Two-Mile Day

So I've come to realize that if I want to lose weight, I'm going to have to both control my intake and up my exercise regime. I've been walking at a fast pace for 30 minutes a day, and maintaining my weight, but not losing any. Since my goal has been to lose about 20 pounds, that's just not going to be enough. Last Friday I started upping my exercise work to include running a mile and walking a mile. I'm going to keep up that goal every day this week, and then up it next week to running two miles and walking one. It's ridiculous that someone who has hiked as many miles as I have should be down to this, but it's the reality. Time to get serious about exercise.

Of course, my leprechaun name has something to do with underpants . . .

Your Leprechaun Name Is:

Plucky Greenknickers

What's Your Leprechaun Name?

Hawks

For the last couple of years, a pair of hawks have nested in our neighborhood, raised their little ones, and made our spring and summer fabulous. I love to stand outside and listen to their screeches, look for them swooping around the sky. The most beautiful sight imaginable.

Can't Write No Dissertation

This feels awfully familiar, though as if it were in someone else's long ago past . . . .but in case those of you out there writing your dissertations need some levity, here you go:


No Dissertation from ticoneva on Vimeo.

on the committee

WTF? I just got tenure, haven't even gotten the official letter yet, and I'm already on the T&P committee? I had no idea that would happen!

A Week in Review

I can't believe it's already been a week since I last blogged. It's been a week of just crossing things off my list, nothing really interesting.

This morning, on the other hand, was a landmark for Slogger. It was our first time walking to the coffee shop since his heart attack. I think he's been capable of walking that far for a couple of weeks now, but the cold weather gets to him more than it used to -- this morning it was in the 40s, although on our way back home the wind really picked up. Luckily it was at our backs.

I tried with the bread machine again yesterday, with the same results -- the dough rose and then fell like a rock. I'll keep experimenting and see what I can figure out, but my stock of hard, heavy bread (suitable for making my own seasoned bread crumbs!) is getting a bit on the huge side. What else can I do with homemade bread that is hard as a rock? Any ideas? I already used the bread crumbs to make turkey meatballs (this to go with my super-flavorful but salt-free marinara sauce).

I'm working on exercising every day, though this week was not the best for it. I'm still operating on my plan of giving myself non-food prizes for exercising at least 6 of the 7 days in the week -- needless to say, this week I get no prize. Oh, well. I plan to do better next week.

Evening Blogging

Slogger is already in bed -- he fades fast, as soon as afternoon wears into evening -- and I'm all up by my lonesome, so I thought I'd blog a bit. I spent today cooking and working on my summer online course. The last couple of times I've made bread in my bread machine it fell flat, so I did some reading on the subject and decided to start a little bread-making experiment. Basically, because I am at high altitude, the idea is that the yeast will rise faster and higher than the gluten can stretch, which will cause the whole structure to collapse. Recommendations include reducing the amount of yeast by 1/4 of a teaspoon, and reducing the amount of water by 1-2 teaspoons. I did both today (and kept a record) and found that the bread ended up a bit higher than last time, but still fell a bit. I know, I should have only changed one thing at a time. I did notice, as the dough was rising for the first time, that it was a bit stickier than I would have liked if I were making it by hand. Soooo...... I think the next time I make bread with the machine, I'll reduce the water a bit more, keep the yeast at the same amount, and/or perhaps increase the flour just a bit. I'm pretty sure I'll get it eventually.

The word "recommendation" there reminds me of the email I just got from a student who is student teaching currently. He had asked me to write a letter of recommendation for him, which I did and mailed to him. Apparently, though, I left in a "she" instead of a "he" in the last paragraph of the letter, which led him to ask this, in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way:

"Does my long hair make me seem more feminine to you?"

So, I'll be rewriting and remailing that one!

The registration for my summer online class is getting crazy -- that class is almost full, and I know there are still students out there who are just able to register on Monday. I hope I don't end up with a waiting list, as I'm not keen on having to grade jillions of papers all summer!

I can't think of anything else, really, so I'll close and head for bed with a glass of water and Harry Potter.

Received in this week's mail

Dear Dr. Bad Ass,

I am pleased to advise you that I am recommending to the President and the Board of Trustees that you be granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor, effective July 01, 2008.

Thank you for your contributions to the University of the High Plains. I look forward to working with you in the future.

Sincerely,

Associate Vice President

__________________________________________________________________

LET THE HAPPY DANCING BEGIN! THE NEXT ROUND OF DRINKS ARE ON ME!

Blog Haiku Meme

As seen at Brigindo's




Haiku2 for badassturtle
freecycle turns out the guy who's been taking all of you who have sent
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.cominsanejournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

TOO RIGHT!

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
Boston
North Central
The South
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Overheard...

... in a 7th grade English class:

Teacher: OK, does anyone know what satire is?
Student: Isn't that a guy with legs like a goat that plays a flute?
Teacher: (Laughing) No, that's a satyr, but I think we may be close . . .

Then till now

Thursday morning I had a lovely walk around the Big Easy. Blisters to prove it. It was warm, it was humid, it was breezy. Had a nice lunch, some beignets, a cafe ole, and took pictures of a statue of Andrew Jackson. Relaxed, easy, and pleasant. Got back to my hotel just in time to take a quick cab ride to the airport.

Thursday afternoon and night's flight back from the Big Easy was relatively simple, but the little commuter plane I took from Big Western City to High Plains City was delayed for about an hour. That put me well after bedtime getting home -- which was just as well, since Footslogger had gone to sleep early.

Friday morning I did make it into the office, got a bit of work done, and met with an advisee. This same advisee had stopped by the week before to make an appointment, and I noticed then the SSSTTTTTRRRRROOOOOONNNNNGGGGGG odor of pot hanging around him. I didn't say anything at the time, but decided I needed to, just for his own sake. So on Friday when he showed up, I mentioned that I had noticed a strong odor of pot hanging around him twice (because it was present again for our advising meeting).

"I don't know if you smoke pot or cigarettes, or live with someone who does. But you need to be aware that any run-ins you have with the law will have serious consequences for your student teaching placement, your possibility of eventually being certified to teach, and your progress through this teacher education program. I'm not judging you, but I think it is my responsibility to let you know about the consequences for this stuff."

"I know, I know," he said. "I'm a smoker. I'll be careful."

I add this experience to my response last week to the student who enrolled in my online class and then said he/she would have to miss two weeks of it, and would she/he be able to make it work? My response: "Missing two weeks of an 11-week class is a sure way to fail it."

Ooh, I'm getting ballsy here, folks. (said with sarcasm)

I also tried Friday to do the picture meme that's making its way around, but I got so frustrated with the formatting issues I was having that I just deleted the damn thing. I might give it another try tomorrow.

Conference Stuff

What's sad is that I had three glasses of wine over the course of several hours and I feel seriously tipsy.

Fantastic dinner on Bourbon Street. I'm thinking I might actually start attending this conference on a regular basis, cause I like the folks I met here.

But still, I'm looking forward to heading home tomorrow. After sleeping late, of course. It's a conference, after all!

Traveling Letters

Traveling Letter #1:

Dear Older Guy Eating a Sandwich in the Airport While Waiting for His Flight,

Really? At 10 Am you're eating a sandwich loaded with jalapenos and pickles? The smell alone is enough to turn my stomach, but dude. Please don't attempt to use the seat between us as a table, because a) your sandwich stinks and b) you never learned table manners and bits of food are flying around out of your mouth like they're being shot out of a cannon. That's right, I'm picking up my bags and moving away. 'Cause my mama taught me better.


Traveling Letter #2:

Dear Extremely Tall Young Man Sitting Beside Me on Our Flight,

I realize that your arms and legs are very long, and that you need somewhere to put your elbows while you peruse the newspaper. But dude, did God tell you that all armrests belong to you? 'Cause I'm pretty sure She told me that at least half of this one is mine!

Oh, yeah, and also? Slamming the door to the luggage compartment when your suitcase is sticking out of it into the aisle? Yeah, it'll break and a mechanic will have to come and fix it before the plan can leave, leaving you standing in the aisle and looking like a nincompoop. Oh, wait a minute -- sorry -- you already know that, don't ya?

All my best,

Dr. Bad Ass

Travel Guilt

Sitting in the High Plains City airport (free wireless!) feeling guilty about leaving Footslogger for a couple of days for a workshop in a big southern city. Send good thoughts his way, internets.

Weekend Bullets

I've been cooking like a crazy woman all weekend, which is always a fulfilling and exhausting experience. As I've been cooking, I've been doing lots of thinking about many different topics. Thus my weekend bullets:

• On Friday, I went for drinks with my dean and another colleague who was also up for tenure. It was a "congratulations" drink. So even though things are not official, the process is pretty much over for both me and my colleague. And we're in. Tenured. Movin' up to associate. Which leads me to think about how things will be different for me now. Mostly I just feel a big sense of relief that I don't have to put together a packet of materials every year.
  
• Cooking this weekend:
  
• Rye bread in the bread machine. For the second time, the bread I cooked in the bread machine rose and then fell, hard. Result -- a small, hard, solid loaf of bread. No worries. Slogger has decided he likes that hard, solid bread dipped in olive oil.
  
• Rye bread in the oven. Just to see if the yeast was good.
• Roasted chicken, which we ate for dinner last night.
• No-salt chicken broth, made with the bones of the roasted chicken. The recipe called for me to roast the bones for an hour before using them to make broth. Never done that, but it made loads of chicken broth, which I'll be using to make chicken and dumplings tomorrow -- plenty left over for later use.
• Minestrone. Yummy, veggie goodness.
• I had planned to use some leftover steamed sweet potatoes to make sweet potato biscuits, but I figured that between the various loaves of rye bread I've made, we're good on breads.
• I'm heading out of town on Tuesday for an important accreditation workshop, and I'm trying to get as much cooked up for when I'll be gone, so Slogger can take it easy and just reheat.
  
• We've upped Slogger's heart muscle meds recently, which leaves him with a bit lower blood pressure, feeling kind of "punky." But he just took his evening pressure (we take it twice a day, just keeping track of how he's reacting to his meds) and it was 105/69. Decent.
• Tomorrow I have a meeting that I'm going to skip. Is this because I have tenure? Because I want to spend as much time with Slogger as I can? Both, really.
• I talked to my friend, Miss Bliss, who has quit her job as a university type and is now very happily going to massage school. She's organizing a yoga/writing retreat in the mountains next fall, which I'm going to attend. I told her I know jack about yoga, but I'm looking forward to spending time with her and writing, and learning yoga is a bonus.
• I realized at the last moment that I hadn't prepared this coming week's minilecture for my online course. This necessitated a quick trip to the office and a hurried recording (yea, Camtasia!) of the minilecture. Glad I remembered that.
• Got rid of some super-spicy stuff on Freecycle. Turns out the guy who's been taking all of my spices, etc. was my buddy the post office clerk. Funny.
• I've watched more mens and womens NCAA basketball in the last week than I had in the previous 40-odd years of my life. Addicting.

That is all.

Experiment

I'm experimenting with feeding my blog to twitter. That sounds dirty, doesn't it.

The Great Salad Dressing Hunt

As a result of Footslogger's heart attack, I've been spending some quality time this week looking for low-sodium, low-fat alternatives to things like chili powder (did you know that the kind you buy at the grocery store has salt in it?), chicken broth (again, store-bought is LOADED with sodium, even the stuff that's advertised as low-sodium0, and salad dressing. This one looks like a great possibility. Plus, the creator of this recipe lives in the same town as Dr. Bad Ass' mom!

clipped from profbush.blogspot.com Joel’s Salad Dressing Number 1 Ingredients 2 ribs celery ¼ C raw ginger 2/3 C non-fat sour cream ½ C non-fat plain yogurt 1 clove garlic ¼ C rice vinegar Juice of one lemon 4 green onions (tops and all) ½ red bell pepper 1 peach ¼ t. dry mustard Onion powder to taste Fresh ground black pepper to taste Cayenne pepper to taste Add all ingredients to food processor and process until smooth. Refrigerate to allow flavors to blend and serve over fresh green salad. This recipe makes two cups and a 2 tablespoon serving has, 20.33 calories, 1.4 g protein, 4.06 g carbohydrates, .11 g fat, and 33.54 mg sodium.

Six Word Meme

Being tagged always makes me feel (even if for only a short time) like one of the "popular kids." As a former band dork, choir nerd, and drama freak, this is certainly a warm-and-fuzzy for me, though short lived. So thanks, Brigindo. I know you tagged me for an earlier meme, and I still have that on my to-do list (since it happened at the beginning of the hospital stay from hell).

Here are the instructions:

1. Write your own six word memoir

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like

3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere

4. Tag five more blogs with links

5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play

Here's my six-word memoir.

Show me a hoop. I'll jump.

















Now I turn to the tagging. So, I'm going to tag Kathryn and Paul, Weezy, Jen, Russian Violets, and anyone else who wants to play.

Bronchial Problems

Almost as soon as we arrived back home in High Plains City, my coughing (which had been rather subdued, but persistent while dealing with Footslogger's crisis) elevated itself to a much higher plane. So yesterday I took myself off to see my local nurse practitioner, get a prescription for some antibiotics and -- as an exciting bonus -- a bronchial inhaler. Yes, that's right. Bronchitis. Lovely. It seems that bronchitis will now be an annual event for me.

If anyone can give me advice on how to catch a cold and NOT have it turn into bronchitis, I would be happy to hear it.