1st time druid Plazmotic: Come As You Are

[Plazmotic]

(OH HAI, decided to give the Druids guild a shot... I keep talking about living my fullest life and such, after all. Where better place to embrace it?)

 

In commemoration of the fact that Marvel owns my soul, I present to you… a Defenders themed challenge!

 

1. Hell In The Kitchen (Nutrition) – I’m going to set a goal to make one home cooked meal a week that’s either new or healthy, maybe even both.

WEEK #1 – Mango cake – COMPLETE!

WEEK#2 – Channa masala – COMPLETE!

WEEK#3 – Stuffed pepper skillet - COMPLETE!

WEEK#4 – Italian sausage rotini - COMPLETE!

 

2. The Disciplined Monk (Exercise) – I’ve been talking about visiting the local OCR place for over a month and never have, time to just do it. Even if I end up fleeing in terror after I’ve checked the place out, it’s taking action that matters. COMPLETED!

 

3. Harlem’s Melody (Creativity) – Going to get into the groove/vibe of scrapbooking and also reinstate my writing nights.

                Scrapbooking – finish all incomplete pages by the end of the challenge - 1/4 pages complete!

                Writing Nights (Tuesdays & Thursdays) = 6/8

 

4. Whiskey Noir (Social) – I have 4 good friends I’ve been meaning to catch up with but haven’t, goal is to see each of them over the course of the challenge.

                WEEK #1 – Text convo with K!

                WEEK #2 – Texting with A!

                WEEK #3 – Tentative plans with M!

                WEEK #4 – TBD

[Sylvaa]

 

I will be singing through your thread.

[Severine]

I'm with @Sylvaa...I came in here humming that song and half expecting a grunge theme  

 

Your goals look awesome and well rounded. Also chana masala is delicious, so if the recipe works out,  please share!

[Plazmotic]

15 hours ago, Severine said:

Also chana masala is delicious, so if the recipe works out,  please share!

I’ve made this particular recipe before (it’s my mom’s aka YES DELICIOUS) and it was a little watery the first time around, hoping I can tweak it a little for my own tastes.

[Vibrantella]

Great challenge, I love the creativity goal!   Good luck!

[elinox]

Is chana masala an Indian dish? It sounds like it, which means it will be delicious! Good goals, good luck!

[Plazmotic]

46 minutes ago, elinox said:

Is chana masala an Indian dish?

Yup, it's chick peas with tomato pureé and spices, eaten either with naan or rice.

[Plazmotic]

Week #0 Update

 

Met up with a friend last night! She is one of my BFFs and we’ve been meaning to meet up for almost a month now. Our evening together composed of devouring KFC’s Tuesday Special (whoops, bad, but we were both PMSing and craving fried deliciousness), shoe shopping, and dishing about life. This is a friend of mine who has always been the new age type (she believes in naturopathy, shamanism, chakras, etc.) but she gets more intense the longer I know her, LOL. I am sort of the opposite of her in that way (science, logic, etc.), it’s interesting to be friends with someone who is an granola kombucha hippie.

[Severine]

3 hours ago, Plazmotic said:

I’ve made this particular recipe before (it’s my mom’s aka YES DELICIOUS) and it was a little watery the first time around, hoping I can tweak it a little for my own tastes.

 

Mmm good luck with tweaking. I learned a decent amount about Indian cooking from mothers of a lot of my friends while growing up but no matter how hard I try my results never taste quite as good as theirs did. Thankfully we've got access to all of the ingredients (we live within walking distance of two really great Indian grocery stores, one of which has a mini food court in the basement with a place that makes dosas that blow my mind) so I just need to keep trying.

 

49 minutes ago, Plazmotic said:

Week #0 Update

Met up with a friend last night! She is one of my BFFs and we’ve been meaning to meet up for almost a month now. Our evening together composed of devouring KFC’s Tuesday Special (whoops, bad, but we were both PMSing and craving fried deliciousness), shoe shopping, and dishing about life. This is a friend of mine who has always been the new age type (she believes in naturopathy, shamanism, chakras, etc.) but she gets more intense the longer I know her, LOL. I am sort of the opposite of her in that way (science, logic, etc.), it’s interesting to be friends with someone who is an granola kombucha hippie.

 

So glad you got time with your friend!! I normally hate shopping but sometimes it's really fun to replicate high school hangouts: unhealthy food, gushing about whatever is going on in life, and browsing for cute shirts or whatever. I did that a few months ago with my high school friend, who was in Boston for a postdoc, before she moved back to Canada to take a position at Brock: we ate delicious greasy Korean food and spent hours and hours talking about everything from sex to careers to dreams to whatever was stressing us out. So cathartic. I'm sad she had to move.

 

The new age thing made me laugh because it's like that between me and my mother. She was super into new age stuff all throughout my childhood (crystal healing, naturopathy, reiki, totem animals, etc.) and I was all about logic and science and rationality and I did a fair bit of eye-rolling about what I perceived as her falling prey to obvious nonsense due to gullibility. She's since mellowed a little and I've become less judgmental thankfully so we get along better about it...but I still just shake my head sometimes.

 

I do have some friends here in Boston who lean new-age, and it's funny but I find it doesn't rile me when they talk about it the same way it does when my mum does it. Family is a funny thing.

 

[Wobbegong]

9 minutes ago, Severine said:

Family is a funny thing.

LOL! It sure is. I grew up kind of being openminded/ultra-naive and willing to try anything and give credit to everyone, while my mom was the intense sciencey modern medicine type. I had a close friend in middle and high school and his parents ran a homeopathic pharmacy, and every time the subject came up my mom would just go dead silent a la "I have nothing nice to say so I will say nothing... but my silence will speak for me. LOUDLY." 

 

Then one day out of nowhere I was the one deriding homeopathy and she was the one telling me not to be so harsh, that she has friends who claim it works wonders for them. (Uhh... placebo effect, anyone?) I almost accused her of having been abducted by aliens and replaced while I wasn't looking. 

[NeverThatBored]

Mmmm, both of your recipes listed so far sound great! Please share if they turn out delicious.  

 

I am SO EXCITED for The Defenders. SO EXCITED.

 

Also, OCR place??? That sounds amazing!!

[Plazmotic]

31 minutes ago, NeverThatBored said:

Also, OCR place??? That sounds amazing!!

Yeah, there’s this new fitness facility near my house that’s called like Heroes In Training or something, nerdy like NF is! They have a full obstacle course inside! I keep wanting to go there and try out some classes but that requires Talking To Strangers Who May Think They're Cooler Than Me, so I’ve been putting it off.

[Severine]

4 minutes ago, Plazmotic said:

Yeah, there’s this new fitness facility near my house that’s called like Heroes In Training or something, nerdy like NF is! They have a full obstacle course inside! I keep wanting to go there and try out some classes but that requires Talking To Strangers Who May Think They're Cooler Than Me, so I’ve been putting it off.

 

That sounds amazing!! Why do I not have one of those near me??

[Sunmage]

On 8.8.2017 at 10:23 PM, Severine said:

I'm with @Sylvaa...I came in here humming that song and half expecting a grunge theme  

 

Planting this song into so many druids heads is a huge deed whose weight can only be lifted by:

 

Food porn!

 

Welcome to the Druids and enjoy your time with us

And don't forget food pics

[Plazmotic]

August 12-13 Results

 

WELL. The challenge has begun with a very rough start.

 

On Saturday I got my time of the month AND developed a nasty cold. I was mostly okay, managed to accompany my husband shopping for some new work clothes, then visited my in-laws for dinner. Didn’t sleep very well that night, woke up at 3am unable to breathe because of nasal congestion.

 

Sunday I felt waaaay worse thanks to the cold. Taking Tylenol cold & sinus made me feel dizzy and weak. So I stopped taking medication and felt feverish and achy instead. :| Despite feeling like a box of death, I managed to get outside and weed the garden in the evening. No luck with baking the mango cake as planned, but hopefully tonight I can make it happen!

[Severine]

Boo! So sorry to hear you're sick. I always resent summer colds more because it seems so incongruous.

 

Feel better soon!

[J3NN]

 

On 8/9/2017 at 9:38 AM, Plazmotic said:

but that requires Talking To Strangers Who May Think They're Cooler Than Me, so I’ve been putting it off.

Hiya! So I'm with you on that, but I have to share a story. Last Friday night, as part of GISHWHES, I donned a jedi robe, gathered with four other friends dressed in Star Wars costumes and a few other friends, and we participated in our very own Kessel Run foot race... in the food court at a local mall. Here's the photographic proof just so you can trust me.

 

The strangers at the OCR thing are probably pretty nerdy and will be way more approachable than you think. At least that's what I'd tell myself. If a crowd of non-nerdy people embraced us as we nerded out on them, I'm sure people with similar interests to you won't be THAT bad.

[Severine]

That's awesome @J3NN!

[Plazmotic]

Summer cold continues unabated. And to add injury to insult illness, last night I burned my fingers picking up a ceramic lid that had come straight out the oven. Broke the lid too nooooo not my precious KitchenAid stoneware! Anyway, now I am restricted in how I use my right thumb. Holding and pressing things = no go. Argh.

 

Didn’t eat all that well yesterday (donut + banana bread) but at least I cooked dinner (dump n’ bake meatball casserole). Will see if I have the energy to make that mango cake tonight, since dinner is already taken care of (leftovers).

 

Messaged a friend but never heard back from her. Thinking I should try a different type of social media.

 

Miiiight check out the OCR place tonight? Most likely not though, because I have other errands to run plus it’s a writing day. We’ll see.

[Severine]

Ugh bad luck with the burn and broken lid  

 

Yay for getting closer to checking out the OCR place though!

[J3NN]

4 hours ago, Plazmotic said:

Miiiight check out the OCR place tonight? Most likely not though, because I have other errands to run plus it’s a writing day. We’ll see.

What if you just do a drive by like your stalking it? Would that help  

[fleaball]

Lurking! And sending healing vibes. 

[Plazmotic]

August 15th results

 

Got some writing done! Not sure how many words I wrote, but I went to the library for 45 minutes and continued on the latest scene. I have to say, the Bard’s Guild thread really gave me some good perspective on writing this first draft. I hadn’t embraced the idea that first drafts don’t need to be perfect and complete stories with all detail intact. First drafts are shitty and incomplete and weird and meta, understanding this is making it much easier to just write.

 

Still haven’t heard from my friend I messaged, trying to get a hold of her through alternate methods.

 

Didn’t visit the OCR, commute home took a lot longer than I’d hoped. Maybe Thursday or Friday. Likely Thursday. Friday I will bake that mango cake I SWEAR guys Week 1 is rushing by so fast and I ain’t done so much of the stuff I wanted to due to being sick, boooooo.

[Plazmotic]

August 16th results

 

Yesterday was a bit of a departure from my usual Wednesday routine.

 

Didn’t go running with SIL, she had to reschedule for tomorrow. So instead, I did more writing at the local coffee house. I really like this place but the owner has recently gotten weirdly pushy about getting people to try/buy additional things, makes me wonder if they’re not doing well. :| Anyway, got more writing done, finished off the scene I was working on. Excited to see how the next scene will unfold.

 

Ate pretty well yesterday, was super busy at work so I didn’t have much time to snack.

 

Still haven’t heard from my friend about meeting up. Will have to put her aside and see if someone else wants to get together this weekend.

 

Haven’t had a chance to scrapbook all week because, well, my husband has a new job with regular hours meaning he comes home right after me now. All my craft stuff is in the basement, and his after-work routine is to watch Netflix with the lights off in the basement, so I’ve suddenly found myself with a lot less “me time”. Which is what I always wanted! I’ve been looking forward to having husband back home at the same time as me! I just never realized the trade-off would be that I have less time spent on alone, whoops.

[Plazmotic]

August 17th results

 

Yesterday was pretty good. Ate within my required window, although the food I ate wasn’t the healthiest (my SIL picked up Portugusese egg tarts for me). SIL and I went for a brisk 45 minute walk. I felt like crap after because I hadn’t eaten anything, but once we went and had dinner I felt fine. Dinner was veggie quiche, sausage, cucumber, and one quarter portion of naan.

 

Still haven’t managed to touch my scrapbooking. I know this is going to sound so silly but… hear me out. Every now and then, my house is overrun by giant flies, and it’s usually because food has gone bad somewhere. I find this weirdly traumatizing and stressful, like my home doesn’t belong to me but these insect interlopers instead. They tend to show up in the kitchen or basement, and the last couple days my husband said there are flies in the basement and I just… haven’t gone down there because eww/meh/ahh I hate those flies.

 

Still haven’t heard from any of my friends. ;_; This is… disconcerting. And then another one of my friends invited me to a potluck that I can’t attend because it’s the weekend before my licensing exam, drat.