Fails

When I got my own apartment in grad school, I walked home alone at night after drinking a couple of times. Then I realized that was not the best idea. I think I am aware of what is going on around me - I never talked on the phone, but had it ready to call if I needed to. I wouldn't listen to music. I walked with purpose. I paid attention to noises and people and cars around me. One night a friend and I were walking in the same direction, then parted ways after some drinking and it was latish. He made me promise to call him when I got home. Then I took a cab home from the subway one night and it was only $5. $5 and some friendly conversation with the local cab driver and I would get home safely. Sold.

(I was hyper aware of the sound of the taxi leaving. One night the cab sat there for a bit. I stayed away from the windows as I went up the stairs and did not turn on any lights until the car was gone. Paranoid? Meh.)

I do not have a regular thing when I get home that would let someone know I am home. (We will not get into the fact that CF and I do not talk every day...) So I am kinda aware of keeping myself safe. But two times in the past week, I did not act in situations and the excuse/reason was that it was potentially dangerous. But I wonder if it was actually dangerous or if I just need respond in a better way. I think one big problem with society is the general attitude that if you have a problem, it is your problem. If you know me a little bit, you likely know I am a good example of how people don't always ask for help when they should (or when it would be a good idea). So I try to make an effort to offer help when I recognize a situation in which I could help. Anyhoo. Onto my recent life fails.

I went for a run. 1.5 miles up the road. 1.5 miles back the same way. (Not a continuous run, mind you. Enough running to make my muscles hurt though.) The whole road has houses on both sides all the way. (This is me setting the stage for how it was a safe environment.) On the way back, there was a small pick-up parked. As I passed, I realized there was an older woman in the front seat crying. There was a lot of stuff in the cab. I could not remember if she was there 10 minutes earlier when I passed going in the opposite direction. I hesitated, but kept running. Did she just have to leave her home and did not know where she was going to sleep that night? (Not that I would offer my home.) Was it a murder TV show waiting to happen? Did she just lose a loved one? I will never know.

I am in the process of caving and getting a smart phone. {sigh} The second situation happened after a man came into the wireless phone store while I was in there on a rainy Friday evening. He was unkempt and had a grocery cart that he left outside with stuff in it. He was asking questions about pre-paid phones, and seemed to carry on a decent conversation with the sales dude. I did not notice when the man left. As I was pulling out of the parking lot, I realized that man was laying near the curb in the parking lot with his cart and he was not moving. I was pulling into traffic. Do I keep digging for my phone while I drive? Do I turn around? It is dark and rainy. I am at the stop light and realize there was a police car that turned its lights on stopping the intersection traffic. Then an ambulance and fire truck came through and pulled into the parking lot I had just left. I felt relieved and guilty that my immediate reaction was not to stop pulling out of the parking lot and to go over to the man.

I think I talk myself out of what might be a difficult situation, but still one for which I have time. I think I imagine that criminal TV show. I clearly watch too much Criminal Minds and Law & Order.

Verses

Somehow I have found myself a Confirmation Mentor at church. I should not say "somehow" as if I was coerced to sign a legally binding document or something. I did say yes, and I do think I will enjoy it.

In addition to ringing handbells and being a mentor, I have volunteered days when my church was responsible for people at a Habitat house and a local soup kitchen. I also participate in the adult group for 20ish to 35/40-ish year olds. I honestly do not know exactly what I believe or feel, but this church has definitely provided opportunities to explore that and also get involved in the whole community.

I have found many parts of church that speak to me and have yet to actually sit down and share them. I am putting in more effort to read the scripture every week, and a couple of weeks ago was one of those 'Aha!' moments.

So from my Good News Bible that I got in third grade, I bring you parts of James.

3.13 Is there anyone among you who is wise and understanding? He is to prove it by his good life, by his good deeds performed with humility and wisdom. But if in your heart you are jealous, bitter, and selfish, don't sin against the truth by boasting of your wisdom. Such wisdom does not come down from heaven; it belongs to the world, it is unspiritual and demonic. Where there is jealousy and selfishness, there is also disorder and every kind of evil.

Aha! If you're selfish and boastful, it is not good. It was like reassurance that giving as much as I can does make a difference. That may seem silly to think otherwise, but how often do good people get told they are doing the right thing?

4.1 Where do all the fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your desires for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you. You want things, but you cannot have them, so you are ready to kill; you strongly desire things, but you cannot get them, so you quarrel and fight.

Aha! The fighting mentioned reminded me of war. On a smaller scale, bickering and arguing. So I guess the question is, when do you try to "stick to your guns" and when do try to let those strong desires go?

Food success!

This was quite a successful food weekend, if I do say so myself. Thank you, Pinterest.

Even though I have a history of not likely beets, I thought I would try them again. My friend had some when I stayed with her this summer, and she LOVES them. I roasted them with some rosemary. Blech. What I did do was blend them up with plain yogurt and more rosemary and make Annie's Mac n' Cheese with the beet yogurt. (Inspired by this beet pasta recipe which I probably will not try now.) I took a picture after it had been in the fridge, mostly so you could see the color. It hid the beet taste for the most part!

Then I made buffalo cauliflower. This was a super-easy way to bread and oven cook something. Sadly, my blue cheese dressing is in the fridge at work.

I highly recommend the two breakfasts I made: Saturday I made pumpkin french toast. I also made breakfast for the week. Mini-frittatas with more of the roasted beets as mix-ins (also bacon, cheese curds, pepper from my porch, green onions, and cauliflower). I tried one and they are pretty good...except when you bite into a piece of beet.

Apparently I still do not like beets.

2 Weeks Ago...

2 weeks ago I finished another MS Challenge Walk. I think it was by far my most successful, as far as my legs go. I would link to old posts about walking and the Walk, but I am procrastinating on work right now as it is. You will have to trust me that this was my NINTH year. Next year will be my TENTH (that was some fast math). I have decided that my best secret to training is to freak out that I will not train enough and will be in pain, because that is how I trained this year. I was probably walking 3 to 4 times a week, and 5 to 9 miles each time. My Mom did not train as much as she did her first year she was a walker and did all 50 miles. This year I think she walked about 34 miles...at 2.5 miles an hour.

I walk for my Mom, who was diagnosed with MS something like 30 years ago. I would feel guilty about leaving her to walk alone, and frequently check myself if I get snippy when I do walk with her. The lady is getting severely crazy, like I think she would win the prize for the craziest "normal" mother. Luckily, it is mostly in a harmless way. She did kiss someone at the walk though, which made me really uncomfortable (not like kiss-kiss, but more like she should have just stuck with a hug kiss), and tends to overshare things that make people uncomfortable. All of this to say that she walks SLOW anyway. So on Day 2 of the walk, I told her I could not walk that pace after lunch. She was going to skip ahead to miss the hilly parts due to her knees and blisters. She skipped 6 or 7 miles, to walk the last 4 or 5, and I almost caught up to her. I was probably walking twice her speed. I did 3 miles in less than 45 minutes. I told her it was because I had warmed up for 4 hours that morning walking with her. Hahaha. Sadly, my sister has managed to hurt both of her feet in the past couple of months on the little league field and on a worm in her garage. She walked on the last day to get on the course a bit, and it was nice to have the Mom buffer.

My nephew will be old enough to walk next year, so we finally created a team because it helps with fundraising. When I was walking to meet up with my Mom and my sister, I thought our name should have 'numb' in it. We realized that one reason my Mom gets such bad blisters is because she has reduced feeling in her feet so they get bad before she realizes she has them. We decided our team name should, therefore, be 'Comfortably Numb'. It comes with its own theme song, which two of my favorite female artists have covered.

I do not take many pictures on the Walk anymore, but a couple I did take....

That yellow ribbon has been there long enough for the ivy to grow over it. It reminded me of when SO MANY PEOPLE put yellow ribbons up for the troops during, I think, the first Iraq war.

The road is sometimes quiet.

A noteworthy flower along the way. Mostly noteworthy because it is fall and past the season for a lot of flowers.

Long-stemmed roses CF sent that were waiting for me when I got back to lab after the walk.

Climbing...then crawling.

I have wasted the last hour of my life trying to make it bearable to walk on my left foot. No joke.

Dinner is finished in the crock pot & rice cooker.
Windows are open and need to be shut because it is cold out.
The cat wants attention.
I took my contacts out and do not know where my glasses are.
I cannot walk on my left foot.

A few weeks ago I tried (indoor) rock climbing for the first time and discovered, maybe not surprisingly, that my arms are ridiculously weak. There was a weekend visiting CF and walking 50 miles since then, all with no problems. The only thing I had after walking 50 miles was a hardly note-worthy blister on one toe.

Today, I used the second climbing day from the Groupon deal. I actually made it to the top of the wall, then we tried other routes up and some bouldering before leaving. All seemed fine. Arms were expectedly tired; legs felt fine. Then a couple of hours ago I stretched my ankle and it started bothering me. I left it alone, but I think I may have over-stretched a small muscle just behind that ball on the outside of your ankle. AND HOLY HELL it hurts.

I grabbed some ice. No help.
I brought my work in from the porch so I could sit on the couch to try heat. Made it worse.
Put the ice back on and my bag sprung a leak.
I got up and popped two Aleve and a glass of water.
I tried wrapping it for compression, but had to take it right back off because it felt worse.
Laid on the floor to stretch my legs and elevate them.
That is when I had to actually crawl over to the kitchen to get the ice again, a couple of times feeling like I was nauseous or light headed.
I laid on the floor to stretch my legs over my head again.
I put the ice back on.
Crawled back over to the couch and am laying here with the ice waiting for that Aleve to do something.

I am sure you wanted to relive that with me. I cannot focus to do work right now, though, so I had to occupy myself somehow. I am seriously thinking of adding a tag to my blog: Pain. This will be the only post (hopefully).

Sometimes it is a pain in the ass to live alone.

Wish me luck. Hope my dinner tastes good.

Fingers crossed

I have all these *things* swimming around in my head. While I should be finishing up revisions of a research manuscript, I want to just write these down so I can let them go (for now). After the manuscript, it is on to job applications this weekend. That makes me think about life, and what I want out of it. If the job search goes well, I will be moving next summer. That is crazy and exciting.

A while back I was reflecting on why the holidays were difficult for me last year.  Those things are all still true. I spend a lot more time thinking about them than I should. The funny thing is, that every time one of my good friends has a baby, gets married, or gets engaged, I am not sad at all. I am excited. And happy. And wish I lived closer to them. In fact, after my trip back to Boston this summer, my friend/the grad student in the lab told me he thought I had gotten funnier. I think I just happened to be happier than I usually am after seeing so many people who I miss! Oddly, when people I am not close with, or with whom I was once closer, I get sad when any of these things happen. Give me a while, and I can let it go.

What I am having more difficult containing is hope. This sounds silly. Who tries to contain hope? When I think about getting my next job though, I hope that life will finally click. There are quite a few jobs that fit my area of research quite well. They range from small liberal arts colleges to larger universities. A couple of them are larger schools than I *think* I want, but you never know until you get a chance to visit them. Many (maybe I am up to 10 on the list) are from D.C. to Boston. This is prime friend and family land. 10 may not sound like many, but when I was watching the job listings last year, the ones to which I applied were not good research/interest fits. I think this is promising. My CV is better than last round, particularly if I get this paper submitted the end of the month. I have hope that one of these will work out.

I have basically decided that when I get a job, I will get a car. Mine is dying a slow death, but I have a hard time thinking about taking on a car loan right now. The engine seems great, it is all the other extras, like the air conditioning, that make me worried something else is going on. Much to my sister's chagrin, at the moment that ugly Prius is high on the list. I have hope that I can get a great hybrid car. If I get a job at some of these schools, I may need an AWD vehicle though.

I am reaching with the submission of this paper to a high impact journal. Nothing related to this aspect of my research topic has been published, so the story our data make is that much more exciting. The grad student's project that we have always planned to include is starting to work, and that will make this journal less of a reach. He works hard and has been working A LOT to get it done. I have hope that he can get it done, and this journal will like the story.

Maybe this weekend I will give y'all an update on what I have actually been *doing* if you are interested. Off to uncross my fingers and get those manuscript revisions done.