Health stuff

It was spring break for me this past week. I front-loaded the fun and non-work activities, and thus have a fair amount of work to do this weekend. I started lots of these over the past few days, so I just need to finish them and move on to more stuff. Bill and I did some touristy stuff last weekend and spent a day on the couch watching movies. It was a good way to get over the cold I got just. before. break. Then we had snow and I cleaned my apartment from top to bottom. I did some yoga. I was on campus. I went to a cool private museum with co-workers. It has been a somewhat productive (but not quite productive enough) and relaxing break.

I have once again randomly chosen a primary care physician after moving for similar reasons as I have chosen in the past: close to work because I go to the doctor less often for being sick than for maintenance, a woman, friendly looking, and takes my insurance. Great way to pick, right? I have only met one of the nurse practitioners so far, and she is great, so I chose wisely. This is the first time a new doctor actually did a pregnancy test before renewing my birth control. It makes perfect sense for a doctor who has never met me to do this, and it made me surprised that this is not the norm.

She also did a full battery of blood work so it will be done for my physical. The good news is that my cholesterol is great, so I can keep eating cheese. On the other hand, apparently I am slightly hypothyroid. I wonder how long this has been true because she was looking not just at the hormones, but also an enzyme that if it is super low indicated hypothyroid and I have not noticed another doctor comment on this before. For the first time since I had my thyroid out seven years ago, my medication is changing. Let's hope this helps with some of my fatigue. I am mostly incapable of rounding up enough energy to do work after 7 p.m. My Mondays and Tuesdays are LONG days, so by Wednesday I am fried even though I get plenty of sleep.

I had not run in over a week until yesterday. Every time I thought to, I decided I did not feel like bundling up to go running when it was in the high 20s in the middle of March. Yesterday it was both daylight and 50 degrees when I got home, so I had no excuse. My legs are a bit tired this morning. I need to start increasing my mileage at some point here...

I have been taking decent care of myself until I had this for breakfast this morning.

Well, I had one full one and a small piece of all of the others.

Multitasking

My friend was recently telling me that she does not want to 'bug' her boyfriend too much about future plans because he is finishing his thesis and he cannot 'multitask'. Prior to this, she felt bad for bringing it up with him because he was working on a big project and also had his thesis and could only work on one thing at a time because he cannot 'multitask'.

I think I had such a visceral reaction to this because she sounds like I did a few years ago when CF refused to respond to any of my attempts at talking about future plans as well. I told her as much and also that she should think about my suggestions in this light. She shares a lot with the boyfriend, as she should, so I pointed out that she should also tell him this about me if she told him what I said. In addition, her boyfriend's inability to discuss a plan, with the acknowledgement that plans are not set in stone but give you a goal, is affecting my friend's well-being. Thinking you may unfairly burden a partner and refraining from a conversation when you yourself then end up unfairly burdened does not make sense to me.

Multitasking has nothing to do with doing two things at once. Sure you can pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time or chew gum and walk, but I am pretty sure that if the things require cognitive input, you can only do one thing at a time. I told my friend that if she gave her boyfriend a heads up that she needed (yes, actually needs) to talk about this would mean that he could be prepared to participate instead of him being unprepared, as he has apparently been during previous attempts. (As an aside, I have done this with exes to no avail.)

I actually do this with myself. I will think about how to approach something for way. too. long. sometimes. Then when I go to actually do it, it takes very little time though. There are some things I absolutely need to get done in a timely fashion that are simmering right now.
     Taxes, for example. It is way past when I should have already made an appointment to have someone do those for me.
     A grant proposal due in July. It seems like a long way off, but it is a big proposal. This may sound crazy, but as long as my teaching is good, if I got a proposal funded through this mechanism, I might be all set for tenure in 5 years. Seriously.
     My lesson plans for next week. It is spring break for me and I took the last three days off from work-work. Bill and I hung out literally all weekend, I cleaned my apartment from top to bottom, and I did all my laundry (plus the extras like my duvet cover). There is no more procrastinating available in my apartment.
     Figuring out this Bill thing. There are several things I am trying to get used to again. As with my conversation with my friend about she and her boyfriend, it would make sense for me to share with Bill so he does not think I am ambivalent or boring. One is I getting used to being gone. Bill likes to travel, even for regular weekend things. I do too, I just have not had the resources to do it in recent years. I need to get back into the swing of things. Participating in the summer research program provides me a stipend, but the budget is continually shrinking for the program so who knows what measly amount it will be. Honestly Bill pays for almost everything, but then I feel bad about that (see above sharing idea...). See also this previous post. I have also been unfriending people on Facebook who I only know from my previous relationship life. I have done this in waves, and it was great to do some of this the other day as I was also friending new people I have met in my new life.
     Getting my research set up. I have a summer student lined up and not my research. I had plans of doing this in January. Then this week during spring break. It involves a trip back to my post-doc lab to pick stuff up. First some plumbing was not getting done. Then there are snow days that bring everything to a screeching halt at my small liberal arts college. Now there is a water shut down in my building to do outside water main work (which is surely delayed thanks to a snow storm yesterday). Not surprisingly, I JUST got an email that water will be off through Thursday (one-day delay), with no hot water until Friday. FML. Time to get dressed, head to campus, and plan my bathroom breaks so I can go to the building next door to use their bathrooms.

A little dinner, a little breakfast

I have been trying to cook instead of snacking or cooking frozen food (but who doesn't love Trader Joe's frozen dumplings???). Above is hot and sour soup that I have made before. I did not have corn starch or white pepper, so flour and black pepper it was. It was still delicious, and Bill has requested I make it when he gets back from a work trip. That great fabric under my bowl is a a fabric bowl my friend's mom made and sent me. You can microwave your food sitting right in the fabric bowl and then take out without burning yourself!

Today was a snow day, so I made some pumpkin oatmeal muffins (and also snacked incessantly throughout the day - see above problem with snacking). It would not be a cooking post if I did not change the recipe, right? For these I used up coconut milk I had opened to make a chicken coconut lime mushroom peanut curry last week (that is pretty much the ingredient list from the curry - it was delicious). I also added some walnuts and mini chocolate chips to empty some stuff out. They were also delicious. As was the curry I made last week. Oh, and the pumpkin was left over from some pumpkin spice muffins I made for my early class last week. They see me early almost every day and are usually all on time, so I bribed thanked them with muffins.

Undoing relationships

**This post is brought to you by my ability to procrastinate on lecture prep and an early announcement that I have a snow day tomorrow.**

A couple of weekends ago, BIL guy, who I have now decided to just call Bill, came to my parents' house for the weekend with me. I had not invited him in order for him to "meet the parents", and he's already met my sister and her family before (obviously, being 'brother-in-law guy'). I was perfectly comfortable having him come with me, and he was perfectly happy to come. We did not hit a single minute of traffic on the NJ Turnpike, so the drive only took 6 hours in each direction. It is like it was meant to be.

Then at the new faculty happy hour that week, one of them asked how the weekend was. I think I forgot I had told her about him.

Then he came to dinner for my college friend's birthday. (She, her boyfriend, and Bill and I have had dinner together before.)

This weekend he came to a gathering on campus that was made up of new faculty and others who are friends of one of the new faculty members. Bill thanked me for introducing him to my friends, but honestly, it makes my life easier. On top of that, I want my people to know and (hopefully) like each other. Why would I try to keep different parts of my life separate? I cannot find any reference to this "idea" I had in high school. Idea is in quotes because I am probably not the only person who truly wished to just have all the people I care about live in one town, Jennytown.

Bill also had a friend come into town to see their mutual friend in a show, so there was hanging out with some of his people. We also got to go backstage after the show. It is cool to see how all the stage stuff is organized behind the scene; my favorite part was the penis basket. No, that is not a typo and if you know Book of Mormon the musical at all, you'll know when the basket is used. The fun part of hanging out with his people is hearing stories he has told them about us. I commented that the bar where we were getting a beer was where Bill first impressed me with his trivia prowess (he's seriously amazing at trivia), and apparently he had already conveyed that story to the friend. That trivia night was the first night we hung out. We rehashed, with his friend, how we hung out frequently for what I call 'non-dates'. Apparently in the fall, Bill was not really sure what was going on, but I always said yes to hanging out so he thought that was good and kept asking.

We are to the point in our dating where if we stopped dating, I would have to undo another relationship. I slowly unfriended people I knew through exes over time, and ended up asking family and friends to unfriend CF over the summer, and it is always sad. Having become happy in where I am with moving back to the East Coast, my job, being close to family and friends and seeing them so much more often, now I have to convince myself that it is worth it, again, being open to another relationship regardless of where it may lead, sharing anything I can (including my family and friends), laying it out there what I want and where (at least right now) I am not willing to compromise given previous relationships. That seems like a bad way to think about a new relationship, but right now I still feel pretty protective of my life, career, and, honestly, heart. We keep talking about plans for months away from now, so for now we are clearly good. :-)


Also. Bill punched me in the eye last weekend. Apparently he was dreaming about playing basketball, and some kid was handing him a potato chip as he was going to take a shot. He reached out in real life to grab the potato chip in his dream...and hit me in right in the eye.

How serious ARE you?

Three things indicating various levels of seriousness for you to judge. It is always nice to be told you are expected to be judgmental, right?

1. I really do love when I feel fully prepared for class or when I finish writing up an assignment. I am enjoying meeting students at all levels - teaching an upper level course with a lab and an intro lab section. I just confirmed with a student that she will do summer research with me. For the most part, I think I am on the right track. But when the weather channel sent out a storm watch alert for later this week and I heard other faculty complaining about the winter weather, MY first thought was, "let's go snow day or delay!"

I never really thought I would be that person (I mean we are only 2 weeks into the semester!), but it is nice being on the instructor side of a snow day. Plus I honestly do not mind the winter weather, I am sure in part because I do not have to shovel or clear trees that fell down in the recent ice storm.

2. Rapunzel had this idea that we would use Nike+ to motivate each other to stay active, although she seems quite good at it herself. We both said, at least in the beginning that knowing someone else could see when we ran made us more likely to run, and we kept trying to just get ahead of the other person (although I was just trying to keep up...). She finished the 30 miles in 30 days a few days early and set up a new 32 miles in 30 days challenge. And she just finished after 11.5 days. I have not kept up, but I did run 30.06 miles in January and already 17.17 miles this month. Not too shabby, but not quite as serious as Rapunzel.

3. BIL guy is coming with me to my parents for a big bonfire and drinking this weekend. On one hand, I suppose it is some-adjective-I-can't-quite-put-my-finger-on that technically we have only been [clearly] out of the friend zone since Jan 1 and he is hanging out with my family. On the other hand, he knew my BIL way back and has met my sister and the kids, and we have been hanging out for so long, that it does not feel weird at all. He also has been happy to come from the first time I mentioned it, including when I gave him another out over the weekend. That is mostly all I have to say about that.

Phew!

**It has been almost 3 years since I added to my '100 things' list! If you have an idea for a topic for the last 10 things, let me know. Sadly I have already done a 'random things' list.**

Week one of the semester:

Day 1: Can't log onto the computer before my 9 a.m. class. Restart it. Can't log in. Call help desk. Start teaching. Help desk comes and the computer isn't connected to the internet anyway. Finish class without slides. Computer works fine when I check back in the afternoon. Stay up too late after making dinner, doing laundry, watching a couple hours of TV, and deciding I should do work.

Day 2: Would have started by finding a massive water leak in my teaching lab just before my 8:30 a.m. class, but luckily a colleague found the ceiling dripping at the end of Day 1. Stay up too late because I wanted to go over my lecture again and I clearly suck at going to bed early.

Day 3: Headache all day in spite of the 2 Aleve, 2 cups of coffee, and stretching my neck and upper back throughout the day. Headache wains and I run 3 miles in the 20 degree windy weather. Headache comes back. Make dinner. Do some laundry. In bed by 11:00.

Day 4: Start the day with more Aleve, just in case. I think the rest of the day went okay. I don't remember. I still felt off and like any second that headache would come back. Happy hour with other new faculty at the end of the day. Made it to bed at a reasonable hour after texting with BIL guy about how it takes him forever to fall asleep unless I am around and how I just fall asleep because I am that lucky. I barely remember closing my eyes.

Day 5: Feel more normal than I have all week! Probably the best lecture of the week, although I am amazed at how little material I get through. I have a hard time telling if the students are keeping up, bored, and/or lost. 9 a.m. is not that early for a class, but it is if you are college students (and this group sees me at 9 a.m. 3 days a week and 8:30 another day). One of said college students missed class because her grandfather had a bad fall. Go to local meeting of those working with a similar research system. Have awkward conversation with speaker about my post-doc advisor and the speaker's collaborator with whom my post-doc advisor does not speak (long story that is not mine to tell). Feeling exhausted again. Put away all the laundry I have done in the past week, empty the dishwasher, make dinner, decide to watch the pilot episode of West Wing, write a blog post, go to bed super early.

Saturday plan: Get up. Run. Go wine tasting.