I really don’t think I need the PT anymore, but I don’t see Dr. O’Brien again until this next Saturday morning, so I won’t officially be released from it until then. I am also hoping to be freed from the brace this weekend, fingers crossed and prayers aloft. I don’t really think I need it anymore, but I also don’t want to take it off arbitrarily until I am officially cleared either. The arm seems to be doing better, frankly, which pleases me enormously. Overall, this whole experience wasn’t terrible, other than that first terrifying week after the surgery when I was essentially trapped in my easy chair for eight days before I was finally off the ice machine and could return to my bed for sleeping. That seems like a million years ago now…

It’s also only forty degrees out there this morning, with a predicted high of a mere fifty for the day. Woo-hoo. I haven’t been feeling the cold as much this year, but I’ve also not been going outside a whole lot lately, either. But it’s definitely been helping me sleep at night, and the bed has been feeling super-comfortable lately. I feel as though my sleep is finally under control with the new meds, which is awesome, and I don’t feel as tired and groggy as I used to be before the medication switch. And to think, this could have been the case all along had I had a decent primary care physician at any point in the last eight or so years. But no sense weeping about what should have been or what might have been. It won’t change anything, and the past can never be undone–which is why I spent so much of my life never looking back. But looking back doesn’t mean missing the past or wishing it had been different, either; neither extreme is the best option, really. I’ve been doing more of that since Mom died (almost a year ago), and it hasn’t been bad at all. In some ways, it’s been helpful. My pre-thirties life was kind of miserable and unhappy and unfulfilled, and so I never wanted to remember either the 70s or the 80s. But it doesn’t hurt or hinder the present by looking back without regret, either. For me, it’s been more about “okay, why do I handle things like this instead of like that?” and remembering the root cause of so many of my anxiety-driven neuroses has actually kind of helped unlock the neurosis and freed me from it. I am still, at sixty-two, very much a work in progress.

And on that note, I am going to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back with you soon, if not later today.

1999

Good morning and happy New Year’s Eve eve. It’s cold again in New Orleans this morning–a mere forty-one degrees–which will make today’s errands a challenge, or at least something I will want to get over with quickly. Mail, prescription, and groceries will be dealt with as quickly as possible so I can get back into the warmth of the apartment.

Yesterday I actually felt like myself for the first time since the surgery, which was an absolutely lovely thing. I slept a ridiculously long time Thursday night, and felt like I’d caught up on my sleep adequately. I woke up at seven this morning, laid around in bed for another quarter of an hour before rising and digging into coffee and breakfast pastries. I did do a lot of straightening and catching up on household chores yesterday after my work-at-home duties were completed. I started watching the Cotton Bowl last night, but Paul came downstairs at half-time, and we watched this week’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (Paul slept) and Reacher. I also started reading Glory Be by Danielle Arsenault yesterday and I am enjoying it so far. I am probably going to have bowl games on after I get home from the errands while I continue to read and do some clean-up around here.

I was also pretty pleased to check the final score of the Cotton Bowl to see that Missouri–who only lost to LSU and Georgia this year–had rallied to defeat Ohio State 14-3. GO MIZZOU!

Tomorrow is the last day of 2023, and there’s no telling what 2024 will bring. It’s an election year (groan)–which of course means my rights as an American are up for a vote again–and also means that it could be just as horrible as 2016 and 2020. But I am going to go into 2024 with my head up and my Wonder Woman bracelets on to deflect any and all negativity that comes my way. I want to have a good year this year, and I do believe if I keep focusing on positivity, and keeping a positive mindset, that I can have a positive outcome for the year. Overall, 2023 was difficult personally but excellent professionally; the excellent professional developments, both at my day job and as a writer, made dealing with the grief somewhat easier on me emotionally. I’m sure the new and proper medications are working their magic within the brain synapses that don’t fire properly, which has had a lot to do with my feeling more centered these last few weeks, and sleeping so well. I do have a lot of PT to get through yet–we haven’t even started trying to strengthen the left biceps again, and that’s going to be harder and more painful than the dexterity PY, but I am also hoping to ride that into going back to the gym regularly. Paul and I are also committed to eating better in the new year, which means more ground chicken and turkey and less red meat; and more fat-free products than not, including my creamer. (I also have a recipe for making my own, which would be healthier since less chemicals, but I also don’t know how long that will be good after making, either.) I’ve started making turkey sandwiches to take for lunch at the office this past week, and I am going to try to keep that going. I do have some unhealthy fare still that will need to be consumed, which I plan to start easing out throughout January.

I also feel pretty good this morning. I got some great books for research this week–a bio of 90’s porn star Joey Stefano, Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color, edited by Sybil Klein1, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism by Kevin M. Kruse, and some fiction as well–Hayley Scrivenor’s Dirt Town and Penny Mickelbury’s Two Wings to Fly Away, and having spent a lot of yesterday pruning and rearranging the books–I still need to work on the laundry room–I am very excited to start digging into my TBR pile. I think I am getting more books today, too–I think some stuff arrived yesterday at the post office–and I am looking forward to delving into those as well. I was also looking through the research books I’ve acquired over the years with book projects in mind, and there’s a lot. I also spent some time brainstorming free-form last night, and of course, came up with great titles for books or stories and some more ideas for both. Heavy sigh–the last thing I need is more ideas, really.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I have those errands to run and some more clean-up around the house that needs to be done, and I do want to spend some time writing and catching up on emails. Have a terrific Saturday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later, you never know.

  1. Despite being published by LSU Press, one always has to read anything about Louisiana history carefully, because so much of it is rumor, legend and made up. But the free people of color before the war have always interested me, and I want to know more about them. ↩︎

Tough World

Work at home Friday, thank God.

One Gregalicious was exhausted yesterday when he got off work. (Actually started flagging in the middle of the afternoon, then had to persevere until four thirty, which meant running errands and heading all the way Uptown before coming home and basically locking myself in for a few days. I managed to get the mail, but the line at the pharmacy was so insanely long there was no way I could stand there and wait, so I headed home.

I’ll make groceries on Saturday; no need for me to leave the house today for anything other than taking out trash and so forth. My goal is to finish the kitchen, which I was too tired to fuck with when I got home last night. I was soooo tired; so much more so than the night before, which I thought was pretty damned tired…so of course, stay tuned, tomorrow will be worse! My new meds continue to work beautifully; I can also tell when I didn’t take my meds–yesterday afternoon I realized they were still in the container I put them in to bring them to work, and they sat on my desk all day until about three, when I noticed they were still sitting there and finally took them.

Yay, drugs!

But I came home to a lovely surprise–Paul worked at home and was doing the laundry! I had to teach him how to use our space-age washing machine right before the surgery, and since then he’s been very helpful with that chore. Needless to say, this pleased me enormously; I had already decided to postpone the growing pile of dirty dishes in the sink until today, but knew the laundry had to be done and was dreading in. So I was able to collapse into my easy chair, where I rewatched The Last of Sheila on TCM (such an amazing movie! One of my favorites, and probably more on that later), and then started watching bowl games while my mind wandered. Sparky climbed up in my lap and fell asleep, yet using his magical purr healing powers to completely relax me, and I felt much better by the time I went to bed around ten. I slept super great last night, and slept in a bit this morning, which also felt amazing–I’ve never believed that story that you can never catch up on lost sleep–and I feel great this morning. It’s cold here, the wind chill is theoretically making it feel like twenty degrees outside. A lot of southeastern Louisiana was in a freeze warning last night, but not New Orleans. It’s supposed to stay chilly until Sunday, when it’ll get up to about seventy degrees in the afternoon before dropping again at night. I always forget how bipolar the winter weather is here.

I’ll do chores around my work-at-home duties today–some things that have to be done before the end of the year, so definitely am pushing it–and then I have the long weekend to do whatever I please, which is pretty awesome. I did spend some time last night straightening the kitchen as much as I could without doing the dishes, so all the counters are finally cleared and everything is either in the sink or near it or put away. Clean counters make such a difference…so I guess I am still kind of a neat freak, I just don’t obsess about it anymore. Better living through chemistry indeed.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Those at-home duties won’t do themselves, and they need to be done. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again probably later.

I Wouldn’t Beg For Water

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas weekend; I have another paid day off today since Christmas Eve fell on Sunday. I’ve been up already for a while and went to PT this morning, so am alive and on an endorphin high that feels most excellent–which is why I didn’t reschedule this 7 am appointment once I remembered that today was another holiday and therefore didn’t need to have it; I’ve not gotten up before nine this entire weekend and so figured it would be an easier way to ease back into the week by keeping it, and by getting up this early I would be raring to go and should be able to get everything done that I need to get done.

Or not.

It was a nice long weekend of getting rest and slowly starting to put the apartment back together. Everything has slid around here since my surgery, and I was hoping to have the energy and time to get a lot of it done this weekend. I didn’t get a lot done, but I made progress, and I always count progress as positive movement, you know? I have a lot of stuff here that I need to take back to the office, but some of it can wait until next week. Yesterday we watched Saltburn, which I really enjoyed; I know the reviews are mixed, but I enjoyed it a lot. Barry Keoghan is going to become a big star, and I’ve enjoyed him in everything I’ve ever seen him in, starting with Dunkirk. Jacob Elordi is just ridiculously beautiful–we are now thinking about diving into Euphoria–and Rosamund Pike is also terrific. We then started watching the television series War of the Worlds, which is kind of ridiculously well done. I also read the latest volume of Heartstopper, and have some thoughts about that I will most likely share at some point. I made a turkey breast in the crockpot for pulled turkey (which was really good), rolls, and Stovetop stuffing (don’t judge me, it’s just the two of us and homemade is both too much trouble and makes too much), which was nice. I have a mess to clean up in the kitchen this morning, but there are worse things. I got to spend the holiday with Paul and Sparky, who is getting so big! What better way to spend a holiday than with those two?

It’s also a bit cold this morning in New Orleans, and I have to say our new heating system is phenomenal. I can tell it’s cold outside but it’s temperate inside; I’d have a space heater running in the pre-new system days, and would also wrap up in a blanket on the couch. Mardi Gras is right around the corner, and will be here before I know it. Paul already got a copy of this year’s Arthur Hardy’s Mardi Gras Guide, the local Carnival Bible. I also picked out my next read, The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman, which I hope to get started on today, once I get some things done and run some errands. Of course, tomorrow it’s back to the office, but that’s okay, too. I do need more structure to my days, and my job does a really good job of that–otherwise I lose track of dates and days; the medical leave time I never had the slightest clue what day of the week it was, let alone the date.

I also have spent some time learning how to use the microwave properly, and it’s so nice to know how to heat things the right way! Yes, I am a moron who never learned how to use a microwave properly and so messed things up a lot when I tried to do anything other than simply reheat something on high. One of the reasons I never used my Instant Pot was because I never took the time to learn how, and maybe that’s a goal I should set for the new year: learn how to use appliances properly.

Well, this is a rather tedious entry, isn’t it?

Which means it’s time to head into the spice mines, isn’t it? Enjoy your Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you later.

Cool Yule

Work-at-home Friday. I had early morning PT this morning, but when I checked my phone when I got home from work my surgeon had called to reschedule, so the rest of the morning for me is free. I’d taken sick time for this morning, which I can now cancel and use at another time, I guess for when the appointment is rescheduled. This was a bummer for me, because this was the removal of stitches and hopefully cleared from the brace appointment. I’d planned all of this out so that I can get it all taken care of on my old insurance, since I have new health insurance in January and a deductible to meet. Ironically, I had just been thinking that despite everything, this wasn’t ruinous financially. I was also hoping to be cleared from PT until late February. Here’s hoping I can be rescheduled next week sometime, but it’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s, so what are the odds that he’s either working or has anything available? I am trying really hard not to get anxiety over this, but it’s kind of hard. Sigh. No sense in stressing about something unknown, so when I finish this I’ll go ahead and call his office.

I knew it was all too good to be true.

But I’m glad I got it taken care of, anyway.

I was tired yesterday. The adventure of making a red velvet cheesecake one-handed and assembling it while making frosting with a nosy high energy kitten exhausted me, and once my caffeine wore off I was exhausted. I did get a great Secret Santa gift–a rechargeable battery operated hand-held vacuum I can use in the car, which I’d been wanting for a while–and I cannot wait to use it. If the weather is sunny this weekend, I may even wash the car. Ooooh, crazy talk, right? And I am getting my new microwave this weekend, which I am unnaturally excited about, frankly. This time I am keeping the instruction manual and teaching myself how to use it properly, rather than just reheating stuff.

I do have a lot to get done this weekend, which was partly why I was hoping to lose the brace for good today. But I can work around it and the High Energy Kitten, who slept so adorably in my lap last night while we watched Reacher and started watching Looking, which we are really enjoying. At the time it came out, it got terrible reviews and queer people seemed to hate it, and no one watched much. At the time I only knew Jonathan Groff from Glee, and not one of its highlights, so it didn’t take much for me to decide not to watch. But now having seen him in Hamilton (on Disney) and in Mindhunter, I was more open to it when Paul suggested it last night, and I was very pleasantly surprised with how realistic it was. It’s very well done, and while I personally didn’t identify with any of the characters, it showed a part of gay life and culture that I know exists. (One of my primary disappointments about the Queer as Folk reboot was the writers clearly weren’t from here–maybe they were, I don’t know–but it wasn’t a real New Orleans I saw on that show, and it was such a missed opportunity. Queer life in New Orleans is very rich and very much a part of the city’s culture in and of itself; imagine doing a queer show set in New Orleans and not mentioning the gay krewes, the leather community, and Southern Decadence is just sitting there, waiting for it’s film/television debut! I primarily watched the entire season for friends who worked as extras–my former supervisor Joey’s drag persona, Debbie with a D, was in the show a lot.)

I also want to finish reading the Tamara Berry novel and move on to the next. I am really enjoying the Berry, despite not being able to focus on reading this week in the evenings, so hopefully part of my cleaning plans this weekend can be broken up with an hour or so of reading every day. I really miss reading. I was scrolling through my ebooks on my iPad, lokoking for a cookbook which was one of the earliest ebook purchases tlast night and was stunned to see how many books I’ve gotten electronically over the years since I got my first iPad back in 2010. (I’d purchased the cookbook in 2011.) So, yes, my TBR stack is much larger than assumed because I never think about the ebooks. Sigh.

And on that note, I need to get to work. Have a lovely Friday Christmas Weekend Eve, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back at some point today.

Twistin’ Bells

Thursday and my last day in the office before Christmas. Our department potluck is today, and so yes, last night I had to make a red velvet cheesecake–one-handed. I stopped to make groceries on my way home from work after swinging by the post office to mail the last of my Christmas cards. The one thing I thought for sure I had? Sugar, and no, I didn’t have any in the cabinets…so I walked to Walgreens to get some and didn’t realize until I was there that I was wearing my house shoes…and since I used sweats as pajamas, I’ve officially become a New Orleans elderly eccentric, going out in public in pajamas and house shoes. I do have to finish the cake this morning–putting it together and making the frosting–but the lion’s share of the work is already done, thankfully.

But the layers are uneven, so it will be a little trickier than usual to pull together.

Of course, the frosting will hide any defects in the layers, so…but I doubt very seriously I’ll be making it again. The sugar was only the first hassle in the entire experience; the one-handed was something easily handled, but the kitchen is not big enough to do complicated baking when you have a kitten with big energy and a lot of curiosity. “Don’t lick that! No, don’t walk there! No, you don’t need to climb inside the refrigerator! No, you can’t climb me while I am whipping frosting!” To say I had a bit of an anxiety backslide while making this cake, giving into frustration and everything else felt like a setback, and that carried over to this morning. Heavy sigh. But now that the cake is finished and in its carrier, I can relax, do some deep breathing exercises, and rid myself of the anxiety again.

We started watching Percy Jackson and the Olympians on Disney last night, and it’s much better than the movies; it works better as a television series, frankly, and this time out they cast age-appropriate actors, for one thing. I read the Percy Jackson books, and some of Rick Riordan’s other mythology series until I judged a book prize one year and fell behind on my reading. I did keep buying them, hoping I’d get back to them at some point but never did. It’s a great concept, and the books themselves are better written and better plotted than anything the Chatelaine of Castle TERF ever wrote. They didn’t become the phenomenon that the TERF Queen ever put on paper, more’s the pity. Riordan also wrote a great crime series before he switched to mythology; I enjoyed those crime novels and was really happy to see his career gain traction when he switched to Percy Jackson. I am really looking forward to the entire series, and there should also be a new Reacher this weekend. Huzzah!

I also wrote some more on the book, and it’s falling together. I’ll soon be at the middle section, so hopefully I will be able to figure out the middle part that I always have trouble with. So huzzah! I hope to get a lot of good work done this weekend…I’m also getting my new microwave this weekend, which is kind of exciting, too. I need to figure out some things, and hopefully I’ll have the time to reorganize the kitchen over the course of this weekend as well as prune some books. I also want to finish reading the Tamara Berry so I can move on to another cozy; I have quite a few backed up in the TBR pile.

And I sent the last of my Christmas cards out yesterday.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.