Everyone is now out of the hospital.

The funeral is mostly paid for.

If anyone is interested in making a monetary donation, here is the information:

By check:

Must designate check:  SLPS Foundation –Ledbetter

Mail to:

Attn: Mr. Chris Lee

801 N. 11^th Street, 3^rd floor

St. Louis, MO 63101

 

Online:

http://www.slpsfoundation.org/

Click: Enter Site. Then: Support us  Then: Make Donation

MUST designate: Ledbetter

Pay pal takes a % off of the donation for fees.

I have finally made it to the grocery store, but spent extra to restock; now, at least, I have ibuprofen again!

However, I did try to minimize what I had to buy.  My breakfasts this week, instead of my usual frittata, will be wraps.  Ingredients called for:

ground beef
onion
garlic
frozen corn
canned black beans
tomato sauce
chipotles in adobo
small flour tortillas 

Total I needed to buy?  The ground beef.  And I got the lean stuff, too, like it called for - because all the other ground beef was GONE, whisked away for Super Bowl parties, no doubt.  Hmmm . . . wonder if I won any money in the company pool?  Guess I'll find out.  But I digress.

Is it that I have that deep a pantry, or do I just have it fine-tuned to what I am most drawn to use?  I have any number of things I don't use often (like the chipotles), but the fact that I have them ready to hand is, I think, partly why I don't find a lot of recipes I see intimidating.  There isn't a long list of ingredients I'd need to get.  Cooking is much more interesting with a full palette of flavors to choose from.

Sleep.

Lots and lots of sleep.

I slept until 2 PM today.  My rib no longer hurts at all. 

All hell broke loose while I was asleep,  which meant I couldn't enjoy the improvement, but still.

Decided not to go dancing; why risk screwing things up again?

Also not doing laundry until tomorrow.  No heavy lifting today, I think.

Really ruins the whole idea of getting shit done over the weekend, however.  Doesn't help with the whole "am I depressed or just lazy" scenario that constantly plays out in my head.

My friends ravenknighthawk and  drexell had a house fire early this morning.

The house is destroyed.  Everything has been lost.

Their 10 year old daughter, as well as almost all of their many pets, died.

Happy Birthday, alienne ! 

I haven't gone to the grocery store this week.  Thus, I am forced to work with what I have.  Calling it a hardship, however, would be laughable.

I looked at what I had available and ran a search.  The recipe I found to whip up called for the following primary ingredients:

lamb
bok choy
mushrooms
oyster sauce
pine nuts

All of which I had immediately available.  I know - ridiculous, isn't it?  I may not have a survivalist's pantry, but I'm doing well, I think.

Served over couscous it was delicious. 
---------

In other news, my rib still hurts like a sumbitch.  Fine all day, started to act up a bit right at the end of the workday, and is now making with the stabbity.  Owie ow ow.  And I seem to be almost out of ibuprofen.  Great.

It's that time of year when we have things like Valentinr and 021410 .

I don't put up a Valentinr, because it's bad enough that I would go trolling for ego strokes; it's even worse if I didn't get any - and I consider that a distinct probability.  That would be humiliating, and I wouldn't deal well with it.  As for the community - I'm not a person that people leave notes for.

I'm not dissing those of you who do participate.  More power to you.  I just can't; the pain of being ignored and overlooked would just be too much.  If I am overlooked because of my choice to lay low - well, that puts the power in my hands, doesn't it?  Choosing, however, to be exposed, to open myself up, and then be passed by without comment - that puts me in a position of powerlessness.

Passive rejection hurts less than active rejection. 

I was sitting, not doing anything special, and suddenly my wonky rib decided to protest.  Loudly.  Excruciatingly.

I managed to down some drugs before collapsing on the sofa.  DAMN!

I can handle a lot of pain.  That was misery.  I almost cried.  I dialed a friend who has had the same problem in the past for the purpose of whining.

After 15-20 minutes the ibuprofen kicked in and I could sit up again.  I've been sitting here *very*carefully, trying to decide whether to use ice or heat to tame this monster.

If it isn't better in a day or two I'm under orders to return to the chiropractor, so she can try to keep things from getting worse. 

Also trying to decide whether a nightcap might be in order.  Dear Gods that hurt.

 Saturday afternoon I watched a 1968 version of Midsummer Night's Dream.  Now, admittedly, the costumes are definitely dated.  However, it's packed with fantastic actors.  Recognize these names?

Judi Dench
Helen Mirren
Ian Holm
Ian Richardson
Diana Rigg
David Warner
Michael Jayston

Holy crap!  And Judi Dench was scantily clad - and looking pretty fine, I must say.

Spoke to my oldest brother tonight - one of the few witnesses to my birth still standing.  I thought I'd show you all the scrawny thing my folks brought home from the hospital.  Clearly, although I was technically full-term, I was a bun that had not finished baking.

 

Thanks for the v-gift, beckyzoole !

So I did what I usually do when I have time off:  I slept.  A lot.  Felt good.

Did go up north for dinner Saturday.  Had a meltingly tender steak, plus got free ice cream for being a birthday girl!  Seems like there were a lot of birthdays being celebrated; both Friday and Saturday we were sitting next to large groups also celebrating someone's b-day.

Sunday I did crafty things and went to a potluck.  Now, if I had been buying my birthday cake, I would have gone for the triple chocolate one I saw at Costco, but I know not all my friends are into chocolate like I am.  I also love cherry pie, but I wasn't sure how everyone feels about cherries either, so I went for the strawberry cheesecake, which seemed to be the correct decision, based on how it was attacked.

Never did take my lazy ass to the grocery store.  Oh well.  It's not like I'm out of food.  Made a cauliflower, bacon, and parmesan frittata for breakfasts and salmon w/mushroom sauce for a few lunches/dinners.  Yummy.

Back was hurting after doing some knitting, so a friend gave me a squeeze to pop things back in place.  Succeeded, but now my ribs are sore - he squoze too hard, I fear.  Fortunately, if I've got a rib out my chiropractor can fix that.  But for right now - ouchie.

So, happy Imbolc, Candemas, Groundhog Day, or whatever you choose to celebrate on this bleak midwinter day.  I haven't moved 16 tons, nor am I deeper in debt, but I am another day/year older.

Burning more vacation time, so I'm in the middle of a 5 day weekend.  It's my birthday gift to myself.

Yesterday I didn't leave the house.  Lazed around, fought with my computer (browser's being a butt).

Today I made waffles!  (I had some leftover ricotta cheese I needed to use up.)  Then I went to Red Lobster with phierma and cos_x and received a lovely present of not one, but two electric blankets!  This is good, since the weather's gotten cold again, so the house is chilly.  Up north with them it was cold, but no snow; as I got closer to home, which is further south, suddenly there's snow falling.  The storm system that originally was predicted as staying south of us shifted, but apparently not enough to get the entire region - just down here where I live.  I hope it isn't too bad tomorrow; I put off running errands to go up north early and spend some quality time with cos_x .  I really want to make it to Costco and pick up a few things.

Saturday is (I hope) errands, then back up north to meet with the_geoffrey and otterhill for dinner.  Need to do a little background research for a talk I'm giving at church Sunday, but that shouldn't take long. 

Sunday I'm getting together with friends to do crafty things (better figure out what I'm bringing to the potluck :/).  Then church and maybe regular grocery shopping.

Monday I'm shooting for more lazing around.

Twice in the past 10 days my power has mysteriously gone out.

In the middle of the night.  On a weekday.  When I *need* my alarm clock to wake me up for work.

Fortunately I have a secondary alarm that isn't electric, but GAH.

And, since the weather is cold again, I lost a fair amount of heat while the furnace was off.

Happy Birthday, fleabear !

Went up to House Polaris for a Robert Burns dinner.  Had some lovely haggis and tatties-and-neeps, with cock-a-leekie soup, honey oatmeal bread,  and a nice salad.  We all had a wee drop of scotch (which turned out to be a bad idea for the_geoffrey , as he had a bad reaction to it).  Other than that hiccup, though, a quite pleasant evening. 

I seem to be mostly over my flu.  Still coughing up the occasional bit of junk, but the doctor says my lungs are clear.  She also believes the happy pills are working, although I'm still a bit dubious.  People say I'm looking happier, so maybe it is doing the job.

The weather has warmed up, so the furnace can keep the place toasty-oasty.  The warmer weather, however, has led to fog every evening.  This has made for some stressful drives, although it hasn't been the worst fog I've ever driven in (that accolade is reserved for one particular trip home from work when I was commuting home from rural Illinois, and the fog that day was so bad I could barely see the taillights of the car in front of me; things more than 5 feet away were invisible).

Tonight I'm apparently dry as a bone.  Really sucking down the water.

So I tried going to work.  Turns out everyone else in the department except the boss had already called in sick, and when I said I'd had the flu all weekend, I was told to do one essential thing, then go home.  So I did the one thing that had to be done, went home, and promptly slept for 3.5 hours.  

Didn't go to my usual 2nd Monday study group (hadn't read the material, anyway), but did gas up the car and buy groceries. Felt vaguely guilty about going back out at all, but damn it, those things couldn't wait!

Slowly improving.  Spent less time today feeling and sounding like I was trying to cough the entire Pacific Ocean out of my lungs.  Also felt less like I was gargling 40 grit sandpaper every time I swallowed.  Good times.

Happy Birthday, the_geoffrey andkethlenda !