Just because people around me act as if they are still teenagers is no reason for me to react as if I were still a teenager.


Since leaving East Lansing I've realized that a large part of why I was so miserable in high school wasn't the way people treated me, it was the way I reacted to that treatment. I let the horrible behavior of a few people make me so paranoid and over-sensitive that I assumed everyone wanted to be just as evil to me. If they weren't being actively evil at that moment, it was because they were setting me up, or because they didn't want to look bad in front of a grown-up, or they had some other reason to lie. If I heard laughter but not the joke, I assumed I was being laughed at. Beyond the paranoia and sensitivity, the other part of my reaction was the classic "hurt them before they hurt you." Not healthy then, and not healthy now.

Live by the Golden Rule, even if no one else seems to.

I've edited this a couple of times to improve phrasings. I'll probably make further changes. The most recent change was to add the many cultures Golden Rule picture.

Body: I'm doing OK today.

Reading: Same as yesterday.

Hearing: The The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast

Wearing: These pretty earrings that I bought through Etsy.

Etsy find: Adorable little stuffed bunnies and other animals

Tonight's Project: Finish a few things for up-coming swaps on Swap-bot.

Project Follow-up: Dinner last night was good, but I got nothing done afterward.

Body: My gut is still a little sore, but I'm doing better. Also, both of my knees are really bothering me today.

Reading: I'm still working on on The Night's Dawn trilogy.

Hearing: The Podcastle

Wearing: Today's perfume is La Belle au Bois Dormant from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's Ars Amatoria line. It's a really beautiful, light floral scent.

Tonight's Project: Dinner with friends tonight, maybe a few ATC's afterward if I have time.

Project Follow-up: I found a couple more dresses that won't bother my still healing stomach, and are appropriate for work. That brings me up to 4, which I think is enough.

Randomness: Note to self - When buying knee socks, look for ones that come past the widest part of my calf and actually reach my knee. They stay up much better that way.

Again, I mostly just copied and pasted this post from the last one, but have made a bunch of changes.

I've decided to include the list of names in the box, but not the addresses. When you're ready to send the box on you can contact me and I'll give you the address you're sending it to.

We're going to use a 8"x8"x8" box from the post office. I'm going to put an envelope in the box for money. If your shipping is much less than $5.00 please put the difference in the envelope. If it's much more than $5.00, please feel free to take the difference out of the envelope. If there is still money in the envelope when it gets back to me I'll donate it to a charity.

Rules:
1) Spend as little money as possible. Some ideas are: craft supplies from your own stash, handmade things, homemade food, recipes, used books or CDs, mixed CDs. If you do need to buy things, hit dollar and thrift stores and clearance sales. The idea here is to share things that are fun, not to spend tons of money.

2) Food should be labeled. I don't want to poison anybody because they didn't know that a food had something they were allergic to in it. If it's store bought, make sure it's in the original packaging. If it's homemade include the recipe.

3) Package things securely. If it's fragile, don't forget the bubble wrap. If it's liquid or might melt, put it in multiple Ziploc bags. If it's strongly scented, multiple Ziploc bags might also be a good idea.

4) Try to keep the fullness of the box even. Going by both weight and number of things, try to add about the same amount as you keep. That will help to keep both shipping and selection fair for everybody who comes after you.

Any other ideas for rules?

As of today, the box is full and ready to go. The order of play is:
Me
arathreel
dulcinbradbury
Bobby
Sara
zarhooie
glinda_w
tx_cronopio
magpie49
dancing_crow
and
back to me.

Anyone else who wants to play, you've got until I seal the box before handing it over to arathreel to sign up.

arathreel, when and where do you want to meet to make the handover?

Body: I am back to work, and feeling almost normal again. I still run out of steam relatively quickly, and if I physically over-do it I end up feeling like I've been punched in the gut, but most of the time I feel OK. The only other lingering problem seems to be that any clothing with a hard waistband is pretty uncomfortable, so I'll be sticking with dresses for at least the rest of the week, maybe longer.

Reading: Still plugging away on on The Night's Dawn trilogy. It's three ridiculously long books in one single file on my Kindle, so it's taking a long time.

Hearing: The Overthinking It Podcast

Tonight's Project: A little clothes shopping

(If you want to play, sign up here.)

I mostly just copied and pasted this post from the last one, but have made a couple of changes.

So far the list (in no particular order) is:
Me - Albany, NY area
dulcinbradbury - local to me
magpie49 - Pennsylvania
glinda_w - Northwest part of the USA
arathreel - local to me
tx_cronopio - Texas
My LJ-less sister-in-law Sara - Illinois
My LJ-less brother Bobby - Michigan
zarhooie - South Dakota

I need everyone who isn't local to me to send me their street address (even if you think I already have it) so that I can figure out the best (cheapest for each person) route to send the box on. You can email me, or PM me here or on Facebook. We also need to decide how we're going to get the addresses to the other people in the swap. The three I came up with are: 1) have each person email/pm the person they are sending to directly, 2) have each person contact me and get the next person's address, or 3) include all the addresses in the box to start with. Which does everyone prefer?

Instead of the box I posted about last time, I decided that it would be easier to use a 8"x8"x8" box from the post office. I'm going to put an envelope in the box for money. If your shipping is much less than $5.00 please put the difference in the envelope. If it's much more than $5.00, please feel free to take the difference out of the envelope. If there is still money in the envelope when it gets back to me I'll donate it to a charity.

Rules:
1) Spend as little money as possible. Some ideas are: craft supplies from your own stash, handmade things, homemade food, recipes, used books, CD mixes. If you do need to buy things, hit dollar and thrift stores and clearance sales. The idea here is to share things that are fun, not to spend tons of money.

2) Food should be labeled. I don't want to poison anybody because they didn't know that a food had something they were allergic to in it. If it's store bought, make sure it's in the original packaging. If it's homemade include the recipe.

3) Package things securely. If it's fragile, don't forget the bubble wrap. If it's liquid or might melt, put it in multiple Ziploc bags. If it's strongly scented, multiple Ziploc bags might also be a good idea.

4) Try to keep the fullness of the box even. Going by both weight and number of things, try to add about the same amount as you keep. That will help to keep both shipping and selection fair for everybody who comes after you.

Any other ideas for rules?

If everything works out the way I hope, I'll start the box moving next weekend (the 21st or 22nd).

(If you want to play, sign up here.)

So far the list (in no particular order) is:
Me - Albany, NY area
dulcinbradbury - local to me
magpie49 - Pennsylvania
glinda_w - Northwest part of the USA
arathreel - local to me
tx_cronopio - Texas
My LJ-less sister-in-law Sara - Illinois
My LJ-less brother Bobby - Michigan
zarhooie - South Dakota
dancing_crow - Massachusetts

I need everyone who isn't local to me to send me their street address (even if you think I already have it) so that I can figure out the best (cheapest for each person) route to send the box on. You can email me, or PM me here or on Facebook.

The box I'm probably going to use is almost identical to these. I did a test run by filling it full of random stuff from my desk, weighing it on my kitchen scale, and visiting the post office's website. They seem to think I could send a three pound box from Albany to Seattle via parcel post for $4.90. I'm going to put an envelope in the box for money. If your shipping is much less than $5.00 please put the difference in the envelope. If it's much more than $5.00, please feel free to take the difference out of the envelope. If there is still money in there when it gets back to me I'll donate it to a charity.

Rules:
1) Spend as little money as possible. Some ideas are: craft supplies from your own stash, handmade things, homemade food, recipes, used books, CD mixes. If you do need to buy things, hit dollar and thrift stores and clearance sales. The idea here is to share things that are fun, not to spend tons of money.

2) Food should be labeled. I don't want to poison anybody because they didn't know that a food had something they were allergic to in it. If it's store bought, make sure it's in the original packaging. If it's homemade include the recipe.

3) Package things securely. If it's fragile, don't forget the bubble wrap. If it's liquid or might melt, put it in multiple Ziploc bags. If it's strongly scented, multiple Ziploc bags might also be a good idea.

4) Try to keep the fullness of the box even. Going by both weight and number of things, try to add about the same amount as you keep. That will help to keep both shipping and selection fair for everybody who comes after you.

Any other ideas for rules?

If everything works out the way I hope, I'll start the box moving next weekend.

I'm still looking for a few more people to join the swap I'm setting up.

Comment on the original post if you want to play.

(I swiped this idea from the BPAL forums.)

Is anyone out there interested in doing a circular swap with me?

Basically, the idea is that whoever starts it (probably me) fills a box with randomly cool stuff, and then sends it to the first person on the list.

When they get it, they go through the stuff, pick a few things to keep, add a few new randomly cool things, and send it on the the next person in line. Repeat until the box has made it to everybody. The last person sends it back to the first person, who keeps whatever is still in it.

If you're interested comment here with where you live (at least what state or country). Once at least 6 people have signed up I'll figure out what order the list will go in and post that and a few basic rules.

Added: So far, we have three yeses and a maybe. I need at least 3 more people to play!

Added, part 2: The rules I've come up with so far are:
1) Spend as little as possible. Make stuff, and raid your own stashes for craft supplies and randomly cool things to add to the box.
2) Things that edible should be clearly labeled with the ingredients.

Is anybody else having trouble getting onto shadowunit.org today?

They let me out at about 11:00 this morning.

My gut feels like somebody used it for a punching bag, and I'm pretty tired, and sometimes dizzy (I think that's the pain pills), but overall I think I'm doing as well as can be expected.

I'll be taking it really easy the next few days.

This is Tom, writing for Jenny. She's doing well. Chilling out at the hospital overnight. Looks like she'll have only a very small scar but right now she's got a large bruise. She does have some pain but they are handling it with meds. We expect her home tomorrow, hopefully nice and early.

I'm going in to the hospital today to have my gallbladder removed. They probably won't let me out until tomorrow, so I'll see you all then.

Wish me luck!

Body: I'm feeling oddly and erratically light-headed. I think it's mostly nerves about tomorrow.

Reading: Same as yesterday.

Hearing: The Overthinking It Podcast

Etsy find: Indigo Ikat Scarf Another very pretty scarf.

Tonight's Project: Rest and try to relax.

Project Follow-up: I got nothing done last night, again.

Randomness: Happy anniversary, Love! 3 years and counting. :-)

Body: A few general aches and pains.

Reading: Same as yesterday.

Hearing: Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me

Etsy find: Two Trees Shirt

Tonight's Project: I don't have anything specific in mind.

Project Follow-up: I got nothing done last night.

Randomness: Congratulations to my Dad, Kevin Beard, who won re-election to the East Lansing Michigan city council last night.

Body: I seem OK this morning. Headachey, but only a little one.

Reading: Same as yesterday.

Hearing: NPR's Fresh Air as a podcast.

Etsy find: Towards beyond - Moonstone pendant Moonstone is one of my favorite gemstones. This is a lovely pendant.

Tonight's Project: I think maybe some decoupage or collage.

Randomness: Vote!

If you're a registered voter in the United States, please remember to vote today. If you aren't already registered today would be a good day to fix that. There are lots of local offices and important issues on the ballot all over the country. And if you live in East Lansing, Michigan vote for Kevin Beard for city council.

Body: My right shoulder is pretty sore, but that seems to be the only problem.

Reading: Same as last time

Hearing: Nancy Pearl's podcast on KUOW radio

Wearing: Pomona from BPAL

Etsy find: Havana Lace - Merino wool knitting yarn Beautiful blue and green hand dyed yarn.

Tonight's Project: I don't have anything particular planned, so I'll see how the spirit moves me.

Project Follow-up: I got the ATC done, and got it into the mail, but forgot to take any pictures. This is disappointing, because it was one I was particularly proud of.

+ Dentist appointment is finally rescheduled. They wanted me to come in tomorrow, but given how much time I've already taken off/will be taking off recently, it didn't seem like the best idea. It's been delayed until December.

- When I called the hospital to ask my questions about when I should stop eating pre-surgery, it rang and rang and rang without ever being answered or going to voice mail. I'll try again on my lunch break.

- Right now I can't take Advil for headaches because it's a blood thinner, and it's the only pain killer I keep in my desk at work.

+ The building manager keeps Tylenol in his office for anybody who needs it.

Chicken and Dumplings

1 chicken
2 cups diced potatoes
1.5 cups carrots
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup onions
cornstarch

1 batch of biscuits, made with parsley

Cook everything in a soup pot until tender. Thicken broth with cornstarch. Make biscuits and drop by spoonfuls into slightly bubbling gravy. Cook 10 minutes with cover on pot and 10 minutes with cover removed.

This is my version of Mom's version of my paternal Grandmother's Chicken & Dumpling recipe. Mom & Gramma are both good cooks, and I have a feeling a step or two might have been left out in the process of passing the recipe on. For example, the recipe doesn't say how much liquid to use. Amounts are also missing for the cornstarch and parsley