2022 Goals + Meal Plan

 Whew!  A little late on the goals, right?  I'm trying to be more meaningful with things this year.  It's less stressful.

• FINALLY finish my Masters Degree.  Remember, everyone's journey is different and it's okay that it has taken longer than expected.
• Read 30 books.  Sounds like a decent goal and they are all going to be from my Unread Shelf Project stack.  These books are the ones in the bookshelf closest to my bed.
• Bedroom Remodel
• Pull up carpet and install nice flooring.  I haven't decided what I want just yet.
• Paint the walls.
• New lighting, cause what is in here is the worse and there aren't even light bulbs to replace the burnt out ones.  Like, I literally can't find them.
• New bed.
• Refinish wardrobe and bookshelf.
• Closet organizer system.
• Get rid of stuff.  I have too much.  I don't want it.
• Travel.  Hopefully, we will make it to Japan (crossing fingers).  I want to travel all through New Mexico.  I would like to go to Seattle for my graduation ceremony.
• Enjoy things.  If I don't enjoy the things, I won't do them.

That's all I've got.

Meal Plan for our week:

• Sunday:  Chicken Fried Steak, Potatoes and Garlic Bread
• Monday: Ham & Cheese Sliders
• Tuesday:  Chicken Tikka Masala, Jasmine Rice and Naan.
• Wednesday:  Fast Food - cause there is a lot planned for the night.
• Thursday:  Baked Chili & Cheese Hot Dogs with Tator Tots
• Friday:  Soup & Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
• Saturday: Tacos

Next week I only have two things planned: Hamburgers and Ziti Pasta.  Does anyone have any meal ideas to share?  

Hello, Monday! :: One

 Hello, Monday!  

Whew!  I woke up to the most unusual dream.  I had a dream that I was in a old house, but no longer lived there, and I look up to see my car being driven down the road at a high rate of speed.  I have a tracker on my car and the person drives to Wisconsin and I follow them.  I live in Kansas.  I'm not sure how I followed them since my car was being driven by a thief.  I had to look it up and it means (amongst other things) that it can be a sign of a conflict of interest.  I will lend that to agreeing to come to a meeting this evening for a group that has given me a bit of emotional drama and I don't want anything to do with them any longer.  I spent two years in leadership for the group and honestly, it was miserable.  I dedicated so much time and energy to making things run correctly and was treated like crap.  Okay, done with the heavy stuff.

It's a day off!  I made a list of things to get done and I've started checking items off.  

I finished my Cellular and Molecular Biology class.  I spent so much time studying for the final exam and I'm pleased with the results.  It doesn't give you the exact number of items you missed, but my guess is 1 on the cell cycle portion and 2-3 on the other two sections.  This is my last objective exam for the Masters program and I'm jumping for joy!

I am working on my Zoology class and set a deadline to be done with the tasks by the end of this week.  After that, I only have an Ecology class, Methods class and my Teacher Performance Assessment.  I will be done at the end of March, which is perfect.  My license renewal is in May.  And with this.....I get a 4k pay raise!  

I purchased and adorable mask.  An avacato.  I love it.  All the masks she makes are triple layered.

I did leave the house yesterday and someone plowed my street!  What!  I was shocked. I live off an easement, which is off an unmaintained city street.  I think my neighbor next door did it.  He moved out last Friday and they picked up the trailer full of stuff yesterday.  He hasn't even put his house up for sale or anything.  His girlfriend moved in a few months ago and they are expecting.  He told me a while back that he planned on moving, I just thought he would go through the normal processes of selling the house first, lol.  It is a small house and not made for a growing family.

This upcoming week is fairly busy.  What do you all have coming up?

Happy Saturday!

 Just like happy Friday, but a day later.

I am ecstatic for a three day weekend, aren't we all?  I'm not doing much because it snowed and I don't want to attempt to get my car up the hill at the moment.  I will wait until Sunday to deal with that.  Meanwhile, my backyard looks like Narnia.

It started last night when I was on my way home from Weston Wine Company, which is about a 40 minute drive (when there is no snow) from my house.  I think it took me about an hour last night.  It wasn't bad starting out, but as I got closer to home, the highways got slicker.

I went to a Tarot 101 class there and I learned so much.  Did you know Tarot started out as a card game for rich people in the 1500s??  There are directions somewhere on YouTube on how to play the card game.  I am going to look it up sometime.  The class was super interesting.  We got a deck of cards.  I am up to four Tarot decks now.  Weston Wine Company is also themed like Harry Potter at the moment, so I had to try some Butterbeer and a Butter Beer Sorting House cupcake.  Both were delicious.

The Card I pulled for today is very fitting, considering the weather and not wanting to go anywhere.  

Wednesday evening was our first team scrimmage!  It started off shaky, but ended up going well.  It was so much fun.  My toe stop broke though, I will need to order new ones.  I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get up without tumbling over.  Haha.

Thursday evening, we had a basketball game.  We lost.  This loss is weird though.  One player scored all the points except for 12.  We scored 38 from a variety of players.  We lost to the one player.  This happened last time we played them also. 

Some of my favorite things this week:

Native Deodorant.  It smells so good!

The cat shaming calendar on my desk at work:

And pictures of my baby animals:

Happy Wednesday!

 Half-way through the week!  Whew!  On the downward slope we are.  

On Wednesday, I tend to get home a little early as there is no basketball after school.  Basketball coaching is exhausting and I feel I don't know what I am doing half the time.  The girls are nice for the most part, but basketball isn't a priority for them.  I think for the game tomorrow, we might have 8 players.  I am grateful for that.  (we have 12 on our roster officially).   

I put some chicken with buffalo sauce in the instapot and I'm waiting for potatoes to cook.  I am going to make some shredded buffalo chicken potatoes.  I've never had them before, so I am hoping they turn out well.  

Since it was still daylight when I got home (I leave when it's dark and get home when it's dark), I was able to take all the trash to the curb for pickup.  I forgot last week and have had to clean stuff up multiple times because the creatures of the wild enjoy the trash a lot.  

I have practice tonight, we are doing a scrimmage, the first one as a team.  I'm excited.  On Monday night, we had pictures for the program.  A lot of people are missing, but it's all good.

I finally got my dream job of being a Life Science/Biology teacher.  It's  tough and I teach Freshman, but I love it.  I don't love all the parts, but I do love most of them.  This week, we are finishing up our big cells unit.  We did some Cell Cycle activities earlier this week and worked on Cell Regulation and Cancer today.  Out of all the sections, the one that has peaked the most interest has been the cancer portion.  It's probably more relative and they have heard/know more about it.  We are going to have a big test after the holiday.  They will have a day just for test review and to go over anything they want.  I have a fun online escape room for review.  I love Cells!  haha and they are so fun to teach.  One of the other science teachers went around and gave us big boxes of the Immune Max.  I'm not sure how well it worked since our Chem teacher was out today and I got to sub.  I enjoy that group of students though.  (And we get paid for subbing now!  Which is why I didn't mind as much this time)

I want to introduce everyone to my Tux.  He showed up in my backyard in June/July time last year (Ferret the feral showed up not too long afterwards).  I started feeding Tux because he looked so sad.  Like he was dumped or something.  I think he was.  It took about 3 weeks for him to warm up to me, so I could get him in a kennel to have him checked out.  When I took him in I found out he is a 16 pound, neutered cat with no microchip.  Obviously, I had to keep this boy.  (Don't worry, I posted first trying to find an owner).  I got him tested, vaccinated and microchipped.  He's my forever cat now.  He's the sweetest.  The other cats are fine with him.  They even cuddle.  It's the best.

How's your week going?

Hodgepodge Questions: January

 I saw this posted on another blog and wanted to take a swing at the questions.  Yes, I know, it's not Wednesday, I still wanted to participate though.

1. Share one happy moment/memory from the holiday season. 

Not having to work for two weeks and getting to stay home and relax.  That's my happy moment.  The entire two weeks.  I love being at home and with my fam.

2. Let's be reasonable with our expectations going into this new year, k? What is one thing you'd like to accomplish/improve/complete/do in 2022? 

Getting my Master's Degree in March.  FINALLY.

3. Every January 1st (since 1976) Lake Superior University has published a list of words they'd like to see banished from the Queen's English. Words may be banished due to misuse, overuse or just general uselessness (go here to read more about how the words are chosen). Here are the words/phrases they'd like to see banished in 2022-

wait, what?-no worries-at the end of the day-that being said-asking for a friend-circle back-deep dive-a new normal-you're on mute-supply chain

Which of these words/phrases do you use regularly? Which of these words would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word/phrase not on the list you'd like to add? 

I use Deep Dive because I like to deep dive and also watch/listen/read about deep dives.  I appreciate people's time and research with deep dives.  

I would like to see 'asking for a friend' go away.  It's so annoying.  Just ask for yourself, no one cares who you are asking for.

The others don't bother me as much.

I have nothing else to add.

4. Best thing you ate in the month of December? 

Hmmmm.......I'm not sure.  Maybe the Peanut Butter Balls.  Those are always a delicious December treat.

5. January 5th is National Bird Day. Are you a bird lover? What's your favorite bird to see in the wild? Choose a phrase from the list that follows and tell us how it relates to your life currently...eat like a bird, bird's eye view, early bird, bird-brained, free as a bird, a little bird told me, or kill two birds with one stone.

I love birds!  I watch them out of my bedroom window as that is where the wood are.  I have blue birds, red birds, black birds, brown birds, all the birds in the world.  Even in the winter.  My favorites to see are all of them.  I do enjoy a special viewing of a Oriole though.  

Early Bird seems to be my phrase since I am up SO early every day!

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Keep warm and stay safe everyone!

currently:: January

 Oh!  My favorite link up!  It's a fun one and I enjoy going though and reading others.

The prompts this month are: anticipating, organizing, reading, resolving and scheduling.

Anticipating:  We were all anticipating snow!  But it didn't happen, some people didn't get any in our area.  I got around a half an inch.  What we did get through is the cold.  That bitter, bitter cold.  So cold that I had 30 students missing between all my classes.  That's a lot!  It's almost a 1/3 of them.   I'm anticipating finish my Master's Degree in March (I wanted it to be February, but sigh, it's not going to happen).  I'm anticipating fun things in the future!  Not sure exactly the fun things, but fun things.

Here is a picture from New Years Day, when we did receive a bit of snow.  This is our feral cat, Ferret.  She has lived in our backyard/woods since July.  She's very health and happy.  

Organizing:  I'm trying to get my books organized.  I have about 100 that I am going to donate to Free Thought KC.  This is an organization that gives books to Juvenile and Adult offenders in the system.  I am going to be putting some in the Little Free Libraries in my area.  We have about 5 within 5 miles of my house.  I have my books separated for the Unread Shelf Project.  I have three stacks of 30 books each.  I am going to read the first 30, then move on to the next pile.   This is not all of my books.  It's just a way of organizing to get them read.

I made some delicious biscuits and gravy.  I have also been on a lemon scented candle kick.  They just smell so fresh and so clean.

Reading:  I finished 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard this week.  I enjoyed it.  The book took place in the recent past, like first COVID lockdown past.  It had many twists and turns for the two main characters.  It was a pretty quick read.

I started Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson.  I think someone sent me the British version.  Some of the places and court like stuff are British instead of United State-ish.  I am okay with that and I like the change.  I do have the third book in the series that I will be able to read and I put it in my first 30 pile.

A picture below of my study buddy.  I think this day we were studying Cellular and Molecular Biology.  Which I love and enjoy!

Resolving:  I didn't make any resolutions this year.  I am trying to write in my journal each day and at the very least write down what was happening in my life that day.

Scheduling:  Our roller derby schedule came out!  I am excited!  Each month, I am scheduling one or two fun things that I want to do.  I am trying to get yoga into my daily schedule, but the class I want to take is on Tuesdays and until mid-February, I have to coach Basketball games on Tuesdays.

What are you doing currently?

NYE: Murder Mystery Night

 New Year's Eve.  It was a pretty ordinary day.  I picked up some photos from CVS, ran to Party City to pick up a masquerade mask (because the dogs decided to eat the one I already had.), met Sue for lunch at Margarita's and went to a Murder Mystery Night.

The Weston Wine Co. (about 40 minutes from my house) hosts quite a few events.  I had attended the 1920s themed murder mystery night back in the summer.  I ended up being the murderer.  I was a famous actress and I offed a journalist who wanted to reveal way too much about me.  It was such a fun night.  Everyone dressed up and afterwards, we all had drinks down the street at the St. George Hotel bar.   

I ended up signing up for the NYE event.  My sister and brother in law were originally going, but my mom got exposed to COVID at work and was not able to watch my nieces.  I went by myself.   I enjoyed my wine tasting.  Got a sample of the hot spiced wine.  It was yummy, but strong.  I ordered one of their wines, the Genie in a Bottle, to enjoy during my time  there.  I got their cupcake sampler; gingerbread, eggnog and hot chocolate flavors.

This group was smaller than the first one I did.  It was supposed to be a masquerade/formal attire keeping with your character.  I was disappointed that about half the people didn't do the masquerade thing and one group showed up in jeans and leggings.  I am so glad everyone else was fancy though.  While we were supposed to be up discussing the clues, the non dressed up people were not staying in character and one of them didn't even get up to speak to anyone.  Like, how are we supposed to get that person's clues?!?  lol

My character was a paranormal investigator.  I got a dress that had ghosts and pumpkins on it.  I printed up some ghosts pictures and got all in character.  It was so much fun.  I'm sure they thought I was over the top, but aren't you supposed to be in a mystery night?  Too bad my sister wasn't there, we would have been all dramatic together.  

I had a fun time and the story was a good one!  I was surprised by the ending.  I will probably do another one later this year.

Have you ever attended a murder mystery?  How'd it turn out for you?