Allergies, Foodstuff, Sculpture

Allergies

I've been feeling like a spaced-out zombie. I thought it was the effects of more no-sleep or even PMS, but today Dave came home and remarked on the smell of the Christmas wreath that's still on the door. I told him that I didn't want to get too close because it's got juniper on it, which I'm allergic to. He said he could smell it from where he was standing and that made me realize that my nose isn't working right. It's allergies. I'm a histamine-laden zombie.

It's only going to get worse as we go on into spring.

Yes, it's February, but it's been in the 60s all week and likely to climb to 70 this weekend. We'll have one more snowstorm around April 1st--we always do--but otherwise it's spring. Spring means allergies and misery.

Foodstuff


Friday night I was going to put together some kind of dinner from the odds and ends in the fridge, leftovers and such, but in the end I decided that I wanted a hamburger. While Dave went out to fetch one for me, I made him a sandwich (the burger place near the house doesn't have a vegetarian option). He brought back my burger and an order each of fries and onion rings for us to share.

We had a big shopping trip last Monday, but already the veggies are down to the last bits. (We've been eating a lot of vegetables around here lately!) Now that we're not eating out three nights a week and Dave is taking a homemade lunch everyday, we run through groceries pretty quickly.

Last night we had Thai vegan for dinner then stopped at Whole Foods for a few things (strawberries, blueberries, bananas, yogurt, some fake meat products, soy-nut butter, ) to get us through the weekend. We didn't load up because the co-op that we belong to has a members-only discount shopping coupon this month. We get about a one-time 30% off our bill, so in addition to our regular grocery shopping, we are making a list of things that we need to stock up on (coffee, pasta, canned goods, and so on) and on expensive things that we need rarely (like the $60 filter for our water filtering device).  We'll have one great big shopping trip either today or tomorrow.

I got up this morning, took my meds and waited the requisite hour to have breakfast. Breakfast was the last couple of forkfuls of the garbanzo bean salad I made day before yesterday, a banana with soy-nut butter, and some yogurt mixed with strawberries and blueberries. Then I had two cups of coffee. I don't like having to wait an hour after taking my meds to eat breakfast as I've gotten used to eating something right after waking up. When I have to wait, I tend to get a little too hungry and then I overeat, as I did this morning. That's hard for me to turn off my appetite.

Sculpture

I finished the fox woman last night, adding paws in gloves to go with the corset. One arm was too long when I was done, so I ended up having to perform a bit of last-minute surgery to shorten it. Part of the reason that the dimensions were fucked up was because everyone was sitting around me chatting while I worked and I was distracted.  (I try hard not to be a bitch about those things, but it can be frustrating.) Anyway, it's done--the building part of it anyway.

I had let it sit for so long waiting to finish it that it was starting to get little spots of white mold all over it. I brushed some of it off and started to put a coat of underglaze on. I didn't get very far, but I wrapped it all up again and will let it sit for a long time under plastic to equalize the moisture throughout so it doesn't crack while it's drying.

I would like to finish up the other things I've been working on and then fire a kiln. The only problem being that the drying process takes so long. It's been a couple of months since I fired a kiln of my own stuff and, with the rate I build, it may be at least a month more before I get a kiln fired.