NaBloPoMo Idea List

In the comments section last week, Sarah suggested that we do a group Google doc with our ideas for NaBloPoMo. Such a good idea! Actually, this is a good idea for when you're just fresh out of ideas during any month, I think.

So I created a Google doc. Here it is! I would love it if you added an idea or two of your own and also if you wrote about some of those topics.

Meanwhile, as I have started thinking about, I'm a bit on the fence about doing NaBloPoMo myself. I'm a bit underwater in life and I'm not sure how this is going to work out. Here are my options:

1) Don't do it. If I just write my regular posts, I can concentrate on supporting people who do write daily with comments and encouragement.

2) Half-heartedly do it. Maybe write a bunch of posts ahead of time? Just acknowledge that not every post will be as good as I want it to be?

3) Do a quality post every day and just give up on commenting on every post I read. This feels sort of gross.

I don't know. I'm really wasting a lot of energy on this when I could just be writing posts. Maybe I should get to that. 

In the meantime, please add something to the list of NaBloPoMo topics!!

Cool Bloggers Walking Club 10/13 - 10/19

 We're all walking this month for Elisabeth's Cool Bloggers Walking Club. Join us!

Sunday, October 13
30-minute spooky morning walk with Hannah. It was so foggy!
24-minute coooooold walk with Hannah after I took her to get a bath at a local pet store. I wore my heated vest for the first time this season. 

11-minute walk with Hannah around the block before bed

Look at that fog! You can see the trees are sort of ghostly mountains. 

Monday, October 14

28-minute morning walk with Hannah

31-minute walk with Hannah after lunch

13-minute walk with Hannah before bed

I took a lot of glamour shots of Hannah by the river. This was the best one, I think.

Tuesday, October 15

30-minute morning walk with Hannah

13-minute walk with Hannah after work

13-minute walk with Hannah before bed

Wednesday, October 16

30-minute morning walk with Hannah

27-minute walk with Hannah before bed

So many walks in the dark these days!

Thursday, October 17

29-minute morning walk with Hannah

23-minute walk with Hannah before bed

She had to get a new LED collar because her pink one gave out after years of service. This new one can be red, green, or blue. We're trying red this week and will do other colors in upcoming weeks.

Friday, October 18

37-minute morning walk with Hannah

28-minute walk with Hannah before bed

There was a haunted hike at our local park on Friday and Saturday nights, so some of the decorations were left up on Saturday. Hannah was not impressed. 

Saturday, October 19

37-minute morning walk with Hannah - I had gotten my COVID booster on Friday after work and right after this walk I collapsed on the couch where I stayed all day with a fever and muscle aches, so Hannah was Dr. BB's charge for the rest of the day

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Has anyone been to a haunted house/hike this year? Are you planning to? Have you had any creepy morning fog situations that seem to fit the spirit of the season?

Five for Friday, Edition #10

1) Pet update - The woes of my dear girls continue.

Originally, Zelda couldn't get in for the frightening sounding radioactive iodine treatment until January, so we were trying to figure out what we can do in the meantime to help her out. We had about a week's worth of the medicine that was donated to us left and had to order some more. Meanwhile, I purchased a scale whose main purpose is measuring the weight of human infants in order to monitor her weight. 

BUT THEN! They called and said they had a cancellation, so I took her in for her initial consult yesterday. If she's deemed an appropriate candidate, then she'll go in on October 28, which IS REALLLY SOON.

Hannah had her third round of anti-diarrhea medicine and *whomp whomp* it came right back. Now we're doing more blood tests. 

2) Make versus set the table

Because of Zelda's penchant for jumping on the table and my husband's penchant for having overly crazy rules re: food safety, our strategy is that we have placemats we use only for meals that live in a drawer on our dining room table. Before each meal, we take them out and place them on the table and then we put them back in the drawer at the end of each meal. Easy peasy.

It is easy. You know what's not easy? For me to figure out what to call this. I think the "correct" usage is "set the table." Hey, I'm plating dinner, can you set the table? That's right, I think. BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I SAY. I say "make the table." Can you make the table? Because you MAKE A BED and my brain does not understand that these are two separate idioms. 

3) In the mail 

I have been woefully remiss in not acknowledging all the dear people who are sending me snail mail! My husband recently observed that I get more snail mail than anyone else he knows. I love it all. If you've sent me something recently, please know I love it and I've taken it to my office to hang up with all my other postcards. (Allison, the wax seal sort of worked. It was still sealed shut, but any decorative bit did not make it through international travel.)

4) NaBloPoMo

I'm quite excited about NaBloPoMo next month, although I have to admit to starting to stockpile ideas from Bloglandia. If anyone asks a question or makes a fun post idea, I have started writing it down because while I do write most weekdays, I feel the additional weekend posts may be a real struggle for me this year. ALSO! Commenting! When will I have time to comment?  I'll have to figure it out. 

5) Work joys

Last Friday a lady called me from North Carolina. She tells me that she's 78-years-old and she went to my school in the 1960s and she never graduated. She wants to finish her degree. Ha ha ha. I email the registrar's office for her transcript and take a look - transcripts from the 60s are wild - and sat down to figure out a plan for her to graduate. What a fun part of my job!

I met with a student (first year who brought it like 30 credits of AP/dual enrollment/whatever else) and I created a path for her to graduate with a graduation date of May 2027. She was so excited and - I swear this is a direct quote - said "it makes graduating seem so real." I was excited by her excitement, although the niggling voice in the back of my head was saying "those fifteen credits you're taking right now didn't make it real?" Let's ignore that back of my head voice. 

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Who else is doing NaBloPoMo? What's a recent joy in your life? 

You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir by Felicia Day

Do you think I read another book to try to fulfill my Pop Sugar Reading Challenge? I DID!! You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day is my attempt to read a book that centers on video games. I tried really hard to read a fiction book for this, but it just didn't work.  Here's where I landed.

Do you know Felicia Day? I really only know her because she starred in a weird Joss Whedon project called Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Day is a multi-talented actress, gamer, and business lady. And in this memoir she talks about her life and how she got to where she was when this was published in 2015.

As someone who reads blogs, this felt like reading an extended blog post. She peppered her book with memes, photos, and random two by two tables. It was funny and I liked reading about how her relationship with her brother centered around videogames. I just thought it was missing something. I don't know what that something is - maybe a message? a bit of truth I can apply to my own non-gamer, non-business lady life? fewer insults aimed at physically and mentally disabled people? 

I had a friend in grad school who had a bookshelf above her desk at home. On one side of the bookshelf, she kept books that were her holy grails from authors and researchers she deeply admired, works she aspired toward. On the other side of the shelf she kept books that were a different sort of inspiration - the books that she didn't understand how they made it through the publishing process, but gave her hope that she could one day be published because her work was definitely better. AND FRIENDS! She is a published author! She's brilliant.

I am not saying this memoir is a book where I not sure how it made it through the publishing process. It's a funny book and she's a well-known person in certain circles. But I am saying that reading an entire book that was written like a blog made me think that maybe I could someday write something longer than a five hundred word blog post about my dog's health conditions. And I'm glad I read this book for that reason alone. 

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

My favorite movie is Babe, and if you even hum the theme song to it, I WILL start crying. One time I was introduced to James Cromwell, who played a gruff farmer in the movie, and I burst into tears when I touched his hand. Because it was so big and warm and he DANCED FOR HIS PIG. (page 35)

My favorite movie is Babe, too. Felicia Day and I are twins!

We arrived at Camouflage’s house after a few days (for a real name, let’s call him Tyler. Which was hard to remember in person anyway, to NOT call him Camouflage). (page 49)

This is real. I know Birchie's real name isn't Birchie, but it was hard not to call her by her handle when I met her IRL. 

My favorite was about a boy and girl arguing in a car about the morality of peeing in a McDonald’s without buying anything. (page 131)

Discuss in the comments. I have a strong feeling about this. 

A lot of people mock fandom and fan fiction, like it’s lazy to base your own creativity and passion on someone else’s work. But some of us need a stepping-stone to start. What’s wrong with finding joy in making something, regardless of the inspiration? If you feel the impulse, go ahead and write that Battlestar Galactica/Archie mashup fiction! Someone online will enjoy it. (Especially if Archie gets ripped apart by Cylons.) (page 210)

Preach it, Felicia. Preach it. 

What frightened me the most about my #GamerGate experience was the possibility that this could be the future of the internet. That the utopia I thought the online world created, where people don’t have to be ashamed of what they love and could connect with each other regardless of what they looked like, was really a place where people could steep themselves in their own worldview until they became willfully blind to everyone else’s. I guess the internet can be both things. Good and bad. (page 249)

The internet can be a harsh place. I am grateful for our little bloggy circle every day. 

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

Revealing that at rehearsal one day was quite the hat trick. (page 84)

...an outfit with a huge hat and sunglasses like Audrey Hepburn in a spy thriller. (page 163)

Half the time I put my “producer hat” on, I felt like I was playing dress-up. (page 165)

There were complications, of course, like when I discovered that most of the cast had never played a video game before, but I just put on the hat of “gamer consultant” (in addition to lead actress, show runner, and co-caterer) and plowed ahead. (page 167)

2024 Q4 Goals

If you've been following this blog for long, you know that I like to set annual goals and then I do quarterly check-ins. You can see Q1,  Q2, and Q3 results. Here are my Q4 goals. Many of these are the same as previous quarters, but some are new. 

Area 1: Professional
1. Do a networking event on campus at least once a month 
2. Maintain fifteen or fewer emails in my work inbox 
3. Take off one mental health day for myself as a do nothing day during the quarter
4. Do at least one "professional development" activity a month - a webinar, lecture, etc. - this might be hard in December, but let's just go with it

Area II: Pets

1. Continue to track the number of times I walk Hannah, as well as the length of the walks

2. Grooming of some sort for Hannah every week (bath, nails, etc.)

3. Weigh Zelda at least once every two weeks to keep an eye on her weight

4. Do the prep work for Zelda to be ready for her big treatment in January

Too much cuteness.

Area III: Health

1. Formal exercise of at least 30 minutes or more on 80% of days 

2. Meditate at least three days a week 

3. Go outside for at least 24 minutes a day 

Area IV: Reading

1. Read at least one non-fiction book a month

2. Read at least one book I already own this quarter

3. Keep my reading spreadsheet up to date

4. Read at least one book every month to complete the top fantasy books by women authors list 

I'd like to read all three of these books this quarter. Can I do it?

Area V: Fun stuff

1. Hem my husband's pants

2. Go out of Wisconsin at least once (trips to Michigan and Iowa don't count unless I don't see family)

3. Track number of pieces of snail mail sent

4. Do at least one thing outside of my work, household, grocery store, or public library every week

5. Continue tracking expenses

Q4 Fun Stuff

6. Not necessarily "fun," but work on increasing the percentage I'm putting into savings.

7. I have three photos from my mom's house that I'd like to deal with - originally I had "get framed and displayed," but I honestly don't know if I want to do that for complicated personal reasons - I guess I just want to make a decision about this and then act on that decision even if the decision is "put the photos in a photo album"

8. Send mail to two people at least once a month outside of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas cards.

9. Go to a new-to-me museum

10. Go tot a new-to-me fitness class. This is a bit of a stretch goal for me because I'll probably have to leave my town to do this, but let's give it a shot. 

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Do you have a fun quarterly goal for this last quarter of 2024?

Zazen by Vanessa Veselka

FYI: Zazen is zen meditation, usually performed in the lotus position. It's preferred you do this meditation facing the wall.

I read Zazen by Vanessa Veselka for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge for a book with a one-word title you had to look up in a dictionary. I didn't know what zazen was and I had never heard of Veselka, so I learned two things for the price of one. This is Veselka's debut novel.

Regardless of whatever I say from here on out, I want you to know that I think this cover is amazing. The photo. The author's name in the tiniest font. The title design. I just can't stop thinking about it and what it means.

Della has a doctorate, but is working in a restaurant as her country falls further and further into civil war. Bombs are going off; revolutionaries, including her own parents, are fighting the government; and no future is certain. Soon Della is involved in a terroristic plot she never intended to be the leader of.

This book is...probably too smart for me? Five-star reviews call it a biting satire, an unflinching coming of age novel in a tumultuous time, an unusual and important voice. Maybe it is all those things, but to me it felt like a muddied message. Are we supposed to agree with terrorists? Think the government is one big conspiracy that's out to get us? And what of Della? She can't use her education for anything better and more useful to society than perpetuating violence?

This was published in 2011 and I don't think it's aged well. It seems to promote political violence and in light of assassination attempts and an attempted coup of the US government, I cannot get behind it. But, again, maybe I am missing the point. 

But that cover, right?

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

That's the problem with symbolic gestures. People never take them far enough. They don't see them as a system. They blow up something right in front of them, like the bathroom of the New Land Trust building, and then caper around like monkey. They might as well throw bananas at it. (page 111-112)

Jules reminded me of Credence, so convinced he was smarter than everyone that whatever he said came out like he was teaching you how to tie your shoes. Watching that habit slip, I saw how similar he and I really were. Only I had stopped trying to communicate with anyone at all, patronizingly or otherwise. My attitude was fuck you and your myopic mental laziness, tie your own fucking shoes. Under examination it wasn't a more enlightened stance. (page 193)

Things I looked up:

laccolith (page 37) - a dome-shaped intrusive rock formed by magma pushing apart the host rock strata

Lagerstätte (page 111) - Sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

In her hand she had a plastic firefighter's hat. (page 10)

She swung up onto the back of the truck, put her fireman's hat on and smiled back at us...(page 10)

The cumulative weight of a dense culture mesh that prevents us from understanding whether the foundational problem is really race, class or gender? A hat?

Me: A hat.

Mr. Tofu Scramble: Well, it does kind of look like a hat. (page 21)

IN AN ANCIENT LAND...(Women in cowry shell hats enjoying re-colonization on green) BEAUTY IS ETERNAL...(page 55)

October Weekend Fun

It was a bit of a crazy weekend for me and since I rarely do anything more exciting than walk my dog counterclockwise around the block, I am going to document it here.

On Saturday, I met up with Anne at a little store that sells locally-made art. They also do classes and have a time when you can glaze pre-made ceramics and then come back a few weeks later after the ceramics have been through the kiln. So in spirit of Anne and NGS doing arts and crafts projects we are definitely not talented enough to do (I shouldn't speak for Anne - I am DEFINITELY not talented enough), we painted some stuff. When we get them back from the kiln, I'll show everyone a before and after photo. CLIFFHANGER.

Actually, it is sort of a cliffhanger even for the two of us because the colors we painted things did not look anything like the colors presented on the sample color sheet, so who knows? 

(Also, a woman who volunteers at the community center was working at this place. I said hello, briefly introduced her to Anne, and then forgot this encounter took place. This is FORESHADOWING for later that evening.)

BUT! Because I am who I am, I also purchased a bunch of postcards and greeting cards.

Right now is peak greeting card season for me. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. They're all coming right in a row. But come January (February is Valentine's Day, March is St. Patrick's Day) and April, some of you might get some fun surprises in your mailboxes!! 

Then Anne and I ate lunch (I ate enough for five people, Anne took three bites and packed up the rest to take home), wrote out a few postcards, and we agreed we'd meet for coffee when we came to pick up our works of art. 

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I stopped at Walgreen's to buy body scrub and Halloween greeting cards for the niblings. 

I walked the dog; it rained.

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THEN! It was time for the big fundraiser at the community center. I did not splurge for a ticket to the event ($100 a person!), but one of the board members asked me if I would sit at her table, so I said yes. She has asked me to be at her table for the last several years, so I imagine I'm just her favorite person/the only not rich person she knows in town. Ha!

Anyway, there was a silent auction to start the event (I had a Moscow mule mocktail) and most of the baskets were way out of this lady's price range or were alcohol-related in nature, so I found myself putting down the minimum opening bid on a stack of greeting cards and stickers made by a local artist that had been donated by the lady who Anne and I had talked to at the art store earlier in the day. I felt pretty smug as I put my auction number on the sheet - I have now bid in the silent auction and SURELY SOMEONE ELSE WILL OUTBID ME. My fundraising duty is done.

(I did donate some money for the fund the need auction. I'm not a monster. The building is an old historical place and it needs about $100,000 in exterior work done. I raised my paddle and donated a tiny bit. I also bid on a piece of pottery in live auction, but my bid was pretty nearly tripled. I can't hang with these people.)

You know what happened, right? I won those cards.

Those animals on top are wearing HATS. HATS!!

My husband nearly murdered me when I walked in the door carrying MORE GREETING CARDS. 

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Sunday was less fun. I bathed the dog and did her nails. I laundered and vacuumed. I wrote blog posts and froze my toes off. I wore sandals and my heated vest when I walked the dog. I want you to just imagine for a second how disappointed my husband looked when he saw my dog-walking outfit.

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How was your weekend? Did you buy any greeting cards?