Danielle Blog

Odds and ends

I haven’t blogged much lately except for my flowers posts and the exercising posts. I guess I feel that blog posts on the weekend will get lost behind the exercising post (although since that one is so short, I doubt it would get lost) and that posts on the weekday will get noticed more. But the weekday rolls around and when I get home from work, I simply want to (sometimes) exercise, eat supper, clean-up, and go read my latest book. And I have been reading some good books lately. I was given The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella and I decided that I really like her style of writing. So, for our 10 year anniversary when we went to Borders to buy books, I bought some of her Shopaholic paperbacks. I think I’m going to start one of those books when I finish this post. I’ve also read A Rose for the Crown by Anne Easter Smith. It was a historical novel set in the era of Richard III with the tiniest tinge of romance in it. It was quite good. It was fascinating because it was told from the point of view of a peasant girl who becomes a foster-daughter to a more well-to-do family and through her own spirit and talent in singing and playing the harp, gets noticed by a nobleman. I liked how it followed her rise and how her opinionated manner sometimes got her in trouble, but more often served her well.

But enough about books. You may wonder why I’m so tired when I get home from work. Well, we’ve had a summer student from Puerto Rico working with me. This is his first time ever really speaking English and he has only had 2 years of undergraduate education. So, he hasn’t been taught in school any of the background info that he needs to understand what we are studying. And the language barrier has been a real challenge. Initially, I had to repeat myself multiple times and in different ways, and it was truly exhausting. With time, he is comprehending more and I am repeating myself less and less. Thank goodness. Cause it was really wearing me out. The good thing is that he has collected some good data. Which has confirmed experiments that I’ve done. So, it has been useful to have that confirmation.

One other thing of note that has happened lately is that my parents-in-law and brother-in-law were here visiting last week. They were here to go fishing in their new boat. They caught a nice amount of fish one day that were cleaned up and cooked for supper.

That is one small-mouth bass at the top and 5 northern pike.

They all seemed to have a great time fishing. I decided not to go out on Saturday. I wasn’t ready to get up at 5:00 on my day off to go fishing. My mother-in-law and I slept in instead, had a leisurely breakfast, and went shopping. It was the preferable way to spend a Saturday, in my mind.

And in my final news, do you remember those orchids from a couple weeks ago? Well, they are STILL blooming! I can’t believe how long they have lasted. I’ve thought about cutting a daylily or two from outside to bring in the house where we can enjoy them more, but my one thin vase has been occupied with the orchids. I guess this means it is time to buy another vase.

Oh that’s right, I have one more piece of news. I figured out that if I eat ham too many days in a row, I end up with a migraine. This is sad, because I love having ham sandwiches for lunch, and I’m really not that fond of turkey sandwiches. I made the mistake this week of eating ham every day of the work-week and here I am, trying to get rid of a migraine. I guess I shouldn’t have been the guinea pig to test out my theory again, but part of me saw the pattern once but didn’t quite believe it and thought that maybe I’d be okay. bummer. In case you didn’t know, ham has nitrates in it (along with processed meats like bologna and hot dogs, oh and bacon – my absolute favorite meat) and nitrates are a common trigger for migraines. I’ve Known this fact for a long time, but I’ve never had trouble with eating ham occassionally so I thought I was unaffected by the nitrates in it. Well, now that I take my lunch every day I’ve discovered this thing about me and ham. *sigh* tooo sad. I guess I’ll have to go back to turkey. And hopefully something else that I can eat to mix up what I eat every day for lunch. I get tired of the same thing, but the lunch choices around where I work are not so stellar, so I need things that I can take in to work. My head IS better now. It is slowly getting back to normal.

I hope all is well with you, my lurkers and my commenters. Until next time.
-D