And then, there's a bearded fetus.

Once in a while, mornings seem to come super early, don't they? I woke up at 4:40 and took my Rybelsus, then laid back down on my side, and promptly fell hard asleep. When my alarm went off, it kind of startled me, because I was seriously slumbering. Oh well. It'll wake up the rest of the way soon.

Yesterday was another absolutely insane day at work. Didn't take quite as many calls, but that could be because I had a new patient, then I had to talk an 83 year old through attaching a picture of her order to an email. New patients always slow you down.

It always drives me crazy when people don't use interpreters correctly. Aside from the beginning of the call, you're supposed to speak like you're talking to the pt. No "will you tell them" or "please say." Just a conversation. That goes for any type of interpreter, including sign language. When I was training, that was a sticking point for my classmates.

Last night, I fried up some super thick pork chops and made baked french fries with old bay. I started the oil with a teaspoon of minced garlic and a few ripped up sage leaves. Holy shit, it turned out really well. Even my BIL, who was a professional cook said how good it was, which made me feel good. My sister and Jess always say nice things about what I make, but he is a little bit less effusive, so when I get a compliment, it's always really nice.

Today is probably going to be chicken, no clue what. I had a request for chicken thighs, so I'll go with that. I need to grocery shop, so we're down to the basics. Parmesan, mozzarella onions and a little bit of bacon.

This week, the BIL would like me to get some stuff from Sam's Club for him. We'll split some of it, since he only lives with his mother, and doesn't need 4lbs of sausage. I'm debating between going up and shopping vs just putting in an order. I may see if I could take a few hours on Friday and go shopping.

Today is payday, so we'll watch that disappear quickly!

Okay, time to go forth and get myself together. Everyone have an excellent Wednesday!!

It's Monday and I am very sleepy this morning. Last night, I was suddenly anxious as hell, so I took a couple of anti anxiety pills, and today I am having the aftereffects. I'll perk up with some coffee, but for the moment, I'm kinda tired.

Yoda was a total little fuckface yesterday. The only way he shuts up is if my sister goes in her room or if Jess and I sit at the dining foom table. It's obnoxious. I don't know how to fix it, because nothing works. If you ignore him, he barks, if you do anything but those things, he continues to escalate, jumping up and climbing on me like a jungle gym, and generally being a hell beast. It's making me dislike the weekends (and dislike the dog or at least resent the fuck out of him.)

I decided that I was going to take it easy yesterday. Yeah, that didn't work out so well. First, I cooked breakfast. Two dutch baby pancakes, bacon and sausage. It was very good, though the dutch babies weren't as good as the first one I made. I think that may just be one of those things that you have to make one batch at a time. Which is not a huge problem, just a learning experience.

Then, I filled and ran the dishwasher. Then, I did the rest of the dishes and cleaned the counter and stove really well. Then, I swept the floor, and then I ran the wet jet mop over it. Then I sat the fuck down, because my back was shrieking.

For the afternoon, I showered and relaxed until it was time to slice some onions and start dinner. We had Chicken curry, using the Golden Curry cubes. I used four, then added another four because it wasn't strong emough. It had a lovely flavor, and I'm definitely going to be trying the other types of curry they sell.

Tonight, I have no idea what I'm making for the main dish. It may just be a roast, and some veggies. We've got Collard greens and carrots to use up, so I'll probably make one or both. The collards require a bit of a time investment, so I'll probably start cooking them this morning, or on my lunch break, to at least get the bacon cooked and the collards preped. Oh, and the chicken broth ready (I think we have enough chicken base to make stock..?)

Okay, time to get my ass in gear. Everyone have an outstanding Monday!

It's the weekednd! I'm really fucking glad that I checked my schedule yesterday before I stopped work. Turns out, this is my weekend off. I work next week! I slept in an extra couple of hours, and it was lovely.

Not a whole lot planned this weekend. No games, nothing going on. I defintitely want to do some cleaning. My sister is going to be out for a few hours tonight, so I might watch some of Daredevil. (Not that I couldn't watch it with here here, I just never think of it.

The one thing I might do is this morning/early afternoon. A nursery opened near the house called "Second Chance Plants." Its a nursery that takes overstock plants and discounts them. I really want some fresh herbs, so I'm going to go over and see what they have. I'm super poor, but they do advertise plants as cheap as $1, so I'm going to go check it out. This weekend is the grand opening, so I'm going to see if I can find a nice thyme and maybe some others in my price range. I'm very excited about this, as I would like to have more green in the apartment. Right now, I just have a wee little mint plant on the windowsill next to my desk. I love it, but I want it to have some friends!

Actually, I might also see if they have pots and soil, because I need to transplant my mint into something bigger. It's grown quite a bit since I got it.

Tomorrow will defintely be laundry and some vaccuuming.

Last night, we had the barramundi with broccolini. I was a little nervous, because generally speaking, I'm not a fish person. I just cannot with the fishy taste. I even made a parmesan sauce to put over it in case I hated it.

I'm pleased to report that I actually really *liked* it! It wasn't fishy at all, and was a firmer fish, so it didn't feel squishy like some lower quality salmon. Downside, it's super hard to find. The only place I've found it is Walmart in frozen. It's an Asian Sea Bass, so it's not like you can go trawling in the Chesapeake Bay and get it fresh, I suppose. Wish we had some farm raised around here. I'd really like to try it fresh, but it doesn't seem like anywhere has it.

Anyhow, really good, didn't need the sauce at all. The broccolini was also good. Debating on what to make today. Whatever it is will have mushrooms, because I don't know how long the ones I have will be good for, so it's time to use them. I'm thinking chicken over rice with a cream of mushroom sauce. I'm lucky that Jess dislikes the texture of mushrooms, but likes the taste. It's just going to be them and I tonight, so I'll see. I may save the big preparation for tomorrow. We'll see.

And now, I shall go get pants on to go look at some plants! Everyone have an excellent Saturday!

Two more days til the weekend, whoo! Work continues to be super busy. It seems like every time I look at the queue, it's all red with calls waiting. I try to get as much of my outside work (shifting patients to fill holes and make new ones.) During the early morning so I'm available for calls, but sometimes, we get a late cancellation for the next day, and I've gotta work it. I don't know, but there's always the hope that this will be building to them promoting me to a new job. I don't know how long my coworker J, who calls patients will be working, since she's been here 30 years already, but I'm wondering if I'm being groomed for that job. We'll have to see.

Aside from work being busy, yesterday was a quiet day. I took a nice hot shower in the morning and washed the house off me. We had a nice dinner (pork chops and brussel sprouts) and went to bed early.

Today, after work, I need to go back to the house to meet with the guy who might like to buy it. If he doesn't, I'm thinking we just let the reverse mortgage people take it. There's not a ton I need to get out now. Maybe a couple of things? I'm going to leave at 5 and go over, and see if I can get into my sister's room to get her jewelry box, and in our room to see if I can get our handfasting cord and if I can find our rings. That's about all that I need. We'll see what I can find. I'm really not looking forward to it.

Then, it'll be home to take a shower and wash the house off again and eat and sleep. Then tomorrow is Friday!! Whoohoo! We've got no plans this weekend, so we'll just take it easy and do some cleaning. I really need to vacuum the living room, dining room and our room/the hallway. The cat won't like me doing our room, but we've gotta get her litter up. Despite a high sided box and a large mat, she manages to kick it straight onto the carpet. And I'll probably cook something tasty. Don't know what yet, though.

Okay, time for me to get myself together. Gotta marinate some chicken legs so that Jess can just toss them in. Everyone have an amazing Thursday!

It's Tuesday! We survived Monday. I told Jess that I always know it's going to be a day when I reply to the good morning chat thread on Teams, and immediately I see one of the bosses begin typing to me in private chat. Yesterday even surpassed that, as before I signed on, I saw him typing, and by the time I signed on, I had a full message waiting with people to call.

Most were just offering an earlier appt, super easy. But there was one, where I needed to move a patient from one site to a less convenient site because of behavioral issues. I was told that I needed to come up with a reason for the switch, but not tell them it was due to past incidents.

I accomplished it handily and even got them a MRI same day so that we didn't have to do the dance again. And, I got them to thank me for inconveniencing them, so that we could get them the "best possible scans."

I also found 3 hours worth of cardiac MRI slots in our busiest site, got a pt in for a STAT cardiac CT and some mammograms. I've started giving my direct line out with the caveat that if I'm on the phone with another patient, I will call you right back. I don't know that I'm supposed to do that, but it beats having the pt call back on the main line and either have to listen to our hold music while someone tries to get us, or the other person takes care of it and forgets to notify me or the leadership, and then, I waste time puling them up, seeing that they're rescheduled and then closing the loop with leadership.

Then, it was off to cook the traditional iris meal. Corned beef, cabbage and potatoes. The cabbage I had was freakking enormous, so I only made 3/4 of it. Then, I did make colcannon, adding bits of the cabbage and some bacon and onions to the mashed potatoes and then haivng the cabbage as a side dish as well. Verdict, pretty tasty, though the corned beef was kind of tough. It definitely needed another hour or so in the oven to really tenderize. Still tasted good, though.

For me, the mashed potatoes dripping in butter were the highlight.

Today, we will probably do pork chops, with some brussel sprouts. No clue what I'm doing for the sprouts. Maybe more bacon. lol. Debating whether I cook the pork chops via bake or fry. Both sound lovely. If I fry, I'm going to have to slice them down a bit to schnitzel thickness, because the size they are now would take roughly forever to cook. They're over an inch thick. Or, I might do another slab of lasagna and give myself a break on cooking. Yeah, I might do that.

Today is going to be another busy day, which certainly makes the day pass quickly. I'm hoping for a little less craziness, but we shall see.

For now though, I'm going to go forth and get myself together. Everyone have an amazing day!

New artist for the week. This week shall be Barry Manilow. One of my old favorites, who I still adore. This was definitely my parents music. We would pop the 8 track in and drive to our vacation 3 hours away. By hour two, my sister and I would be *begging* to listen to the radio for five minutes. Just for a little while? But then as I grew and developed my own taste in music, I still would find myself listening to Barry when I was stressed or anxious. When I was 19, he was doing a hits tour, and my sister and I bought tickets for the whole family and took my parents to it. It was one of the better nights I can remember having with them. Everyone was so happy and we all got along for a night. And the concert was really good. To this day, it remains one of my favorite concerts that I've been to. He gives good show.

Yesterday was busy in the morning, but fun. Work was surprisingly busy. I took 20 calls, which is about 8 more than I normally take. I spent some time playing with the schedules, and did some slight shuffling to get another Cardiac MRI slot in three weeks. Since the next slot isn't open until June, I considered it time well spent. There's another one I'm going to be able to clear on Monday. They scheduled via the portal, but the radiologist protocoled it as a different type of scan, so it needs to be moved. That'll be helpful.

Then, it was time to go fetch puppy and groceries. I also made a quick stop to get some keys made. Now my sister has her own key as does the BIL, and we have a spare. Puppy was just adorable with his newly shorn hair as usual.

Apparenlty, he was very good when Jess took him to get groomed. He was good, and perfect, and was so excited to see his groomer that he tried to shove straight through the little swinging door to get to her. A fellow patron (whose dog was terrified) commented "Your dog is so calm!" lol

Once we were home, Yoda was a doll while I played my game and we shot up eldritch abominations in the Old West.

Once we were done, he was a bit of a terror. He doesn't like Jess and I to sit on the couch together. Especially when my sister left. Then, I am supposed to be in the kitchen working, period. He settled after a bit, but not before both of us were pulling out our hair.

For dinner, we ordered from a place called Disbe Good, which has Nigerian food. The beef suya was spicy as hell, but SO good. They had their Disbe sauce that was amazign.

After that, we just chilled, and I wrote a bit more about the world I'm building for the D&D game. I now have finished the queen, her husband, the children and the world's bios. I've got to update a couple of other cards, and then I can start on plot. I've already got about half a dozen things percolating, mostly ways to tie in my player's backstories. I know the gist of the game, and the path it needs to take, but I need more scenes. I mean, mostly the players are going to direct where we go or what happens, but there's a few beats that I need to get in there. Mini goals, if you will.

Next up is my outline of the timing of the campaign. It's going to be a lot of role play, so I want to punctuate some of that with the occasional fight. They're going to be diplomats in a foreign court, so the violence they can do is going to have to be covert or sanctioned.

We've got a game this morning, then we're making some spinach lasagna. I'm looking forward to that. it's a lot of moving pieces, but I think it'll be excellent. My parts are to do the spinach filling and making the spaghetti sauce. My sister is whipping up the cheesy bits and putting the stuff together. We have a metric fuckton of cheese. It's impressive, the size of the mozzarella bag that came from Sam's club. We're going to have cheese for weeks after this.

Speaking of, I'm going to go attempt to clean out the oven from it's butter mishap the other day. Everyone have an awesome Sunday!

It's Friday! One more full day to get through, and then a half day tomorrow and I'm free! Hopefully work will be relatively easy.

Yesterday wasn't too horrible, though I ended up taking 50 calls. My coworker was out again, so I spent part of it making calls to try to get people in for last minute appointments. Tomorrow, I'll probably do some of the same, as I'll try to fill in any spots that I see for the coming week, especially the high value spots.

I must have sat poorly or something, because by bedtime, my hip and knee were screaming. They're still a little bit sore today, and I have no idea why. The joys of being old, I suppose.

I'm still trying to work on my D&D world, but work makes it very difficult. I need an extended time that I can just sit at my desk and work on it, but all I've got now if scattered minutes here and there.

OMG the dog is being such a little needy shit this morning! He demanded to go out, which I didn't want to because of knee, but he wore me down. Then, I take him out and he pees, then proceeds to meander all over creation and balk when I try to bring him in. I was ready to strangle him. I finally got him to come in, radiating disappointment in my life choices the entire time.

Anyhow, D&D. I have things thought out, but I need to get them on the screen. I didn't really get anything done yesterday. It just didn't happen. Maybe tomorrow after game I'll have a little bit of time to do something. My sister is going out, and Jess has a game, so I'll be soloing it for a while. I'll just sit at my desk and work on the game. I'm hoping to have it ready by the beginning of April.

I need to also read the new module for my Curse of Strahd group, and get that on the calendar. The problem is that our calendar is a fucking disaster, and I'm loathe to put another game on board. We're already having problems scheduling our current games, and I don't want to bump Frostmaiden to once every 8 weeks or worse, since they both share Fridays. I might wait a couple more weeks until summer schedules have firmed up, and then start working on it.

I'm going to suggest trying out Kanka for that one as well. The tier that I subscribed at, I get three premium games, so that might be a good use for one.

Tomorrow, we have a call of Cthulhu game I started in November that's been rescheduled like four times, so that'll be fun as well.

Okay, time to consider the merits of food. Everyone have an excellent Friday!!

I actually slept really well last night, but somehow I'm even more tired. Ah well. Coffee will fix it! Big day today! Our dishwasher finally came in, and they're coming to replace it this afternoon. This, of course, will mean that Yoda is about to have a bad day, but we've been waiting for this since the first week we arrived. Apparently the dishwasher that fits has been on backorder for nearly two and a half months.

I had planned to take the afternoon off, but I wasn't able to get the day, because we're full up. I agreed that I'd work til they get here, and then I'll take my lunch, and we'll see how long it takes. If it's more than 1hr, I'll let my boss know, and we'll figure it out. I literally cannot work while they're here, as it would be a ginormous HIPAA violation.

I spent all my free time yesterday working on my world. It's going well, though the mermaid queen's bio is running super long. I might need to cut some of it down. Though I like everything I've written so far. I've got the second half of her bio, and then her son's bio to write, and a trusted advisor, and that's all the stuff that I'm going to fill in for characters. I'll do a little more work on the world, as I need to figure out what the lost kingdom has that the other countries want. (Something along the line of vibranium in Wakanda.)

Oh, I also need to fill in the info for the chemist they'll be traveling with from their city. The rest, the party will be learning about and filling in, or I'll be filling in as it's revealed. The app that I'm using works really well so far. When you're filling in things, you can add links to other pages using the "@" symbol. And if there's not a page for that character or location, it'll create one. It's very helpful.

Today, my goals are to finish the queen's entry and maybe get her advisor done. The son is going to be another long entry, I think, so I'll hold off on that. I've only got a few games this weekend, so I'll try to finish getting stuff done then.

Once I finish that, it's time to come up with a bunch of scenes and decide on some scenes and the ultimate answer to the mystery. Then, I'm going to have to decide what to do with the potentially invading nation. I believe I'm going to tie that into one of my player's backstories.

It's Payday! I will have 5 minutes of money! Whoohoo! Then, I get to pay my car insurance, car loan and cell phone bill. Oh, and electric bill. It's a lot all at once. The one thing I don't have to pay is internet. Since they couldn't give me free installation at the apartment, they instead gave me a gift card that'll cover two months of the bill.

Okay, time for me to go forth and get ready for work. Everyone have a wonderful Wednesday!

Y'know what's an awesome start to a Monday? Your phone being unplugged and draining completely, so the alarm doesn't go off. I woke up a half an hour late when my sister dropped something in the shower. Now I feel rushed and off, and of course, my sister is chatty. Immediate overstim.

And I have no pills to take, since today is my psych appt, and I took my last two pills last night. I'm just going to have to tough it out and wait for the Vyvanse to kick in.

Yesterday was a lovely day full of cooking and baking. First, I made a spinach and bacon fry up with mushrooms and garlic. It wasn't quite enough for lunch, but it made a good snack. Second, I wanted something sweet, and bread and jam sounded amazing. Unfortunately the only jam we had was strawberry, and that didn't sound good. So, I made a small bit of jam from a lone orange and some spices and a cup of sugar. It took forever. I stirred until my arm nearly fell off, but I was persistent, and ended up with a surprisingly tasty jam/sauce. It's not quite jam, but really too thick to be sauce, but it tastes good. Then, later, I decided to make cake. I adapted the recipe, and made a ginger and clove cake and put some jam between the layers. It turned out very well.

Then came dinner. We'd been planning to do grilled cheese sandwiches, only to discover that there was only like 5 slices of cheese. Instead I made pasta with bacon. Whoo. It was pretty good, but nothing special. I need to get some staples in, so I can have things for emergency dinners.

Tonight will be bastardized Chicken paprikash. I've seen about a million different recipies, so I'm not terribly worried about changing it slightly. I may make some mashed potatoes with it.

Can I just mention how very much butter I go through? It's pretty impressive.

I spent last night working on the new adventure for the Mad Mage crew. This is what I came up with: "Since the lost kingdom of Arvandor rose from the depths just over a year ago, there has been a race to curry favor with them and to delve the secrets of the capital city, Tir Thaiolin. Word has spread of advanced technology and a cold, aloof people.

Over the last few months, word has spread that the ruler, Queen Neried has taken ill, her advisor Kalanni taking over most of the duties of the throne.

With the Merrow Queen fading and the heirs jockeying for position, the nation of Olleather is poised at the border, preparing to redraw the very map of Faerun.

Seeing an opportunity for an advantage for Waterdeep, Lady Nevermember has sent a request to your residence. She proposes a diplomatic mission to Arvandor, to offer the potion created from the crystals you retrieved to bolster the Queen's health.

You are to accompany Muriel, Lady Nevermember's trusted chemist who will formulate the potion to match the Queen's unique physiology.

While there, you are to gather information on Oleather and broker diplomatic alliances with Arvandor.".

Hopefully, I'm able to work a nice campaign out of this. I have some ideas for scenes, but as usual, a lot of it will be down to my players. Depending on how they react, I'll be going with it.

I'm thinking for this one, I may use Trello, or a personal knowlege management system to keep track of it. I've got a lot of characters, and a lot of backstory that I need to keep track of. There's actually a really cool app that's about to launch a kickstarter, but I don't think it'll be in time to use for this.

Okay, time for me to go forth and get myself ready for work. I hope everyone has a quick and painless Monday!

Whoohoo! It's Saturday! No work today, thankfully. I'm just going to relax, and then have a game, and then maybe make some beef curry, and then take a nap. Or, alternately, I'm going to make a dutch baby and then have game, and then make naan, then beef curry, then rest. We'll see how enthusiastic I am after coffee. I kind of really want a dutch baby, so I may do that. I don't have vanilla, so I'd be subbing a little orange juice or port instead. Maybe port, we have golden port, so it's got a very light sweet flavor.

Tomorrow, dinner is going to be something easy, since I have a game at 3pm, it's going to Jess who's doing the cooking, and I like to make their life simple. Technically, the curry is probably pretty easy, but we'll see.

Yesterday was another fun day. One where I briefly considered calling one of our doctors and yelling. The man committed one fuck up after another, and I had to deal with the fall out. First, he told the patient that he has aggressive prostate cancer over the portal. At that point, he tells the guy that he needs a PET scan, but sends a message to his resident to put in the order. Of course, the guy calls panicked to schedule, and the resident hasn't done anything, so I can't schedule. The dude's English is way better than my Hindi, but it took nearly half an hour for me to settle him down and explain what needed to happen. I checked back right before I finished and the order still wasn't in. Mother fucker, what did you think was going to happen when you write the words "aggressive prostate cancer?" Put the next step orders in yourself like a big boy before you write the pt. Or here's a thought, put the orders in yourself, and then CALL the patient. Good god, smart men are dumb.

Then I had a dude who didn't listen to his message, and just hit callback, so I had to do some digging, only to find that he's scheduled for an MRI with a penile prosthetic. What kind of prosthetic? He had no fucking clue! How do you not know what they put in your body. I know they give you a card with all the info on it. He at least knew where it was done, so I got the info to the tech, and they'll take it from there. Still another 30 minute odyssey.

Despite that, I took 49 calls. I should have known it was going to be a day, because literally the moment I put my good morning into the thread on Teams, my boss started typing to me. It was a Day.

But it's okay, because then, I was able to make a delicious spinach and feta pasta, and relax a bit, do some more plotting with Jess on their book and generally have a good night.

And on that note, I think it's Dutch Baby time. Everyone have an amazing Saturday!