1. Been doing the OKCupid/match.com thing, with limited success. Met some nice, interesting women, but no sparks.
2. Until last night!
3. Second date Saturday.

Twist!

Mrmoonpie - good luck!

1. Costuming is coming along - I cut out a mockup to discover it's too small, so I'll try again this weekend. (yay for mockups!)
2. Jeni's ice cream opens tonight in Atlanta - we're going to the grand opening, and I'm so excited. it's so good!
3. My SO's sister is in hospice and will probably pass in the next month, and there's simply nothing I can do for him to make it easier. I hate not being able to do anything. It's the end of a long illness for her, so is something of a relief, but the whole situation is a mess. :(

1. Took the day off work since my stomach was acting funky and I was super tired. Just got up from my latest nap but I have to stay up now because I have a ton of work to do.

2. I need to sew my skirt tear and also put the new bit of floof onto the bottom of it and finish my mask before tonight's rehearsal.

3. I got a coupon today for 25% off Halloween stuff at Petco, so I'm calling that as a sign that I need to get Anubis the little pharaoh costume that I saw there the other day.

1. I went to a 6am Bikram Yoga class today.

2. I made a lovely vegan butternut squash stew for dinner.

3. I'm feeling all healthy and virtuous. My psoriasis has never been better.

(Jeni's ice cream is awesome, needlegrrl. One of the best things to come out of the Buckeye State. Also, I'm sorry for your family troubles.)

(And good luck, Mrmoonpie!)

Recipe for vegan butternut squash stew pretty please.

1. I stayed up too late last night and am falling over sleepy today.

2. I have a dentist appointment at 3 and I'll probably f . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Recipe.

Saute a mirepoix in a little olive oil. When it's almost softened and the onions are transluscent, add garlic (as much as you like) and cook a little more.

Add a teaspoon of harissa paste, a little thyme, a can of chopped tomatoes and a tablespoon of Vegemite.

Peel a butternut squash, remove the seeds and cut into chunks.

Add to the pot. Cover and cook until the squash is tender. Season to taste with salt/pepper.

1. Fools Fall In Love
2. Time of the Preacher^*
3. Starry Eyes

^* A Love Of My Own

.I worked the NY Musical Improv festival all weekend, and three days later, I'm still exhausted.

.I'm going to see a Q&A with the director of Clue! (the movie) and Michael McKean, hosted by MeFi's own hermitosis.

.Stressed, exhausted, in pain, and possibly sick. I treated myself to some graphic novels at lunch as a reward for not calling in sick (unpaid) today. Wheeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzz...

1. I've been unproductive in all sorts of ways
2. I got 2 pairs of boots at the thrift store today, though, and I am excited about them. One is clearly a new sample pair and the other is a barely used flat pull-on type that I know I will wear a lot.
3. Today in our CSA we got the biggest zucchini I've ever owned. Not sure what its fate will be yet. I did end up making that tarte tatin with the quince last week, it was great and not too sweet.

1. Went to New York State Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY this past weekend. So crowded! So many knitters! So many sheep! So much money spent on spinning fiber!
2. Crocheting blanket squares for the family of a message board acquaintance who died during surgery this past weekend. Such a sad story, but keeping my hands busy helps me to feel like I am doing something to help.
3. My eldest daughter turns 6 on Friday! Can't believe it! Gotta plan her party this weekend. She wants chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. I can do that.

1. Had my annual staff review today. It was less whacky than it could have been.
2. My bishop is coming to my seminary tomorrow to preach and preside at the weekly Thursday service. I'll be one of the sub-deacons. I need to find a steamer to take the wrinkles out of my alb.
3. I'm currently eating Golden Grahams. I am okay with that.

1. School is humming along nicely. Everyone is all worked up about midterms though. What for?? Grades don't matter, this is the last formal schooling most of us will get! Wish they'd get over it. But they probably won't. I'm sure once the midterms are over, everyone will freak about FINALS AHHHHHHHHH.

2. Visited a new church on Sunday. It's become too hard to drag Oliver uptown (45 minutes by train) on Sunday morning for a 9 a.m. service (the ride home also conflicts with naptime). I tried an 8:30 am Episcopalian service a few blocks away. I was worried that I wasn't going to like the music, but there was none! All spoken. Very low attendance- 3 old ladies, 6 gays, Oliver and me. I liked it, though I worry it might bother some people having a toddler disrupt the otherwise peaceful service. The old ladies were really excited, though. Pastor said after service that attendance has been low this fall; she thinks some people are still enjoying weekends elsewhere since the weather has been so nice. I'll probably give it another shot or two. It's not perfect, but I want my children to be in the habit of going to church on Sunday morning. It's only temporary; we'll be moving early summer 2014 and then hopefully we'll live close enough to walk to stynxno's church!

3. I have long classes Tuesday and Wednesday nights so post-class Wednesday feels like Friday night. Shame tomorrow is a work day!

1. I am very curious about TPS's grad program and hope she feels comfortable sharing what she is studying, though my guess is MPH.

2. I had a horribly comically wrong experience with a doctor on Monday morning, for a pre-employment physical. He told me, without gathering any significant history and after I told him my medication works extremely well, that I should stop taking my antidepressants and use a "spiritual approach" to my depression instead. And then made about five medically wrong/dubious claims in the span of 10 minutes. It was almost impressive. Also, he had big posters of flayed penises on the wall, which made it worse.

3. I got a new client in my psychotherapy practice, who is my first client to use insurance, so suddenly I had to get all HIPAA compliant. Which didn't end up involving more than putting together a privacy policy, but is making me nervous for some reason. But I really clicked with the client, I think, and I'm looking forward to working with her.

4. (I'm a rebel.) I stepped on a shard of glass a few days ago, but thought I had gotten it out of my foot, but then my foot was still hurting, so I dug around today and managed to get the shard of glass actually out of my foot, and I'm not sure why that felt so satisfying, but it did.

Removing a foreign body from your flesh can be immensely satisfying, and the amount of nagging trauma it causes while it remains can be significant. Years ago I cut myself open to remove a chunk of mirror that had been embedded in between my knuckles since I was an unruly teenager. It was like opening my eyes from a bad dream.

I once helped hold my brother still while my mother removed a small section of cactus thorn left in the meat of his hand over a long weekend. He removed most of it on the day he was stuck, but the tip broke off and stayed behind and the wound had mostly closed by the time my mom got to it. Maybe it was wedged against a nerve, but he was in constant pain, listless and tired, and slightly green.

It took a heroic effort for my mom to cut him up and dig that thing out of him, and I'll always remember the horror and determination in her eyes as she did. I'll also never forget the way my brother sagged into my arms when the thorn was out. Then in the course of a few deep breaths, his color and vigor returned. It was amazing to behold.

The thorn came out in a sheath of what appeared to be newly forming skin, or perhaps dead white blood cells, as though my brother's body was preparing to reject the thorn in its own slow way while it waited for my mother and the knife. I don't remember the mirror under my knuckle having a similar coating, but that was in there for a long time. This could be a difference in the way the body regards plant material and glass, but it could be lots of other things, including the level of objectivity with which I observed my own self-surgery versus that with which I observed my brother's.

I just had my first nightmare in years. I woke up trying to shout my way through the paralysis of sleep. It's gone now, but televisions were involved, and blurry faces with even blurrier faces behind them, emerging from a white background. I don't know why it was so disturbing. Awake, it sounds like part of a music video. And now The Killing Moon is in my head. Go figure.

1. I need to do some spot cleaning since a friend is visiting this weekend.

2. Still going to all sorts of doctor offices with my Mom. I don't know how I'd have time if I was working full time. I guess my failure to convince someone that I'm good at what I do is a bonus on some scale because Mom couldn't even manage to find these doctor's offices on her own. Folks like her without someone to help are in a difficult situation.

3. I made pumpkin and peanut butter soup with part of the damaged pumpkin I bought last week. Pretty easy since all amounts are to taste and it's vegan to boot:
4 cups pumpkin
1/3 to 2/3 c unsweetened peanut butter
1-2 cloves garlic
1-3 tablespoons lime juice
Salt
2-3 tablespoons fresh ginger
Dash of hot sauce or cayenne
Apple juice or whatever to thin
Optional green onion (didn't have any)

Process in blender, heat and eat.

1. Started taking a new drug yesterday, meloxicam, for my herniated disk and nerve issues and wow, this stuff really works great. I feel human for the first time in months. The course is for 30 days, hope that my back can manage to heal in that time.

2. Studying Python programming and Django development. Trying to move from QA into web development for my next job.

3. Lots and lots of networking.

Thanks, Senyar! We tried to go to Jeni's last night, but so did everyone else (free ice cream!) so we gave up after 45 minutes, and will go back and pay for our ice cream. :)

Eideteker, I hope you feel better soon.

occhiblu, that doctor sounds bizarre. I'm glad you don't have to go back. (right?)

mightshould, I don't know how people do it either - I help with my grandmother's care, and if she didn't have us to co-ordinate, she simply wouldn't ever go to the doctors.

octothorpe - I hope the drug works for you. yay for feeling human!

Yes, occhiblu, I am getting an MPH in Healthcare Administration. It is a part-time program at the same academic medical center where I work, so it's very convenient. I am enjoying the classes a lot. In a way I'm a little surprised they aren't harder? I've heard a few people say, oh, the hardest part about grad school is getting in. If I was paying full price (instead of my exempted/discounted rate), I might feel cheated!

1. Fall is here, thankfully. Nice & chilly in the mornings.
2. We've managed re-entry into working after a week unplugged at the beach. Highly recommended. The unplugging, not the work.
3. I've started reading novels again. Been catching up on E.L. Konigsberg's books and just started J.R. Moehringer's new one called Sutton about a bank robber in NYC during the depression.

TPS, I felt the same way in my master's program. And I did pay full price! :)

Hugh, my father once had a fairly large chunk of wood pop out of his head, unprompted. We finally realized it was most likely left over from when he had stood up after a family picnic and bashed the top of his head into an unseen tree branch. About a year earlier.

Bodies are magic.

1. Was out yesterday with some stomach thing - I think it's the flautas I had the night before. Flautas is too a word, spellcheck.

2. Today I've been emailing and visiting folks to deliver invitations to the Boys' birthday party this Saturday. We're going to have lots of cake, and I don't want to take it home.

3. Oh yeah. Going as the 4th Doctor to the kids' !Halloween thing at school.

Wow, that's awesome, occhiblu. I would like to see something like that, as long as I wasn't eating at the time.

I hope at least someone in your family used the incident as a recurring joke source. I would be unable to resist if it happened to my dad. I'm laughing now, just thinking about it.

"Remember the day dad's cork popped out? He's been leaky ever since..."

Yeah, I seem to remember that we affectionately called him "Blockhead" for most of the rest of the day. Or week.

I have a nice squash stew recipe for you, Janetland. I think it is vegan:

Ingredients:
1 small onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 small fennel bulb, trimmed, cored and thinly sliced
2 cups acorn squash, cut into 3/4 inch pieces
8 ounces Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
4 cups vegetable broth, low-sodium or no-salt added
2 tablespoons fresh sage, crushed
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, crushed or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
1 apple, cored and coarsely chopped
6 dried unsulfured apricots, finely chopped
2 cans red kidney beans -low sodium or no-salt added, drained
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar or balsamic vinegar
freshly ground pepper, to taste

Instructions:
Heat 1/8 cup water in a large pot, add onion and garlic and water saute until tender, about 4 minutes. Add fennel, squash, Brussels sprouts, broth, sage and rosemary. Bring to boiling, reduce heat. Simmer, covered, about 10 minutes or until vegetables are nearly tender.

Add apple and apricots. Cook covered, about 5 minutes more or just until Brussels sprouts are tender. Add beans and vinegar and heat through. Season with pepper.

Also, on the update front:

1. This whole week has been crazy busy at work. I come home flat out exhausted and poop out with my husband watching our accumulated store of Jeopardy!, Bones and Good Wife recordings. We finally caught up and watched the first game of the World Series last night. Go Sox!

2. My upper left back is giving me grief. I'm attached to my heating pad. I would like a magical body thing to happen that solves it, and failing that I want Saturday and my massage appointment to get here soon.

3. Nothing, except that peanut pumpkin soup recipe -- maybe deprived of salt -- looks awfully good.

3. I see squash stew in my future.

TPS, I felt the same way in my master's program.

I feel the same way in mine. Either we are all geniuses, or the hype is worse than the reality. Clearly it's the first!

We're definitely all geniuses. But I (perhaps naively?) hold on to the belief that Ph.D. programs must be entirely different beasts than Master's programs.

I've kind of classified Master's programs as almost vocational degrees for white-collar professionals, in that everyone's overall goal seems to be to get the certification so they can do something non-academic. The people I know in Ph.D. programs, though, are doing the work for entirely different reasons.

Definitely all geniuses! And I would agree that it seems overall people in this program are not looking to go into academia. Seems most want to move up in management where they are or go into consulting.

I think curiosity is a big part of it- those of us who frequent sites like Metafilter are very curious people and engage with a lot of ideas & readings in our day-to-day lives. I guess I assumed that everyone in grad school would be like that, loving the work of school for the sake of it, but it's proving not to be true, or at least not totally true. Kind of a bummer. At least I have all of you :D

I'm definitely not a genius; grad school kicked my ass down the block. I still have nightmares about three hour tests, 75 page term papers and 100 hour a week work-loads. *Shudder*

As a student, my dad was accidentally shot by a friend with an air pistol, and the pellet lodged very near his eye. There it remained until 30 years later, when it started moving and he had it removed.

Updates:
1. My child is four months old
2. Apparently it is quite common for sleeping habits to go Really Wrong at this age, and mine is no exception
3. Monstrously tired

Yep, forgot about the salt in the pumpkin soup recipe - great catch!!!!

Huh. My grad school experience has been more of the octothorpesque ass-kicking variety. Mind you, mine's a different beast from professional certification programs; everyone there is keen and motivated and urgently wants to learn. Me, I'm veering awfully close to burnout.

But I'll be done in January, insh'allah.

Love everything about squash season, except for the about to start getting dark far too early part.