Hanging Out At Home
Mar. 16th, 2020 06:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pshaw_ravenI'm exhausted. I am not sleeping as much at night as I need to, and part of the problem is that while I get tired and get into bed at my usual clock time, I am not falling asleep like I used to, so I may need to go back on melatonin for a while until my body resets. Of course, the other beneficial thing to do would be to abolish the time changes, but you've already heard this rant from me. And if you ever followed me on LiveJournal, you've been hearing it for the last twenty years! Huzzah, have a cookie.
Today in Stress Baking, I am going to whip up some protein bars. I follow this formula from No Meat Athlete with the slight modification that I find them a bit dry and add a little more peanut butter and sometimes a shot of almond milk to loosen the mixture up. My personal flavor preference is for cocoa powder and almond extract, which gives them a sort of amaretto chocolate taste, but vanilla is perfectly tasty, too. Later this week I'm making my blackberry tart, and I found a recipe for blondies that calls for the addition of crystallized ginger candy, which sounds amazing.
I also missed my morning yoga for several days but I'm back to it. Normally my rule is "don't miss two in a row," but sometimes exceptions have to be made to every rule. I can tell that I did, though, when I do anything that flexes and puts weight on my shoulders, I can feel the left one complaining. Gentle complaining, but it's still there. Recently I was reading an article about gut mobility and running. If you think about the general body movement of running, you can see why it's beneficial to have internal organs that can shift and move without too much problem. People develop issues when trauma causes adhesions, though. I had always wondered what those were, and it explained that any tissue that endures trauma can develop adhesions through a chemical bonding process, and the result bond between tissues can be stronger even than scar tissue. So when the physical therapist told me that my repeated falls on that shoulder weren't the cause of my troubles, they were only partly right. While I didn't actually damage the joint, I apparently DID traumatize the shoulder enough that - you guessed it - adhesions formed. The shoulder has a shroud of tissue that stretches as it moves, and then folds up when it's at rest, and it is structured sort of like a pleated cheerleader's skirt. In my case, that's the thing that is damaged.
Normally today would be a day for running errands, but I'm probably not going anywhere. The schools are closed this week, and next week is their scheduled spring break, so I'm not going to pick up the neighbor's kids, either. Fox and I may venture out Friday just for looky-loos and to grab a few things at Walmart. In all my preparation, I neglected to check how much soy sauce we had. Can't survive an apocalypse without soy sauce.
I also ... may have bought some books. I've been very good about my personal "dumb shit" spending, but I blame stress. I picked up some used books through Amazon Marketplace, and found that there are a lot of Friends of the Library programs that use it, possibly as an alternative to on-site book sales. Anyway, I bought some volumes of 1960's era poster art and print advertising illustration, and a Dark Mountain anthology. I would love to get my grubby claws on Rian Hughes' books on lifestyle illustration and typography of the 50s and 60s but hot damn they're expensive. Anyway, all that will be landing on my doorstep this week.
I had this idea earlier about pet portraits or furry pieces. I've seen a lot of great pictures people are doing of animals in medieval or Renaissance costume, high fantasy outfits, etc. But what might be fun is to offer mid-century modern portraits. Mad Men-type suits and dresses, dirty hippies, mod British swingers, etc. Beehive hairdos, psychedelic color schemes, Pushpin Studios-style stuff. I dunno, maybe no one will really bite, but it would be fun to try.
Today in Stress Baking, I am going to whip up some protein bars. I follow this formula from No Meat Athlete with the slight modification that I find them a bit dry and add a little more peanut butter and sometimes a shot of almond milk to loosen the mixture up. My personal flavor preference is for cocoa powder and almond extract, which gives them a sort of amaretto chocolate taste, but vanilla is perfectly tasty, too. Later this week I'm making my blackberry tart, and I found a recipe for blondies that calls for the addition of crystallized ginger candy, which sounds amazing.
I also missed my morning yoga for several days but I'm back to it. Normally my rule is "don't miss two in a row," but sometimes exceptions have to be made to every rule. I can tell that I did, though, when I do anything that flexes and puts weight on my shoulders, I can feel the left one complaining. Gentle complaining, but it's still there. Recently I was reading an article about gut mobility and running. If you think about the general body movement of running, you can see why it's beneficial to have internal organs that can shift and move without too much problem. People develop issues when trauma causes adhesions, though. I had always wondered what those were, and it explained that any tissue that endures trauma can develop adhesions through a chemical bonding process, and the result bond between tissues can be stronger even than scar tissue. So when the physical therapist told me that my repeated falls on that shoulder weren't the cause of my troubles, they were only partly right. While I didn't actually damage the joint, I apparently DID traumatize the shoulder enough that - you guessed it - adhesions formed. The shoulder has a shroud of tissue that stretches as it moves, and then folds up when it's at rest, and it is structured sort of like a pleated cheerleader's skirt. In my case, that's the thing that is damaged.
Normally today would be a day for running errands, but I'm probably not going anywhere. The schools are closed this week, and next week is their scheduled spring break, so I'm not going to pick up the neighbor's kids, either. Fox and I may venture out Friday just for looky-loos and to grab a few things at Walmart. In all my preparation, I neglected to check how much soy sauce we had. Can't survive an apocalypse without soy sauce.
I also ... may have bought some books. I've been very good about my personal "dumb shit" spending, but I blame stress. I picked up some used books through Amazon Marketplace, and found that there are a lot of Friends of the Library programs that use it, possibly as an alternative to on-site book sales. Anyway, I bought some volumes of 1960's era poster art and print advertising illustration, and a Dark Mountain anthology. I would love to get my grubby claws on Rian Hughes' books on lifestyle illustration and typography of the 50s and 60s but hot damn they're expensive. Anyway, all that will be landing on my doorstep this week.
I had this idea earlier about pet portraits or furry pieces. I've seen a lot of great pictures people are doing of animals in medieval or Renaissance costume, high fantasy outfits, etc. But what might be fun is to offer mid-century modern portraits. Mad Men-type suits and dresses, dirty hippies, mod British swingers, etc. Beehive hairdos, psychedelic color schemes, Pushpin Studios-style stuff. I dunno, maybe no one will really bite, but it would be fun to try.
