Quodlibets

Roads

If the next time you see me one of my eyes is bulging out and bloodshot, it will be because of the expressways in the fine metro area of Chicago.  The area is fine; the expressways are not.  All week, the commute was bad.  One morning there was a stalled truck in the center lane before Harlem.  Yesterday afternoon, the commute was literally the WORST commute I have had in 2 full years of doing this.  I've never seen it backed up so far, or crawling along so slowly.  It took me a very long time to get home (though due to weather, I've had longer commutes), which is infuriating when all it is due to is bad drivers or too many drivers.  This morning, in by far the worst expressway experience of my entire life, I hit and drove over SOMETHING that flattened my rear passenger tire, though thankfully not until after I had arrived at work.  Essentially, I stood outside my car and watched the tire deflate.  (And so sadly, this was also the tire that I had replaced about 3 months ago, after it was clearly reliably deflating every 2 days or so; that was due to a nail.)  I don't know what I hit.  I was going fast; I was watching the road carefully (I was in heavy traffic), and the guy in front of me swerved only slightly, so I thought he was looking at traffic ahead.  But then before I could register the item, I had hit it instead of swerving, and et Voila!  Flat tire.  The replacing of which led me to be on the expressway a full hour later than normal on my commute home.  4 pm on Friday?  I dare you to take the Ike. 

So suffice it to say, it was an exhausting week based just on the commute.  But then on Tuesday, we went to see Coldplay (meh.), and then I took Wednesday off.  I cleaned, basically.  I cleaned the house fairly thoroughly, and then the girls came over for Rock Band and Project Runway.  At 3:45 am on Thursday morning (Wednesday night?), I awoke and smelled the heinous smell of burning plastic.  After a blind search around the room with Sam's help, we came up with nothing smoking, and nothing warm.  So we went back to bed.  Or rather, he went back to bed while I laid in bed and tried to figure out what the hell we would do if the apartment burned while we were at work.  The hard drives!  All my books!  HIS HARD DRIVES!  The damn mostly finished cross stitch would be gone!  My new dress!  So I fretted, and I fretted.  I slept some, but it wasn't good sleep.  It was "am I going to die from smoke inhalation?" sleep.  So I took a half-assed nap on Thursday, and then I went to a super-fun crafty thing with my sister (thanks Kate!) but which exhausted me and kept me adrenalized all at the same time.  So I slept poorly again last night.  And then this morning, and the flat tire.  I just feel weary right now.  (And the thought that I might have jury duty on Monday isn't helping that.)

All the while, mind you, I've been trying to figure out if I'm going to apply to grad school--for the Spring '09 semester.  I thought I was going to; I talked about it, acquired some transcripts, talked to a couple people who would do recommendations for me, and the more I did, the worse I felt about it.  I believe pretty strongly that something that is truly wrong will feel truly wrong, that you'll just know it.  And the growing dread I was feeling about grad school just really made me uneasy.  I shouldn't be dreading it, I really shouldn't.  I can't cry every day because I don't want to be doing what I'm doing.  So during my long half-sleep night on Wednesday, I decided that the right thing, right now, is to NOT do it.  Saying it, and telling my recommenders of the decision was like....like the biggest weight off of me.  I'm still intending to do it at some point, but I need to be in a space where it doesn't feel like the worst thing ever.  I don't know how to describe the feeling I've been having about it, other than to say I've only really felt this badly about a decision (the decision to go, not the decision to not go) when I took a job out of desperation after the LTA program's end.  I sat in my interview and I KNEW I would be miserable at the job.  I KNEW it was the wrong thing for me.  But I did it because everyone said it'd be a good starting place in the library world and I did need to have some income coming in.  Three days into the job, I quit.  I WAS miserable.  I felt simply awful every minute I knew that I had to go there.  Listen, it just felt wrong.  Everything about it felt wrong.

And that's how this grad school thing felt.  I do feel some trepidation because I do feel a LOT of pressure from the outside to get that damn MLS.  A lot of people have told me I'm too smart not to get one, and a lot of people have used others who are in the process of getting them to really try to goad me into one.  Young people who want to work in libraries just get the MLS.  It's what they do.  There's a sort of "why the hell not?" attitude about it.  And I don't have an answer that will make any sense to anyone else, because there are about a hundred good reasons to get it.  But the biggest reason for not getting it is the one that keeps rearing its ugly head, and it's inside me.  For whatever reasons, it just doesn't feel right to me.  And I need to listen to that part of me, and silence everything around me, and do what's right for me (and will ultimately be right for Sam, who now won't have to deal with a miserable partner every day of the week).  Like I said, this isn't never.  This is just....not right now. 

And so I did mean to blog all this all week, I really did.  But it was one thing after another, and it just didn't happen.  This long post'll have to do.

The recipe that almost broke my cooking spirit

So yes, that doozy of a recipe.  It was definitely an experiment, let me preface by saying that.  So the recipe was for vegan sloppy joe.  I wasn't necessarily interested in the vegan aspect of the recipe, but more the sloppy joe aspect.  I like a sloppy joe; Sam and I make it at least a few times a month with ground beef, and if I do say so, our recipe is very excellent.  And when I was a vegetarian, I always like the boxed sloppy joe mix made with soy proteins.  So I thought that sloppy joe made with lentils might be very delicious.  There was nothing in the recipe that was overtly vegan.  No weird substitutes, no odd ingredients at all.  Most items I had in my own pantry, in fact.

So okay, I thought the maple syrup was odd.  But I figured maple syrup might be just as good as brown sugar for flavoring.  And the yellow mustard seemed a little odd, but I figured that's just a substitute for the vinegar.  My own personal distaste for yellow mustard notwithstanding, I thought it might make sense.  Also, I wondered about the copious, heaping amount of chili powder (3 TBSPS!).  I've never had sloppy joes flavored with that before, but you know, I like chili, and I like tacos, so that didn't strike me as disgusting.  And then oregano, tomato sauce and tomato paste rounded out the recipe.  Oh, and onions and garlic and lentils, of course.

Let me categorically state that the lentils were NOT the problem.  I have half a pound left, and I intend to find some other way to eat them, because I LIKED the lentils.  I don't think the onion or garlic was the problem (they sure smelled good cooking), and even the chili powder itself wasn't the problem.  (Though I cut back on it.)  In fact, I'm pretty sure that the problem wasn't one single ingredient, but the bizarre way all these things smell and taste combined.  And that is:  like CURRY.  Like noxious, nauseating curry.

I, my friends, don't like curry.  I eat Indian food, but only the very mildest curries.  Any hint of a conventionally smelling curry, or a conventionally tasting curry, and I'm holding my hand over my mouth and trying very hard not to barf.  Once, Sam ordered a Thai curry to taste it, and the minute he popped the lid off, I ran to the window and stuck my head out.  The stuff just does NOT agree with me.

So okay, the vegan sloppy joe WASN'T a curry.  And as such, it wasn't quite as noxious.  I tried really, really hard to choke it down.  I had a HUGE pot of it on the stove, and it seemed like such a massive waste to toss it.  So I choked some down, stopped abruptly, and said to Sam desperately, "I can't eat this."  Then I made him throw the stuff away.  And clean the pot.  Because the smell was suddenly THAT bad.  And because he's an excellent boyfriend, he did it, and then he took me to Wiener's Circle for dinner.  I went from noxious fake vegan curry to a gorgeous grilled piece of tubular meat made up of who knows what.  And I was HAPPY.

I'm not saying I'm done experimenting, but I'm never again putting mustard and syrup in the same vicinity.  I'm still interested in a vegan/vegetarian sloppy joe recipe, because I think it could be good.  The lentils were right, I'm telling you.  It was the rest of it that was OH SO WRONG.

Random Lists

Halloween Costumes in my life:

• Ballerina
• Strawberry
• Witch
• Cheerleader
• Jane (Tarzan's Jane)

Favorite Candies:

• Gummy objects.
• Salted caramels.
• Sweet Tarts.
• Cashew Skalies (from Graham's)
• Marshmallow Caramels

Things I might name an animal:

• Monkey Bear
• Beans
• Hedgehog
• Ethel
• Kittie

Magazines:

• Bust
• Bitch
• Wired
• Sports Illustrated
• ESPN the Mag

Websites:

• Kottke
• Dooce
• Daily Puppy
• Fail Dogs
• Andrew Sullivan 

Items of Clothing (Specific):

• The dark jeans
• My Eleanor Grosch Keds!
• The gray stripey knee socks
• The bright yellow sweater
• The black zip up sweater hoodie

Eps of Sex and the City:

• The one where Smith shaves his head for Samantha
• The one with Miranda's mother's funeral
• The one where Harry and Charlotte get married
• The last one of the 1st half of the 6th season, with the wedding of the gay man and the straight woman
• The one where Miranda and Steve first get together (and Big shows up for Carrie)

I am anal

It's true.  There's just no way around it.  I cannot pretend to be easy-going or laid-back, except that like everyone else I have a few exceptions to this rule.  Here's a list about this topic.  (I'm sort of liking this list thing.  It's way easier than cohesive posts about one thing.  You can be shamelessly brief.)

• I'm weird about reading.  At any given time, I have a list of about four books queued in my head.  So right now, I'm reading King Dork (for book club; can I just say that if you were to read any book and come to any book club, Tim, this might be a good one for you...), but queued after that are a) some book about Disney World's early years, b) a book about sports fandom, and c) Motor Mouth by Evanovich.  It's entirely likely that I'll read these books in that exact order, and when I start the Disney book, I'll queue up another book behind Motor Mouth.  Possibly What Was She Thinking?, but also possibly one of the myriad books I've brought home from two libraries in the past three days.  I don't always make these book queues, especially when I'm having a hard time getting interested in reading, but right now there is an embarrassment of book riches in my world, and it helps me to make virtual queues for them.  It's insanely structured in my brain, and I'm not saying I wouldn't bump a book for a better option, but still.  You have to admit it's slightly bizarre.
• I MUST be on time.  I hate not being on time more than I hate almost anything else in the world.  I'd pretty much rather be any amount of time early than late, which is compulsive, to say the least.  It's probably good that I don't go to many parties, because I'd be horrendously bad at being fashionably late.  I don't like fashionably late.  If you want everyone to come at 9 and not 8, put freaking 9 on the invitation.  I also don't understand being late.  Part of my anal nature is the freakish way I plan everything, so I inevitably have a plan for getting out of the house on time.  I realize that not everyone does this, and I also realize that sometimes things not in our control intervene.  But then you must realize that since I have a predisposition to leave weirdly way too early for everything, even if I think I'm running late because of traffic, I will be on time.  Being late makes me feel uneasy.  It makes me feel as if I'm breaking my end of a contract, a contract that says, "We are having dinner at 5:30.  Not 6 and not 5, but 5:30.  Not 5:35 or 5:25, but 5:30."  If we have a reservation for 5:30, I will panic beyond a place of sanity if I think we're not going to make it on time.  It's anal.  It's possibly beyond anal.  Whatever it is, it's a compulsion that I probably will never get over.  It's possible that the chronically under-planned and lateness that is Sam will relax me, but it's more likely that he will feel the hammer blow of an evil look if he's not ready to leave the house at the time I deem appropriate.  It's entirely likely that I'm in fact making him prompt.  Poor man.
• The aforementioned planning.  I'm not the best at flying by the seat of my pants.  In fact, I'd rather not, thanks.  I like to have a plan, so that I know exactly what to expect.  (There is one exception to this, and that is getting around by car.  Oh sure, I'll look at directions, but I'll rarely print them out.  Mostly, it's because I can remember very easily the directions without the paper.  But also, I trust myself to get where I need to go.  I'm good at direction, in general, so I don't need to plan things so crazily.)  I don't like finding out where I'm going for dinner the 5 minutes before I go.  I don't like going somewhere to figure out where to go next.  I don't like plans that contain wording that goes something like this:  We'll meet there at 7-ish.  What the hell is 7-ish?  7-ish doesn't exist, that's what I think.  Occasionally, no plan can be a plan, but only every once in a while.  I can be less anal and admit that once in a while.  I swear.
• I don't like to lose.  This is possibly an understatement.  In fact, I don't like to fail at anything, and that includes the category of losing games.  Possibly the biggest single thing I'd like to change about myself are my feelings about failure.  I suspect it's a pretty common oldest child thing; I constantly feel the need to prove myself (at freaking ANYTHING, for god's sake) to whomever.  This cannot be in any way blamed on my parents, who have always maintained a basically...how to say this...blase attitude? about everything from bad grades to....not getting into grad school.  I don't mean to say that they didn't want those things for me, or that even that they weren't disappointed in bad grades or the other thing, but that they never really made those things expectations.  I definitely always knew that at the end of it, they didn't really care about that 'D' in religion in college.  They want other things for me, probably chief among those things my happiness.  If I fail at a few things in life, well, I'm quite sure their attitude is, "Hey, everyone does."  And they're totally right.  No, I'm definitely the enforcer of the demand for perfection from myself, and it can get ugly.  I mean, I don't even want to lose board games.  Or computer games.  Or card games.  I like to win.  And I really don't like to do things where the risk of failure is present.  I mean, I do.  Because you know, I'm in a relationship, and that right there is a risk.  I've always been a big fan of the whole "jump off a cliff" thing, even if I find it excruciatingly hard to execute sometimes.  It's, well, you know, one of those things I'm always ALWAYS working on, even if it seems I'm not.  There's always something I don't want to do because I might be bad at it, and yet I'm always going ahead and trying things.  Bike riding comes to mind.  And something else I did a few months ago that was a going-down-in-flames failure (which I don't really want to talk about because it still is kind of embarrassing to me, but nevertheless, I did it.  I'll never ever do it again, and I felt pretty poorly about the whole thing for a few days, but you know what?  I did it.  That was a victory right there.), but that probably was freaking good for me.  The whole grad school fiasco?  Probably good for me, in the end.  I suspect how we deal with failure might ultimately be one of our more important characteristics because like I said, everyone does it, and life is kind of set up so that you're always going to be failing at something.  I'm still not a graceful loser, and it still rankles, but I'm working on it.  I swear.  In fact, I'm working myself up to re-tackle "Gimme Shelter" on Rock Band on the guitar, at medium difficulty.  The song that brought me down.  I'm going to play it until I don't fail.  No matter how many failures that takes.

I will say this:  Sam is everything that I'm not in the controlling life category.  He is Laid-back (capital L) and very much just about going with the flow.  In many ways, he's probably very good for me, because of that.  He does tell me to relax.  A lot.  And hey, I make him on time.  It's probably a good trade.

I miss it too much

Football.  I miss football, okay?  Sundays suck now, because I don't have something to watch while I sew.  Last night, Sam and I watched Any Given Sunday, which I think I'd seen half of when it came out in the theaters.  (Long story short, I ended up leaving without seeing the end due to a power outage.)  I was definitely watching it with new eyes last night, and here's a little list of things that I didn't like about the film:

• The uniforms.  Especially the uniforms in the last game of the movie.  Those Dallas Knights (?) uniforms were terrible.  I told Sam that I thought the costume designer for the film was really, really bad, and had no sense of the aesthetics of football, because whoever it was really didn't get anything right.  Bad helmets, bad pants, bad jerseys.  Bad logos.  The only one that sort of worked was the main team's mascot, the shark.  The shark head/costume worked.  But the uniforms in the film just didn't look like professional football uniforms.
• The editing.  I thought that the way the film was edited took it further away from the feel of real football than it did bring it close.  Maybe I'm influenced too much by the NFL films and HBO crews (from the sadly defunct "Inside the NFL".  RIP.  Easily one of my favorite seasonal shows.  Too sad.  I love Collinsworth, and I know I'll see him elsewhere, but still.  Same with Peter King.  I really REALLY like Peter King, and I'll still be reading his column, but I'll miss his reports on that show.), but the in the game moments didn't feel right at all.  I can't put my finger quite on it, but to my estimation, the film isn't a success if the football doesn't feel real.
• The music.  It was very uneven.  I'm not saying it was all bad, but I am saying that at times it was very distracting.  Football always has seemed like a rock and roll sport to me, the only true rock and roll sport out there.  And there was a good amount of rock in this movie.  But there was also a lot of Moby (like, what?  Moby and football?) and a bit of rap, and it just didn't jibe in my head.  There wasn't a score, really, which I thought was nice, but at the same time, I'm just not sure.  I don't know how this could have been better, but at the same time, I definitely wasn't happy with it.
• The league.  The NFL is so so so omnipresent and so huge that it's really hard to buy this alternate league, with expansion teams in Albuquerque, is making so much money that the only team losing money is in Miami.  Really?  Considering that the other teams are in huge markets with huge teams (Chicago, NY), I just had a hard time buying it.  I'm sure it'd be impossible to make this movie set in the NFL, but then jeez, I don't know if you can succeed in a serious football movie.  I'm trying to think of other football movies that I've seen and enjoyed greatly, and honestly, the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Rudy.  Yeah, and that's set in college.  Realistically.  Because it's a mostly true story.
• Al Pacino as head coach.  Just bad, I thought.  But I did like Dennis Quaid as the seasoned QB.

Would I recommend this movie?  Probably not so much.  Could have been way better.

Fattie Fatster

I've been reading a lot of the "fat" blogs lately--Shapely Prose, Pound(y), Big Fat Deal, etc--and what I cannot get over is how fucked up we are about this.  I certainly knew that I was fucked up about food and eating and dieting, but I really am astonished anew each time I realize that holy shit, most of us are, I'm not alone.  It may seem evident to you people out there, but I have a really hard time realizing that I am not alone in this epic body image/eating/dieting/working out struggle.  I shouldn't, because like any other group of women, my mom, my sister and I have all played this game.  But somehow their relationship to their own bodies has nothing to do with my own; and of course, I'm wrong, because it does. 

The fact of the matter is, I'm only recently beginning to throw aside all the guilt and rage and powerlessness that comes with feeling like an outcast, feeling like someone whose body isn't right, and I'm probably in an insufferable stage where I want everyone to feel like me.  And everyone doesn't.  In one of the comments at Big Fat Deal, somebody said something along the lines of:  "Oh, yeah, diets are wrong.  But there's nothing wrong with working out a lot and not eating everything you want to eat so that you can be healthier and look a little better."  My eyes almost popped out of my head and I wanted to scream.  Because hello?  That is a diet, and that isn't any healthier than what I'm doing. 

Feeling like that?  Like you want to eat things and you can't--that's disordered.  It's not natural for human beings to watch every single thing they put in their mouth, whether they want to believe that or not.  I do believe that when you start to stop thinking so damn much, you start to normalize your own diet where it needs to be.  I've said it before and I'll say it again:  some days you want brussels sprouts (and I have some in my freezer right now) and vinegared rice, and some days you want cheesy gooey pizza and a big plate of french fries.  Any sort of disordered eating that once held me in its grips is loosening up, because I never have to worry that I'm doing something bad.  I can literally eat what I want, when I want it.  And I'm telling you, I almost NEVER eat so much that I feel uncomfortable anymore.  I used to do it all the time when eating out, and every once in a while at a very expensive restaurant I stuff it in because it's so special and I feel like I have to, but I almost NEVER kill myself with food anymore.  It's an intense and heady thing.  I can tell you without hesitation that I used to do it all the time because I used to feel like I had to--because I knew if I was eating at home it would be Lean Cuisines and egg whites. 

And I'll tell you something else about eating.  I've been eating a bagel for breakfast every morning--I toast it and cream cheese it at home, and then port it to work--and I'm not hungry by 10 anymore.  In fact, I find that hunger isn't as big an issue in my life, ever.  I still get insanely hungry when I probably shouldn't, but because what I'm eating is more satisfying, I don't feel crippled by hunger.  It's heady stuff.

I will start bike riding again in the spring (when I won't freeze my fingers and toes off, and when I won't kill myself on icy, snowy paths), and if that brings about some weight loss, ok.  And if not, ok.  I'm not going to fixate on that stuff anymore.  I know that if I worked at a place that had a gym that was close to home (and wouldn't force a miserable commute on me; this is a choice I've made for myself.  I feel my quality of life will go down if I stay after work to work out, because I'll be so miserable from the commute.  And I can't afford to pay for a gym in the city; nor do I want to.), I'd start working out again in a heartbeat.  I do enjoy the elliptical, and feeling the adrenaline from a workout.  But I'm not beating myself up about it anymore, and I feel okay.  Some days are harder than others.  Some days I can't remember to stop hating my body.  But more and more, I can just shrug and sigh and it's okay. 

I want this for the people I love.  I want them to love themselves as much as I love them.  In fact, I imagine their wish for me is the same damn thing.  I hope the people who love me don't want me to starve and sweat myself down to a what, size 14?  That's about as low as I think I could go.  I was in a size 14 in high school, for god's sake.  Is being a size 14 really so much better than where I am now?  I just can't imagine them wanting me to torture myself to look a little bit skinnier.  And I certainly don't want that for them.  I support the decisions they make regarding their bodies, but I also don't want them to be disordered.  I don't want them to eat every bite thinking about guilt.  Or not eat every bite thinking about guilt.  It's no way to live.

And then there are those strangers who feel they should have a say in how I look.  They're f-ing everywhere; all you have to do is find a blog that talks about fat in a candid, serious, accepting way and there'll be people saying things like, "Lay off the ice cream, fattie." or "Get off your fat ass and walk somewhere, fattie."  It's shameful, but it obviously doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if we're disordered, it's coming from somewhere.  My life will be so different because I'm not a size 6, and I'm aware.  I'm aware that if I order dessert in a restaurant I might get looked at funny.  I'm aware that people might look at me with pity as I huff and puff away on my bike.  But I. DON'T. CARE. ANYMORE.  That is a problem for those people, those people who think that the size of your thighs is directly proportionate to how many servings of vegetables you eat in a day.  Again, that prejudice?  That's THEIR problem, not my own.  I can't change them, and I shouldn't have to.  (And I'm just going to say this once:  all those people who think fat people don't have the SECKS are insane, because everywhere I look, there's fat people in relationships.  With people who might just want to do THAT with them.  And believe you me, there are a lot of mean words said on the internets about fat people and the SECKS, such as:  "EWWW, fat people are gross and noone wants to sleep with them?"  It drives me up the wall, and it really exposes the selfish myopia of persons who don't care to sleep with a fat person.  That's quite alright, sirs, but perhaps you can understand that everyone is not you.)   

That was a tangent.  I can't remember now where I was going after that point.  Suffice it to say that reading all this fat blogging has me feeling both exhilarated and exhausted, and it's really been interesting.  It's really been a boon for my own train of thought about the issue.  Perhaps you don't think about these issues very much.  Maybe you  just don't care.  That's fine.  You don't have to.  Congratulations for being less disordered than the rest of us.  But I don't think this is something that the rest of us should stop thinking about.  I know I won't.  These sorts of rants may crop up from time to time, as it comes to a head within me.  Bear with me.

Slush

Today is one of those days on which I feel a sickly loathing for the city.  It's probably a combination of slogging through gray mush, feeling damp and icky from slogging around in the gray mush, and the nausea of being on a bus for a long time, watching people get on and off and on and off while I stay in the same place.

I went to have lunch with Sam, in the falling snow, and while lunch was nice, and I enjoy having what seems to be a stolen hour with him, I did not enjoy waiting for the bus in the snow.  And having my purse and hat and coat and pants get all wet.  The driest part of me was my feet, which were encased in a lovely pair of black boots.  I tucked my pants in them for the first time ever, which is mildly uncomfortable, though it did save my pants from the muck.

Sigh.  The snow looks pretty until you have to walk through it and transact some form of daily life in it.  Not pleasant.  Thus, my hatred.

Baaad Housekeeping

You might have noticed that I've been updating my blogroll over the past few days.  Or maybe you haven't.  Maybe you ignore my sidebar completely.  But a few months ago my dad was kind of disappointed that he wasn't on the b-roll (I think he thought I thought he was embarrassing), and I tried to reassure him that no, I'm just a really, really bad blog housekeeper.  And then I thought, you know...I should update it. 

I kept putting it off and off and off and then I just did it.  I'm not done updating, in case you're wondering.  I'm just adding as I read blogs.  Per my whims, as it were.

That is all.

O! Tannenbaum

Well, lookee there.  It's a Christmas tree.  It's my Xmas tree, to be exact.  You can see with much detail any of the ornaments, but if you look closely, right in the middle there's a boy in a pink bunny suit and a leg lamp.  Those would be Sam's "Christmas Story" ornaments, placed in a position of honor.  By him, obviously.  You can also see a silver cylinder on the right side, and that is my new diet coke ornament.  Not joking.  All the best ornaments are facing the camera, of course.  Interestingly, for some reason all the worst ones are on what I conventionally consider the back of the tree.  But from my perch on the couch, and you can see the arm of the couch that I lean on, I can see the "back" of the tree.  And hence, all the worst ornaments.  Next year, I'll be more careful.

You can also see my Xstitch on the arm of the couch, which is something you'll see in more detail tomorrow.  I won't forget the Monday Progress Report.  It's keeping me motivated when I flag. 

Lastly, I'd just like to mention that I am so motivated today (in general) that I woke up and started a soup in the slow cooker.  All day, a lovely tomato soup has been simmering in the cooker, and I'm very excited to eat it.  I love tomato soup.  I think I'll probably do the slow cooker thing for the next two Sundays as well, though I have GOT to find a few recipes that Sam will actually not turn his nose up at.  That's my task for next Sunday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's snowing in Chicago.  While I don't want it to impede my travel, I do love the feeling of holidays that involve snow.  There's something about knowing you don't have to go to work, and the beauty of both the holiday, and the big white flakes.  Sigh.  This is all part of the reason I still live in a place that is trying to kill me with the windy coldness.

Anyway, because I did Anti-Thanksgiving, I must do an actual Thanksgiving too.  So here is a short list of some of the things I am grateful this year:

• Stuffing.  I can't lie.  The sausage and mushroom goodness seems too good to be true.
• My family.  No better family exists, I'm sure of it.
• Having enough food.
• Books.
• Sam.
• Sam again.
• My health, no matter if it is slightly wonky right now.

That's all I'm going to list, because like yesterday, I could list all kinds of little things I am grateful for--my car, my iPod, having a home, being loved, etc--and it could go on forever.  I'm grateful for a lot of little things I get to have.  But those things above, they seem to be the most important.  You know, except for the stuffing, which I think I'm just crazy about right now because I know I get to eat it today.  It's all I can think about.  It's taken over my mind.

Anyway, I hope you all have something wonderful to anticipate today, whether it be a turkey, stuffing, or a nice relaxing day.  Have a happy Thanksgiving, readers!