Hallelujah, The Semester is Over

Grades for ISU are due today by 2:15pm and I had them done yesterday.   I had to submit DMACC grades yesterday so I made myself sit down and do the math for my ISU classes too.   I weight my grades for education-prep courses and the math is tedious.   I'm surprised I haven't heard from some students yet because the weighting process actually dropped their grade.   I'm sure they'll contact me after grades are officially released.    My advice to them...don't suck on the major assignments in class.

I'm basically off work now until January 3-4 but I do have tasks to work on so I'm not slammed with work at the start of the year.    I need to update some items for my graduate students, do some class prep for both ISU and DMACC, etc.   I'm just happy to be able to do it from home or in Waukon.    The heat in my office and the south side of the building is off or running really low.    I don't know how my co-worker works here lately as she has no body fat.  

I ran a buttload of errands yesterday and should have divided them up better so some were done today.   I was wiped out by 5pm.    I ran to the pharmacy in Ankeny that sells the supplements I need for the rest of my life so I could by a different flavor of calcium supplement.   I've been using an orange flavor for a couple weeks and my chewable multivitamin is also orange flavored.   I needed a change.   Thankfully they had strawberry on hand.    Elvira desperately needed a car wash too.   I had so much salt on it.    Everything else pertained to running to stores to buy things.   I was able to pop into Hy-Vee and bug Gavin while he was working which is always fun.   He's working a lot of hours in the next week.

Gavin and I went to a movie this past weekend and saw "Office Christmas Party".    It was pretty funny but another one of those comedies that shows a lot of the good parts in the previews.   We've been rather lax with the Netflix movies but have watched a few in the past weeks/months.

• I recently watched "11:14" which is a collection of stories in one movie that all relate to each other and yes, everything seems to happen at 11:14pm.  I forgot how many popular actors were in the movie.   I also forgot how sexual and violent the movie was but it was decent.   I hadn't watched a movie with Patrick Swayze in a long time.
• I've had Saturday Night Live DVDS coming for awhile that feature the musical acts.   I focused on the music from the 90s.   A lot of the performances are the reasons I started buying certain CDs so it was neat to see the acts again.
• I can't remember if I mentioned "Ex Machina" in a past post.   It is about an employee that wins the opportunity to spend time at a CEO's home.    The CEO has designed artificial intelligence and wants the employee to interact with her to see if she can actually pass as human.    The ending is very good.    One of the best movies I've seen in awhile.  

Now that work has slowed down, I can read for pleasure again.   I dove into "The Giver" last night and am already halfway through the book.   I'm not sure if I'll read a book for work next or if I'll read the next Harry Potter book.   The book related to work is about teaching sex education.   Woo!

I need to send out more Christmas cards too.   I shortened my list further for this year.  I have friends from high school that no longer send me a card so they get the boot.   It still balances out as I've added more people from work.     I'm slowing wrapping presents too.  Need to take advantage of Gavin being at school.   He's pretty oblivious though.   I've wrapped gifts for him with him in the apartment and living room.   Ha.    I had something made for Dan and I'm hoping he likes it.   It turned out better than I expected and it allowed me to shop local.   

Final thing to share---I start InvisAlign in January.   I had my final meeting about the process today and the order has been placed.    Thank you ISU for great medical and dental insurance.   I'll shrink some more in 2017 and fix my crooked front teeth!

Wishing Final's Week was Over

Greetings:

Day One of Final's Week is over.   Four more days to go.   I gave my only in-person exam today for my PE class.   All of my other exams are online which is handy.    I still have unit plans to grade for my health studies classes.   45 for one section and 12 for the other.   I'm diving into those tomorrow and Wednesday.   

After DMACC tonight, I decided to NOT grade for once and just do somethings around the house.  I got a few Christmas presents wrapped.  I thought I'd wrap more than I did but I immediately ran out of tape and lost motivation pretty quickly.  I chose to subscribe to Sirius radio in my Escape.   My free access ends in January.   Merry Christmas to me.   I'm also trying to make arrangements to start making car payments online since that fun part of life needs to restart again.  

The past weekend was decent.   I spent all of Saturday grading and it was very productive.   Sunday started off a little rough because I thought I had a plan but there was uncertainty with Dan joining me or the time he would be joining me.    Plus his ex wasn't on schedule with dropping off Jude and Dan needed to get him to his Grandma's.    I was quite irritated by noon.   Things worked out eventually and we were only a little late to the women's basketball game.   We killed time at my office after the game and before my work Christmas party.   It was actually a really fun party.   It was at the chairperson's house so it was casual.   I did well with the food choices.   I brought a crockpot of turkey meatballs in my usual BBQ + grape jelly sauce.    My coworker brought Jell-O too.    It was fairly easy to say "no" to the other goodies because I got fully easily on the foods I could eat.  

Dan participated in his first White Elephant gift exchange at the party.    I had my first gift taken from me but ended up with Halloween-like items for my office.    One is a pencil and paper-clip holder and I got a weird 'crazyhead' pencil.   Dan got a great gift that included expensive tea, a new coffee mug, and a small bottle of Korean wine.    I'll be drinking the wine in May or June when I can drink again.   It was a completely different experience having a 'date' with me.   It was nice to have someone with their arm around me, rubbing my back, etc.   Not entirely used to dating someone that is kosher with the public displays of affection.

I also made a cool realization on Sunday.   I decided to wear my zip-up ISU hoodie.     When I bought it a few years ago, I liked it but could never actually zip it up comfortably.   I gave it a go and it zipped up...with ease!    The number has stabilized on the scale which happened a little faster than I expected but I think I'm still losing inches/centimeters based on how my clothes fit.   I'm happy to not be giving myself blood thinner shots anymore and was able to start birth control again today.   It's still a pain to take meds since I cannot swallow them in their capsules.   I can start taking them normally the first week of January.   

I guess that's all I have for an update.   Hopefully my next entry will be boasting with completed grading tasks.  

Solid Food Never Tasted so Good!

I am currently waiting at the car dealership and should be grading but I did so for about the last hour.   I think I qualify for a break.   Plus it's difficult to concentrate in this environment.  

• Gavin and I got a Christmas tree this past weekend.    It is the first item I've ever bought on the Ankeny Buy and Sell portion of Facebook.   A family up by Madrid was selling it.   It worked out well to take the scenic route to Ames on Sunday to the women's basketball game and stopped at their home to get it.   It was technically free since Gavin and I drove to get it but I still gave them $20 since it was such a nice tree and it came with a storage bag.   Furthermore, it's not pre-lit!   Finding a used non pre-lit tree has been a challenge.   I looked to buy a new fake tree but the prices are outrageous.   We got it home and assembled and it's huge!    It's 7.5 feet and well built.   It took four sets of lights to cover it properly.   A neat side note about the process:   the neighbor's of the tree-giving people had zebras out to pasture.    Never knew that people could own zebras in Iowa.   I guess it's probably like owning horses.  

• I am now able to eat more foods.   I can eat poultry and fish.  The pouches of tuna have been wonderful.   If I eat chicken, I have to be sure it's very moist which is a bit different for me as  I like baking the hell out of chicken so it's a bit dry.    I'm going to throw some chicken breasts in the crock pot with extra broth and see if they are decent.   I can have yogurt now as long as it doesn't have added sugar or huge pieces of fruit in it.   Unsweetened applesauce is back on the diet too.    Hummus too!   I've been pretty happy eating eggs and cottage cheese too.   

• I have a meeting tomorrow with the surgeon.   They'll take our official post-surgery weight since swelling shouldn't be an issue anymore.    I've been weighing myself at home and you're not supposed to do it often.   But ya, I've been doing it everyday.   We'll get a new reading on our body composition too.   I had to cancel class tomorrow because of the meeting so I wasn't too happy about that.   I gave my students an online assignment to do instead.   

• I only have two more days of blood thinning shots left.   The process really hasn't been too bad.  You don't even feel the injection.   I thought it would be more difficult with my hatred of needles.   Taking my other two meds is still a bear in the morning.    I can take one med with a spoonful of sugar-free pudding but it still tastes like battery acid since it has to be dumped out of the capsule.   The other one is a little easier since I can dump the capsule in the back of my throat.   It doesn't taste bad unless I chomp down on one of the little beads of medicine.   In a couple more weeks I can just swallow the capsules like normal and I'll be adding B12 and iron supplements.   I need to make a chart for my bathroom and kitchen for my supplement regimen.    I'm going to make them all pretty so I can laminate them.   

• I found out in a previous meeting that it's common for some hair loss in the months after surgery and yup, I'm losing some hair.   I actually got a significant hair cut recently to prepare for the hair loss.   I had six inches cut off and I think it looks better in general.   I can notice though when I brush my hair and wash it, I have a lot more falling out.   By month six, it should cease because my body will be used to all the change and I should be getting plenty of protein by that point.    I've had people ask if I dyed  my hair because the hair cut took off most of my very blonde high lights.   My real hair color is very dark blonde/light brown so I do look a bit different.   

That's enough for now.   Back to the grind.