It Only Took Two Months

I have some interesting friends. One of them posted a silly horoscope to her Facebook page. I responded by writing something totally off the cuff. She challenged me to write the whole story to go with that sentence.

Immediately, work got crazy. I was traveling every week, sometimes three to four days out of that work week. In so doing, I figured out where the nearest Panera was to my travels.

I printed out the horoscope and pasted it into this journal I was going to use for the collection of quotes from the books I read. (I have abandoned that idea in favor of post-its because I don't want to stop, copy a quote, and read on. It breaks the rhythm. I have the post-its handy for ripping off a sheet and slapping it into the book where it marks the lines I liked.) When I had time to kill, Panera was great. I could get lunch and work on the story and they didn't mind. Around me, people were hooked up to the internet, doing whatever they needed to. I had my journal and my gel pens and I wrote and wrote and wrote.

I was very proud of myself when, after a couple weeks of this, I'd reached paged 23.

No, the journal pages are not numbered. I have to do that myself, but that simple task delivered a great feeling of accomplishment. How far in advance should I number them? Was 30 enough? No. Not even close. 50? I might be half-way through. I'm not sure. I settled on 100.

I wrote in various fragments of time; at the doctor's office at the end of May; at the office when burning CDs or processing data tied up my computer for long stretches. May was cold and damp and I felt the words struggle to flow through my pen onto the pages. Some days, I could barely manage a page. Other days, three and four pages of text seemed to sprint onto the lines. I went through one pack of gel pens and had to buy another.

And then life caught up and all these things I needed/wanted to do called to me and the journal was set aside for a time. I knew exactly how the story would end. I knew the characters. I knew, mostly, the dialog. It was getting it committed to the pages of the journal. I wasn't feeling inspired.

Then, last Saturday, a glorious day of moderate temperatures and warm sunshine, I got the deck into sitting mode.

All the plants are planted, although I need another marigold for one which didn't make it. The statuary is out. There is a table for a drink and supplies, and there is the comfort of flowers.

The geraniums, as I've said, are rather spindly and will be cut back in the next week. This space is inviting now. I don't feel like it needs more than the usual deadheading of flowers. I can sit out here and work on whatever project I have in front of me, be it a book, a cross-stitch, or a story. Of course, my flow gets interrupted by "Hamlet! Deck! Now!" He was so good but has since regressed, although he comes when I call. He's timid, as the girls are, so I probably could let him loose while I finished a chapter or a line of stitching, but I worry and that not good for concentration.

Anyway, Sunday, finally, after two months of off and on writing, I could write "The End".

It's 82 pages in the journal which might type up to 40 pages on 8.5 x 11 inch paper. I changed verb tenses in the last quarter of the story, preferring the ending tenses to the beginning. It made more sense. I'm probably the worst editor of my stuff. I agonize over punctuation placement and whether this word is exactly what I want to use. I didn't do much editing of the raw product but it was hard, when I had to go backwards a few pages to remember where the story was and where it needed to go. Oh gee. That's not the right wording there, and out comes the editor in me.

The next step is to type this up so my friend can read it. After that, I have no idea what I'll do with this, other than mark something complete and move on to the next idea. She mentioned, while driving in the rain one day, seeing a book, pages flapping in the wind, in the median of the road she was on. Did someone leave it on the top of their car and drive off? Or did they heave it out the window during a rainstorm, on purpose? If so, why would you do that to a book? She never specifies the size of the book. So many ideas.

This is a great victory for me. I got the deck set up for a summer of relaxation AND I finished something I'd started. On to the next project!

Beverage:  Water

Deb

So You Don't Have to, But It's Not Bad

Ah cravings. I'm pretty good at not giving in to cravings. While I can justify eating a whole bag of cookies or half a pie, unless the object of the craving is in the house or easily accessible, I'm not going out of my way or making a special trip to get it. Today, I forgot lunch. I thought about it when I was getting ready for work, but never made it up to come with me. As luck would have it, I had a Campbell's ready to heat soup and the last of the instant pudding in the desk drawer. (Must restock this weekend with a trip to the grocery.) Going out was not appealing so having soup and pudding in the desk drawer was very convenient. But what to make for supper.

It's one of those "I don't want to cook" weeks. I have gone through all my soup; all the instant flavored rice; all the freezer pasta I had left. I just did not feel like standing over the stove and swishing a spoon into something. I've finished off all the bread, cereal and peanut butter. I cleaned out the freezer on Wednesday, as I said I was going to do, and tossed stuff which just didn't look right. The grocery visit this weekend will be with an eye toward fresh and things which can be prepared quickly. Then the internal argument about needing to eat won't end with a shrug and a peanut butter sandwich.

At 2 pm, I considered my options. I had Wendy's salad on Wednesday; Panera on Tuesday and Subway on Thursday. My usual route home does not take me by anything. This is to my betterment, of course; both my waistline and my pocketbook. I have the grocery list prepared. I am ready to hit the ground running tomorrow, but it's 2 pm on a Friday afternoon, and it's not the best pickings in the freezer or cupboards at home. What's there needs some elements of preparation and I'm too tired for that.

Then I had a thought. I have not had Taco Bell in ages. No, it's not the best food on the planet. It's also slightly out of the way. It does, however, meet one criteria, it's inexpensive for what I get.

If I could have put voice to the internal conversation, you would have laughed. The tired Deb just wanted to go home. The rational Deb acknowledged the tiredness, but said food is important. The larder would be restocked on Saturday. Tonight, I could indulge. Besides, I couldn't tell me when the last time was I walked into a Taco Bell and got food.

I got my usual, which is 3 soft tacos and a drink. They have these balls of deep fried dough surrounding a custardy center and rolled in cinnamon sugar. Thank goodness I only got 2 of them. The flavor was of cinnamon sugar grease. Never buying that again. The tacos were their usual decent selves. It's not amazing food. It's steady and, like any other chain fast food restaurant, the same. Three soft tacos in Glen Ellyn are going to taste the same as three soft tacos in Warner Robins, Georgia. There are times when that is exactly what you want.

Recommending Taco Bell food is kind of like recommending Oreos. Yeah, the stuff is okay once in awhile, but not all the time. There is one thing they have which I will recommend.

It's a blue raspberry "freeze". I like these kinds of drinks anyway. Call them Slurpees or Slushies or Freezes, they are finely shredded ice into which flavoring has been added. As the ice melts, you get the liquid beverage. They usually come in a dispenser machine. Taco Bell supposedly has strawberry flavor reminiscent of Starbursts but they were out of that flavor. So, I "settled" for blue raspberry. You know, it's $2.50 for this size; $3.15 for the large size. This size is plenty. If you like the weird taste of blue raspberry, this is very good.

The thing with this is, now that I know I can get it via the drive-up, I don't have to go in and get food. I never had to but I don't like handing my debit card through the drive thru window where it's out of sight for a few minutes while they ring up the sale. I can cobble together $3.50 to have for this beverage. I won't get it regularly; it's not something I should be consuming regularly. But in the annals of comfort food, I've found a beverage which fits the bill.

Beverage:  Scottish Oat Stout (I finished the blue raspberry freeze)

Deb

Beverage Challenge

"We consume too much sugar."

I think, if there is one health sentence to take away from last year, it would be this. We all have known high-fructose corn syrup has altered the way we consume foods. It's in everything. I was standing by the condensed soups and a woman pointed out Campbell's Health Request tomato soup had high fructose corn syrup in it. There was an outcry when bread was found with it. I have to confess that I find myself looking at labels way more closely now. I keep a bottle of Karo, which is high fructose corn syrup, on the shelf because it's needed in some desserts. Otherwise I like to steer clear of the stuff.

Back in May, some of my RA blood work came back pre-diabetic. I'm not the best eater when I'm at home. I can buy salads and sandwiches and scrutinize menus down to their 6 point type, looking for things I don't want to eat when I'm out. But at home, my diet is a mess. In April, we were really busy and rather than fix myself a good breakfast, it was way easier to stop by Dunkin or Panera and pick up tea and pastries. Ease is not always good for one's glucose or waistline.

Armed with this knowledge, I took a look at my diet. I limit myself to Dunkin' once every 10 days. If I have to be out the door early on consecutive days, I cut myself some slack. It is easier to grab Dunkin when I know I'll be on my feet for 4 hours. Panera is easier to limit because it's not on the way to the office. I have to make a special trip to get there.

The next thing to investigate was the groceries in the house. I rarely bake anymore and I just don't have sweets in the house. But there was one thing I was consuming a lot of; soda. Every trip to the grocery resulted in a fridge pack or bottles or a case of Dr Pepper coming home with me. If anything is more corn syrup-laden than regular soda, I'd like to know what it is, aside from pecan pie but that's not something I'd eat every day.

I realized I like the fizz. I could do without the taste. How could I get the fizz with none of the sugar.

LaCroix is, by far, the largest producer of seltzer. They positioned themselves as the alternative to soda. I've tried almost all their flavors. I won't drink the grapefruit one. Can't stand grapefruit. I keep coming back to berry flavor.

This is $5 for a dozen. I can get Dr Pepper on sale, which is pretty much 80% of the year, for $3.99. When you are pinching pennies, the temptation to buy soda because it's cheaper than water is real.

Last year, I replaced soda from Memorial Day to Labor Day with LaCroix. The ONLY time I allowed myself soda was when I was working in the field and needed to get lunch. If I bought my lunch during the day and brought it back to the office, I drank tea or bottled water. I wound up losing 10 pounds over the summer. Most importantly, I went out of the pre-diabetic range on blood glucose.

Now, I've tried to be better about eating fresh fruits and veggies. It can be really hard to motivate myself to cook when I come home from work. I just want to sit. Friends have said, "Use the weekend to make meals in bags and freeze them." That's all very nice and I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't want to spend a weekend cooking, even with the knowledge I'll have a grab'n'cook meal in the upcoming week. I buy with an eye toward needing, at most, 30 minutes to prepare something. If I cook some large item, like a pasta dish, I make sure there's extra and it's all sorted so all I have to do is grab a container and nuke the contents. I buy a lot of frozen meals for work; after reading the ingredient list, of course. But I'm sorry to say the vegetable drawers in the new fridge are just as effective at composting vegetables and fruits as the drawers in the old fridge were. I am just not realistic about what looks good on a Saturday morning versus what I will actually prepare and eat.

Still, this is a huge step in a good direction. Over the holidays, I did bring more soda into the house than at any other time prior to May 1st. Canada Dry supposedly makes some very good flavored seltzers, but I've not seen them around these parts. I'd like to try them. When I went to Carole and Larry's over Thanksgiving, they usually get Dr Pepper for me. I asked them to get LaCroix instead. You'll still see Dr Pepper come up as the beverage I'm consuming as I write because I will get it when I go to Subway. It's cheaper to get the meal deal than just chips and a sandwich, at least around here. But, when the last of what I have in the fridge is gone. I'm not buying more, no matter how enticing the prices for soda are with the Stupor Bowl upcoming.

Beverage:  Oh look! LaCroix Berry Seltzer

Deb

Speaking of 16

The actual date was January 10th. It was a Sunday. The night before, we'd had our office holiday party. With the move and Gene expecting his first child in December, we decided it just wasn't prudent to have a holiday party that month. Gene's daughter was born a month early but we were so busy in December, that, as we sat around the table in the restaurant, we were very, very glad we hadn't tried to shoehorn an evening meal in on a Saturday night in December.

I happened to mention I was coming up on my work anniversary and was thinking of bringing food in. It kind of went over people's heads in the noise of the restaurant so I decided to just do it, rather than solicit what they might like. I went to Panera and got a dozen bagels.

*GASP! I know what you're thinking. This is not Dunkin Donuts. I thought about it, but, in the past, when I've brought in donuts for meetings, not all of them have been eaten. I got cream cheese; regular and honey walnut. It turned out that Matt wasn't in the office at all on Monday, having had to go service a machine in the hinterlands. Mike was thrilled with bagels, "except we don't have a toaster. I always toast my bagel." Three bagels didn't get eaten on Monday. The next day, Matt was in the office and didn't have time to grab breakfast before coming in. "Deb brought bagels yesterday," Tara said. "There are still some left in the fridge." So Matt ate the last three. "Thanks Deb! You saved me!"

16 years. That's a long time.

Beverage:  Raspberry Seltzer

Deb

Find 10 Pennies

Find a penny

Pick it up.

All day long

You'll have good luck. 

It's not the most perfect rhyme, but I learned this at a very young age. I can't say how much money I've found over the years. The best random haul was when I was on a job at an elevated train stop. The project was to expand the stop as a community college had purchased the land adjacent and was going to build a new campus on it. I stood under the train platform to watch my equipment. Over the three days I was there, I must have found close to $10 in coins. People drop them; they fall through the slats in the station platform and wind up in the dirt underneath. As that area is closed to all but essential personnel, the coins lay in the dirt. It was mostly pennies, nickels and dimes, but when you're finding more than your pockets can carry, it quickly adds up.

Since then, I've found a lot of money just by looking around, being aware. I found this last week in the parking lot when I went to Panera to get soup and sandwich. (Side note: The autumn squash soup pared with their turkey cranberry sandwich is wonderful.)

Every time I pick up a penny, I recite the above rhyme. Yes, I'm superstitious. So what do I recite when it's 10 pennies?

Beverage:  Water

Deb

A Return of the Yum

It's back.

Panera has their autumn squash soup back. One bowl of this and life doesn't feel quite so hard. I have to cut back on eating out at lunch. It's too easy to let someone else cook and then pay for that privilege. But...but...soup...

Beverage:  Dunkin Donuts Tea

Deb

Occasionally, It Pays Off

I'm really on the fence about loyalty cards. I have them. I use them. But the benefits don't seem to be hugely apparent. I joined Best Buy's loyalty program with I bought my TV and Blu-Ray player last year. I got $5 back. Woo...hoo. I used that, in January, to buy the external storage device. I'll probably not accrue any more loyalty stuff from Best Buy unless I have to buy a major appliance.

Hallmark is another place I have a loyalty card. That does sometimes pay benefits, if I remember to bring the coupon with me when I go into the store. My Panera loyalty program gets me a dollar off on a pastry or a free beverage, on occasion. My Dunkin Donuts "Perks" card is probably the one loyalty card that nets me the most freebies.

I find, at this stage of life, I'm at CVS Pharmacy quite a bit. I haven't managed to get all my prescriptions to be filled at the same time so I can make one run. I have this one at this time and these two at that time, so I find myself in the place quite frequently. I have their loyalty card and it will give me a lot of discounts, most of which I don't need. I've talked about it before, how loyalty cards don't really inconvenience a company. You can give me $15 in coupons, but if I don't NEED batteries, even giving me a buy any size get one free coupon isn't going to entice me into the store. Sometimes, however, I can hit it just right.

Shampoo and two bottles of conditioner. I was out of conditioner and had to pick up a prescription. I also happened to have a $3.00 off on my next purchase, thanks to all the times I'm in the store to pick up medication. VO5 is 99 cents. My final bill was pocket change. The receipt has a coupon for greeting cards; buy 2 and get 1 free. I might use that. I might not. I need to look to see what's upcoming that might need a card to send.

I don't go somewhere because there is a loyalty program. In fact, I could probably weed the key fobs I don't use off the key fob on which I have them. Still, it does pay to check. Every so often, I can score a great deal.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

I Resolve...Bah Humbug

Another year. Another New Year's Day to reflect on the old year passed and what I didn't get accomplished. Another New Year's Day to reflect on what I would like to accomplish in the upcoming year.

We all do this. It's kind of a default setting for New Year's. "I resolve to lose weight." "I resolve to get my financial house in order." "I resolve to give more to charity." [insert topical resolution here] You do it. I do it. And long about now, we discover whether our resolutions actually stick. Generally, they don't and you give yourself 40 mental lashes for failing. (Strike overly dramatic pose of defeat.)

When you've got a disease in which chronic fatigue is a major part, resolving to "be more active" or "lose weight" or even "get one project done at night after work" is wholly tied to whether you even have the energy to eat when you get home. Making resolutions is almost surely guaranteed to lead to self-bashing because you can't do what you've resolved to do. Even breaking a resolution, such as "exercise every day", down to simply adding 20 more steps and going in the front door instead of the back, can be fatal to keep if I am exhausted because of an RA flare. I knew I was setting myself up for failure. I know me. Calling them "resolutions" doesn't make these ideas better than any other idea I've ever cooked up. Give them a title and I'll feel that much worse when I can't keep them.

So, I'm trying something different this year. I looked over the span of last year and picked something I really want to improve on, eating better. I spent the last week of 2014 thinking about my diet. How can I improve it? Well, I could be cooking dinner when I get home. What is the reality of that? I'm often too tired to cook. That leads to skipping dinner altogether or eating something just because it's fast. I spent a week in December eating a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. That was it because I was too tired to cook. I spend way too much money on eating lunch out because I'm too tired to cook to make left overs of things that I enjoy eating. It's faster to just run over to Subway. What can I, realistically, do to eat better?

Step 1 was to go over the budget. Gad I hate this. I hate going backwards through the previous year and seeing, in black and yellow (since I was doing the tallying on a legal pad), what I already knew but had refused to acknowledge. Too much of my meager funds went into eating lunch out because I was too tired to cook. I decided that had to change. There are a lot of things I can't change in my budget, but that's one thing that could.

Step 2 was to decide what to add or take away from my diet. I decided to simplify lunch and add a fruit to every day's meals.

Step 3 was to divide the month in half. My company pays monthly. I realize some of you will go, "How can you live like that?" After 3-4 months, you get used to it. I, generally, buy all my groceries at the beginning of the month. The problem is that fresh fruits and vegetables don't keep for a month. You're lucky if you can keep them 2 weeks. We always joked that we don't have vegetable and fruit bins in the fridge. We have compost bins. I can, twice a month, go to the store for fresh produce and frozen dinners. I have wrapped meats and frozen veggies in the freezer. If I get ambitious and have the energy, I can make meals from scratch. But, lunches would be frozen dinners. The cost is the same, less, actually, than going out. Plus, I'm shouldn't be tossing as much moldy produce into the compost bins which equates to dollars thrown away.

Step 4. Stop calling them "resolutions" and call them "goals".

Step 5 Tic off, on the kitchen calendar, the days I don't eat lunch out and the days I add a fruit to what I eat.

How am I doing? So far, so good. Only one lunch out, so far, this month and that was because I was going to be out in the field at lunch without the opportunity to eat home prepared. Breakfast is a thornier issue as I can spring out of bed one day, full of vim and vigor and then next day sleep completely through the alarm and wake up with an hour to dress, feed the cats, eat breakfast and get to the office. I'm giving myself permission to not worry about breakfast so long as I eat it. No skipping. I am making a Dunkin' run only once per week and Panera every other week, circling the dates I visit each on the calendar so I am not tempted to go more than I can.

I'm told it takes a month of work to make something a habit or to change a behavior. This is all I'm doing right now, trying to change eating habits. I've tried some new to me frozen dinners, things I probably wouldn't have tried had I not set the goal of reducing money outlays for lunch. Some are clear winners. Some are, "Well, not eating that ever again." Today, I have the last banana and the last yogurt in addition to a shrimp alfredo that looked good on the box. Monday will be a new fruit, maybe apples, and there are still a week's worth of frozen dinners behind the bread.

I'll revisit this on February 1st and see how I've done.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

The Cost of Tired

I have been missing here for almost a month. The girls know where I've been and have spent a lot of time with me there. Bed. Struggling to sleep and get rested.

Since coming back from a quick trip to Virginia at the end of October, I've felt myself slide. It's not that I'm in pain. There isn't "pain" associated with my RA. It's more a case of a dull ache here and there, but a dull ache every day. Maybe it's the left thumb or the right wrist or my right shoulder or my left pinkie finger. It's never enough to say, "Oh wow. Does that hurt." I can work through it, but it's there. And please understand that I'm not trying to pull pity out of you. I'm merely recounting what's going on so you know where I've been for the last nearly a month.

One of the markers for RA is fatigue. It figures. Your body is fighting yourself, attacking your joints and your joints are trying to fight back. That internal war just wears out your body, making sleep attractive. RA sufferers are a tired lot and when it gets into the severe area, where mine is, fatigue is as common as sunshine.

Also, we have been extraordinarily busy at work. Since Labor Day weekend, we have received two projects requiring weeks of work in the city. Now, I love the city. I enjoy driving in. You've seen my photos of sunrise over Lake Michigan and over Chicago. I've had a lot of overtime and more is needed as I do the reports for the field time. But, when you suffer from RA, getting up early, working late, being on your feet as much as I have been, comes with a price. That price is added fatigue on top of what you already experience just in fighting the disease. I come home after 12 hours on the job, get the mail, sit in the recliner, add a cat and boom, it's 2 hours later and nothing's been accomplished. I pick one thing to do, say a load of laundry, do that and then I have to sit, which leads to dozing, which leads to, "I should just go to bed". It becomes a sorry cycle.

This can also lead to depression because you just don't have the energy to do anything other than what absolutely has to be done. I'm out of pants. I have to do laundry. Dishes pile up in the sink until something smells. Then, it takes 3 days to do them because I only have the energy for a couple loads. At least they are stacked on the stove. That's good, right? Not really. I come in the back door and have to walk right by the pile which reminds me that I need to do another couple of loads which I don't have the energy to do.

So, I make a conscious choice NOT to eat at night or eat something which doesn't need much in the way of prep time or dishes. Peanut butter  or turkey and cheese sandwiches have been my meal of choice. Frankly, I don't want to fix anything and I've gone to bed without supper many, many times in the last month because I'm too tired to even unscrew the lid off a jar of peanut butter, let alone cook the hamburger I took out of the freezer so I could make meatball vegetable soup. It's a great cold weather soup and it's reasonably easy to make, but not as easy as peanut butter on bread which is harder than just having a cup of tea and calling it a night. Yes, my doctor is not pleased.

I find that I spend much more money eating out. As you know, Dunkin' Donuts is a favorite place and it's been frequently a lot in the last month. Just this week, I've gone there 3 times. A couple of donuts and a large hot tea and I'm set for hours. I also frequent Panera but breakfast there is more expensive as their pastries are more expensive. Still, going to both frequently means I've earned free drinks both places, which does cushion the cost. I also have another person almost "trained" at Dunkin' as to what I get when I walk in. Let's not talk about the healthiness of this breakfast choice.

Lunch is also a conundrum. If I'm out in the field, I can justify having lunch expensed to the client. It's built into the cost of the work. But if I'm sitting at my desk working on reports or processing data, I have to foot the bill for lunch. Recognizing my tendency to take an "easy" way out of procuring food, I bought a bunch of frozen dinners and yogurt which could be grabbing in the morning and eaten for lunch. The operative word in that sentence is "could". When I get up with less than an hour to be at the office, even grabbing a frozen dinner and yogurt doesn't happen. So, when it gets to be 12:45 and I realize I need to eat lunch, it's off to Panera or Subway. There are a lot of choices near the office, but those are my go-to places and are far more healthy than a lot of the other places. With a hearty lunch, I can go the rest of the day without feeling the need to eat, not that that's a good thing, mind you.

All of this leads to feelings of inadequacy. I can't care for myself adequately. I look at the girls. Am I doing right by them? I have Christmas gifts I want to sew yet looking at the patterns stacked neatly on the table in the living room leaves me feeling exhausted and I haven't done anything with them. My house is dirty. I need to clean. The best I can do is sweep a room with a glance and try not to write my name in the dust. All these things I want to do get tossed aside because I have no energy. And let's not consider the cost of breakfasts and lunches out. Uh oh. That's a very real effect of not feeling that I can adequately care for myself.

There was a doctor's visit on November 14th. We went over all of this. You know how, sometimes, you don't feel you can tell your doctor everything you're going through. You're afraid that you'll be labeled a scaredy-cat or obstinate or who knows what else. I don't want to be thought of as a hypochondriac. I know people who fit this description and that's not what I want to be. But I've come to see that telling Dr. Francis everything, all the aches, pains, bumps, non-eating, bad sleeping, falling asleep at my desk at 10 a.m. leads to frank discussions of what's going on and what can be done to help me. She put her hand on my arm and said, "You have to stop trying to tough it out. That's not working well, is it?" No, it's not. I think I'm more tired when I try to simply push on than when I admit that it's not working. I find it so hard to ask for help, so hard to say, "I can't do this".

There was, at the end of November, an article in an online RA newsletter I receive which talks about the tired. That appears to be the number one issue people with RA report. Exercise can give you more energy, but you need a certain pool of energy to begin with to even attempt the thought of walking or running or swimming or, man, that makes me tired just thinking about it. The author of the article said we know we are tired so we, wisely, scale back our expectations. So instead of, "I'm going to clean the house", we decide, "I'm going to clean the bathroom". But, when we are fatigued, cleaning the entire bathroom becomes an exercise in futility which leads to a cycle of mental shaming and sadness. She said that you need to pare a project down even further. Instead of "I'll clean the bathroom", it needs to be, "I'll clean off the mirror", "I'll clean off the sink", "I'll wash the floor". Yes, this may mean the project goes from what you could do in 2 hours to what I need a week to accomplish, but this is what I have to do.

I also need to give myself permission to nap. I can't do it at work, unless no one is here and both the post office and UPS have made their deliveries. Then I can turn off the lights and snooze. But on weekends, I need to give myself permission to say, "I'm tired. I'm taking a nap" and to sleep however long my body tells me I need to.

I also need to give myself permission to admit that this is a struggle and that some days I will win and some days I will "lose". I need to stop seeing those days as losses and see them as adjustments in the road I have to travel. Not blogging has weighed heavily on my mind. I have hundreds of photos to share and have written thousands of posts in my mind as I drift off to sleep. I sometimes think that, perhaps, an iPad would be a good investment because I could write a blog post while I am in the recliner, with my feet up. But I don't want the cost of an additional item on my Internet service.

There has been a change in medications in response to this. I'll detail that in another blog post as this one is getting long. I don't know if the medication has made any sort of difference in my quality of life. Dr. Francis said it could take 2-3 months to see a change. She says this heavy fatigue will lift. You know, the recent end of November cold was rather energizing. I didn't mind it at all.

I also added back into my medications a nightly sleeping pill Dr. Francis prescribed. I thought I was tired enough that I could fall asleep without it, but that's not the kind of fatigue which promotes sound sleep. I found myself waking up two or three times at night. Fractured sleep is not good sleep. Since adding that back into my regimen, I notice that I'm not falling asleep during the day, nor do I need a nap when I come home after work. The brain fog one gets when one is overtired is lifting.

So, if you've stuck with this post this far, this is what's been going on in my life. I can't promise I will be better. I need to carve out time to actively post and my days and nights have been akin to mashed potatoes. Bear with me. Life is a journey and I seem to have hit a slightly bumpy stretch of road.

Beverage:  Dunkin' Donuts tea

Deb

This Presents a Difficulty

The arrival of fall means that some of the most satisfying foods are in abundance; apples and squash. I'd been thinking about that lately, how my freezer needed homemade applesauce and butternut squash soup, pumpkin muffins and bread. I was thinking about how the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg and mulled cider always made me feel physically better.

And then I needed lunch after a long morning on my feet. It was yesterday and Panera always has cream of chicken with wild rice on Thursdays. I cannot, for the life of me, make that soup. Mine comes out lumpy or worse, burnt tasting, so I've given up. The occasional bowl of soup won't break my bank. I usually get the "You Pick Two" option so I can have half a sandwich and a cup of soup.

I look at the menu and, what's this? Butternut squash ravioli? I love squash stuffed ravioli. The old Dominick's grocery store chain had an in-store frozen food brand that had this kind of ravioli. I usually kept 4-5 boxes of that in the freezer. Paired with a salad or yogurt or warmed applesauce, it was a great lunch. I could get the ravioli in the "You Pick Two" option with my soup. Okay, I'll have that and the cream of chick...wait a minute. What's this? Autumn Squash soup? The gal behind the counter fetched me a taste. Oh my goodness. Yup yup. Butternut all the way. It tasted just like the version I have at home.

Here's my review of both items.

The squash is good. It's paired with a garlic cream sauce which, when I order this again, I need to ask for light sauce. I just don't understand why food preparers have to slather sauced food with so much. You're to compliment the food not drown it. I'm not a fan of the fried onions but those are easy to remove. The butternut flavor is complimented by the arugula. It's a satisfying dish. I like the carry out dishes Panera has, too. The bowl is a paper composite which is supposed to be completely biodegradeable. Of course I shall conduct experiments to see if this is true. Compost heap, here it comes. I will add this, occasionally, to my You Pick Two menu, but it won't replace anything.

Now comes the soup.

It probably looks better in a bowl but I have to eat lunch at my desk so their 'to go' cups are what I have. It is heaven, sheer heaven. It's rich and creamy with just a hint of sweetness to it. The full flavor of butternut comes through. They serve it with roasted pumpkin seeds. I don't think it needs the seeds, but then, I could eat this for days running and not be tired of it.

The only problem I can see is that now I have to decide on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I usually get the cream of chicken with wild rice, if I want this instead. Pay day is next week. I fantasize about walking into the grocery and buying all the butternut squash they have and making soups and stews.

If you're looking for a hearty, rib-sticking meal, adding this soup to your lunch is perfect. It will be a blessing as the days turn colder.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

When? When? When?

They are taunting me.

Panera has their Easter cookies out but I have not seen their hot cross buns. Oh goodness. I shouldn't be spending money by going there, but I just want a 6 pack of their hot cross buns. One 6-pack. That's all I'm asking for. I've had these rolls from other bakeries, but I don't care for them as much as I like Panera's. So far, no luck.

There's always next week. /sigh

Beverage:  Darjeeling tea

Deb

A Target

Yes, I was one of those people who shopped at Target from November 29th through December 15th. Yes, I used my debit card to pay for my purchases. Fortunately, it does not appear that my account has been compromised. All those charges are mine. And, unlike others, Chase's decision to trim ATM withdrawals and point of sale purchases to $100 and $300, respectively (since changed), didn't affect me. I rarely use an ATM for monetary withdrawals and any purchase over $200 has been thoroughly researched by me before I hand over my plastic.

This event has me thinking about how we use these plastic cards to which we assign our wealth. For a long time, I didn't have a working amount of credit or a debit card. I did everything with cash or checks. Now, if I have a couple of dollars in my wallet, I wonder what I forgot to pay. So thoroughly have I integrated the idea of handing over my debit card to buy something that if a merchant doesn't take debit cards, I take my business elsewhere. That's a far cry from just a few years ago.

There's been a huge hew and cry, rightfully, about the security in place to prevent hackers from obtaining our credit information. As I write this, there's a debate about whether the hackers obtained PIN numbers for cards stolen. Target says, "No", while others are saying, "Yes". I know I'm slated to get a new debit card from Chase to replace the one which I just replaced, you'll remember, in early fall, due to a random hacking. Again, I don't appear to have lost any money nor had any fraudulent charges on my card. I used my debit card late in the affected time period so perhaps they just didn't get to my number. Forty million is a lot to sift through. I was told, when I was hacked before, that once you are hacked, your new number is flagged for an unspecified period figuring, they had my number once, they could try again. (That's an unsettling thought, that, by virtue of the luck of an autodialer, I could be targeted more specifically.)

I've read several articles about European credit and debit cards, how they differ from ours. Their information is coded on a digital chip, while we have a magnetic strip. To use what's called the "chip and PIN" card, you must input your PIN number when you swipe your card, always, for every purchase. It's much more time consuming to create a chip instead of a strip and, over here, banks issuing cards want the merchants to pay for the chips while the merchants think the banks issuing the cards should pay for the chip. How many times have you tried to use a card with a strip only to have it not work? I was told at the grocery to just wipe the strip on my pants and then try to swipe it again. That pants swipe usually does the trick. That doesn't seem like a very good security system, when I can get my card to work by wiping it on my jeans.

I realize the change from strips to chips would also involve point of sale changes, but, in Europe, they can usually handle not only a chip but also our antiquated strip system on the same machine, although many places are refusing to process our strip cards. We're arguing about who should pay for increased security while our data becomes increasingly vulnerable. We're targets here primarily because it's so easy to swipe our data off a magnetic strip.

Part of the blame for this is us. I realized just how much I rely on that rectangle of plastic. It goes everywhere with me. I use it for everything from Dunkin in the morning to Dominos at night. Gas, groceries, hair cuts, Jeep repairs, parking, clothing, cat food, you name it. It's all been put on the card. It is predicted that, within the next 5 years, paper checks will go the way of the dodo bird. Everything will be on a card that gets swiped. Heck Google has an application called Google Wallet which they hope will revolutionize how you tote around your money and how you pay for things.

I don't want to come off as a Luddite here, but I think we really need to look at how we utilize technology to spend. Speaking only for myself, if I look at my spending habits, what I usually spend money on; whip out the card for; I could estimate how much in a given month I spend on Dunkin' and keep that amount of cash on hand. It's harder when you head into the grocery, but my cell phone has a calculator feature and I could be tapping prices into the phone as I shop. "Okay, I've reached my limit of $70 today. Time to go home." Paying by check is a time consuming process at the point of sale, but I never had a check stolen in the decades of using my checkbook.

We are such creatures of habit. Convenience sometimes seems to take precedent over other things. With the new year just a week away, I'm considering reverting to cash for goods and services, leaving the debit card in my wallet and using it only for gas and emergencies or payment with vendors I trust implicitly. It gets problematic when buying on the Internet but there are ways to be more secure when doing that or just not shopping there. As I get my paycheck directly deposited, reverting to cash for goods means a trip to the bank to cash a check for physical money. I currently can go months without setting foot in the bank. Maybe that's something I need to change. Maybe I need to be as well known in my bank branch as I am at Dunkin and Panera.

I think it's something to consider. I also think we, as consumers, need to agitate for the kinds of credit and debit cards the Europeans have. It's not enough to have sophisticated fraud detection services in place when the easiest way to get my information resides in my wallet on the back of a 5 cent piece of plastic.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

One A Penny, Two A Penny

Hot cross buns! Oh yes, please.

Today was the first day for Panera's Hot Cross Buns. They are so good.

Usually, I eat them warmed and these are really good in the morning with some yogurt and hot tea. Today, however, I am a doofus and left my lunch, all packed into the lunch bag, sitting on the stove so I'll have a couple of these to tide me over until supper.

"Traditional" hot cross buns are made with currants or raisins. Panera will do that but these have bits of dried strawberry in them instead of raisins. It's a delicious change. It's $5.99 for a half dozen, more pricey than other baked goods. I'll have these once during the time they are available and then won't think about them the rest of Lent.

Most bakeries will churn them out during Lent but you have to be fast. When I worked at The Bookstore in downtown Glen Ellyn, the buns from the bakery down the block were usually gone by the time I opened the store for the day. Pretty much the only time I got to sample one was on Saturday, when we opened an hour early. If you can find them, I recommend them.

Hot cross buns!
Hot cross buns!
One ha' penny, two ha' penny,
Hot cross buns!
If you have no daughters,
Give them to your sons
One ha' penny,
Two ha' penny,
Hot Cross Buns!

Beverage:  water

Deb

I Must Go Again

I got sent out into the world yesterday. The Indiana project is done so removing the machine was a priority. I didn't really want to go. I think I'm struggling with a minor RA flare and the thought of sitting for 2.5 hours one way was not what I wanted to do. Funny how I can sit for 4 hours, get up and nuke my lunch and then go back to sit at my desk for another 4 hours but driving 2.5 hours is deemed too hard.

But, it did mean that I could stop at Steak 'n Shake for lunch. I knew I was going to get chicken fingers and bacon cheese fries. I realized, after they came, that I could make them at home. They are the shoestring fries and probably a Cheeze-Wiz kind of cheese sauce with Bacos sprinkled across the top. But really. Why would I want to? If I limit myself to getting them only at Steak 'n Shake, that makes them a special treat, something to be indulged when I want to reward myself, like when I get to spend time talking with Pam. So, I will not be experimenting with making bacon cheese fries at home. It's like Panera's chicken and wild rice soup. I can't seem to make that at home so it's a treat to get it at Panera when it's available.

I also get a Dr Pepper for the road. From this Steak 'n Shake, it's a 2 hour and 15 minute drive home. It can be really tiring so I get a Dr Pepper for the road. That perks me up and keeps me going and getting the giant size ensures there's some left for later, when I've got my feet up and a cat in my lap.

Therefore, the ONLY choice left is what flavor of shake to get. They were featuring chocolate covered strawberry and this one. No, that's not a strawberry shake. Boring. I wouldn't, unless they had shakes I'd already tried, get a solid strawberry one. This is Red Velvet. Really.

Now, if you aren't familiar with the Red Velvet flavor, here's a brief explanation of it. According to James Beard, it's a chocolate cake made with cocoa powder, vinegar, buttermilk and red food coloring. The reaction of the vinegar and the buttermilk brings out a red tinge to the cocoa.

During World War II, when food coloring was rationed, some bakers turned to beets for the red coloring. Adding beets to the mix enhanced the flavor and make the cake more moist. "Red Velvet Cake" is considered a Southern recipe although I've known about it since I was a girl. It was considered a luxury, although I'm not sure why. The flavor of Red Velvet can't really be described and I rank it with Blue Moon ice cream. I can't quite describe it either, but I do like it.

Now go and get thee to Steak 'n Shake. This shake is amazing. I'm thinking there are probably strawberries in here but I can't describe how good this was. Some of their recent attempts at new flavors, the chocolate banana shake immediately comes to mind, were off. This is not one of those "what were they thinking" shakes. I have to go to Steak 'n Shake again. April and Perry's gift card will allow for my indulgence.

I'm thinking this will be around only through Valentine's Day or maybe the end of February. Go. Just do it. You'll thank me.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

Using Them Up

You've all read the stories about how merchants love gift cards. Great Aunt Sally buys you a $25 gift card from Bath and Body Works because she really doesn't know want to get you. You're okay with the card although B&BW isn't one of the places you go to a lot. You stick the card in your wallet and, 18 months later, it's still there. It might have even expired. The store got Aunt Sally's money. You have a piece of plastic.

It's the same way with loyalty cards. It doesn't really cost Hallmark anything to issue me a $7.00 gift certificate for being a loyal purchaser of their product. I forget what the percentage I saw quoted is about certificate redemption but it might have been just over 50%. That means, there are a huge bunch of certificates which will expire before the customer uses them. I know that first hand. I just don't have a need for cards so the certificate hangs on the fridge until I find it with the every other month cleaning.

When you're trying to make every penny stretch, this is and isn't a good practice. I tend to get Hallmark gift certificates when I really don't NEED cards or wrapping paper or anything they have to offer. I like having cards available so I don't have to swing by the store for a birthday card, so I have a stash. I don't want to get more cards so I can get $5 off a $15 purchase. That's not cost effective. But sometimes, the money off actually works.

As part of Panera's loyalty program, they send out Internet offers. One of them was for free soup. I love their chicken with wild rice soup. An Internet offer, I am not likely to remember, print out or use so it costs them nothing to send it to me. This time, however, I got soup...and a brownie...and a drink, so lunch on Thursday was $2.97.

Today, I hauled out all the cards I've received over the months and tried to use them up. I stopped at the hardware store and bought more ant killer and a rake. Now, I can feel guilty about not doing more yard work, because I have a rake. That was $5.00 off on my total purchase. It wound up that the ant killer was, essentially, free.

I went on to Target and bought groceries. It was just a lot of little stuff excepting the cat food and kitty litter. I'm in a cooking frame of mind and the things I wanted to cook required one ingredient I didn't have. I'm good, now, until the end of the month. I received a $25 American Express gift card so that took care of half of the purchase.

My friend, Patt, sent me a Starbucks card for my birthday last year. I did get several of Starbucks' seasonal hot cocoa drinks, but I never used the card up completely. On the way out of Target, I got a hot cocoa and used up the card.

I forgot the $1 off coupon from CVS where I picked up my vitamin D pill script this morning. It's not a very costly script, but saving a dollar is saving a dollar. I have it stuck to the fridge and I walked right by it.

So, that uses up all except one. I did rather well today to get things I needed for less. I have a Best Buy gift card, won for knowing more answers to a trivia questionnaire than anyone else in the office when we were doing mandatory training. I do not know the amount. Some were $20. Some were $25 and some were $50. I don't know what I want to use this for. I thought I'd be needing a new mouse but that got resolved. Should I buy movies? I don't watch many now. Adding to the collection seems like a waste. Hence this card just sits. I don't think it has an expiration date but I'd rather just use it up than hang onto it and, by extension, lose it.

Any suggestions, and no, I won't mail it to you.

Beverage:  Water

Deb