ИконописI started a post, shortly after the previous one, about plans being knocked sideways.  I didn’t post it because the resulting circumstances kept changing.

First, I wasn’t going to be able to take time off of school, because a new semester had started on me because of the term extension and backdated to the end of the old semester.  Then I didn’t have financial aid in order for the new semester (they changed something about how they handled aid years at WGU), so I couldn’t officially enroll in classes and commit to paying the tuition.  Then, the people who handle administrative withdrawals were breathing down my neck because I hadn’t enrolled in classes.

Today was the deadline.  My advisor called me, conferenced in various people over the course of things, and agreed that under the circumstances the best thing would be for me to go on a term break.  The plan now is for me to maintain contact, keep working on the final project though I can’t turn anything in while on break, and start back at the beginning of March.

When you knock something sideways enough times, sometimes it knocks you back to where you started, and then you can shake off and do what you were going to do anyway.

I think it’s pretty obvious that this blog has gone stale in the last several months.  Without going into all the gory details at once (though those parts which are interesting will no doubt come up as they become related to specific posts), I’ve been the statue a lot lately.  As in “some days you’re the pigeon…”  That statue.

So, I’m not just relaunching the blog.  I’m also relaunching myself.  That’s going to mean a lot of things; fixing some mistakes made in what was supposed to be my last semester of grad school, getting some non-volunteer work one way or another because bills aren’t waiting while I network and help people, getting organized, and that’s just what I can think of right off.

The idea is to, someday relatively soon, not be so lost.

иконописКартиниI used to be able to say “When I was your age, floppy disks were really floppy.”  If I said that now, lots of people would say, “What’s a floppy disk?”

Check out the Ballad of Melea and Wildflower, and feel free to yoink the tactics any time you leave the party.

I’m serializing one of my stories online and the first bit of it is up. If this goes well, I may put some more of my written work up. Please check it out and let me know if you’d like to see more.

Ah, mid-February. Spring is in the air (or not, it’s freaking cold here still), red and pink chocolate boxes are on the shelves, jewelry stores are running “if you really love her you’ll give us money” advertisements. In short, situation normal.

So, I’ve gone on rants about this before and no doubt I will again.  As I’ve said before, it’s still a dumb holiday.  However, I’m in a chair that leans back and have a kitten curled up purring on me right in front of my face right now, so it’s hard to rant through all this cuteness.  Therefore, I’ll keep it short and relatively sweet: Happy Being Nice To Your Significant Other Day, but, if you really need a holiday for that and you’re a jerk the other 364 days, you still suck.

When I’m being productive, I’m happy about that. When I’m not being productive over the course of a few days, I feel crummy about not being productive, which leads me to feel too crummy to want to get to work.

When you think about it, the universe is really ONE BIG MATH PROBLEM.

You’re lost in the woods. You’ve been walking for a couple hours. You can see a huge snowstorm blowing in, so you know you need to find shelter, and it needs to be someplace you can wait a while for the weather to get a little more survivable. At least a few days, but really, you have no idea.

You find a cabin, yay! This cabin has a kitchen. The kitchen is stocked and equipped just like your kitchen (note: this includes any pantry, just like your closet is part of your bedroom) at home…how happy are you about this?

Someone lost in the woods would, or at least should, be pretty happy to find my kitchen. Potatoes, onions, a few kinds of dried beans, a few kinds of canned veggies, some canned tomato products, dehydrated milk, condensed milk in the little cans, rice, tuna, everything to make bread or rolls or biscuits or probably pancakes, drink mixes (some including vitamin c…no scurvy this winter!), spaghetti, meat in the fridge, fruit in the freezer, cheese, eggs, yogurt, salsa, pickles…and I’m not even looking at my shelves right now, so I’m probably forgetting some things. If someone had to, they could wait out a few weeks of bad weather on what’s in my kitchen. If I had to, I could wait out a few weeks of no money on what’s in my kitchen.

How long would your kitchen keep someone nourished? If your new year’s resolutions or other goals include eating right or saving money, your kitchen should be bursting at the seams. Whether you’re counting calories or cash, eating out or nuking a one-off meal every night is too expensive. If you need convenience foods, get a slow cooker and let it do the work all day, or bake up a big casserole one day and nuke up servings of it all week.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: fill your kitchen with food that adds up to actual meals, isn’t superturboprocessed (canned is fine, a few box dinners are fine, just minimize the chem lab), ideally could be thrown together in different ways, and–here’s the big one–that you would put in your mouth. Make your kitchen one you’d be happy to find in a snowstorm.