I survived! Thanksgiving went fairly well. Chris and I were 45 minutes late, but we did bring the bread, applesauce, green beans, and potatoes we were supposed to bring. I was told by my mother-in-law never to serve an untried recipe to guests, and the green beans kind of held true to that advice. The recipe I used called for about twice as many almonds as it really needed, so the recipe ended up being like 1/3 almonds, 2/3s green beans. Little bit less of a topping and more of a "aaand these are EVERYWHERE..." situation. Other than that they turned out okay.
Next year Chris and I might try to make applesauce, rather than bringing storebought stuff and stirring in cinnamon. It was fine, it just wasn't as flavorful as homemade stuff. Some of the applesauces Mom has made in the past have real zing to them. The storebought stuff was just sort of bland, and there was cinnamon in it. It wasn't terrible, it just wasn't nearly as interesting.
In other news, sore muscles are now a way of life for me. I think I should probably get a little book or something to track how much weight I lift on each machine in the gym. I've been taking it slow, and not adding too many exercises in at once, but my basic exercise routine starts out with 30+ minutes of cycling, followed by 10-15 minutes of elliptical, followed by abs and back exercises... and I've added in an arm muscle group for kicks and giggles. Which is why I now have sore arms, for the second week in a row. My arms are pathetic and sad, and they will never be pretty and semi-muscular and strong, but apparently I can still bully them into building invisible muscle. (Invisible, because when I flex, you can't really see there's muscle there.)
Also new, I finally got in to see my new doctor. Having married Chris, I became ineligible for Medicaid, so we got me onto his insurance and I needed to find a new doctor. I got recommendations from my LENS doctor, who gave me a couple names that she strongly recommended. I went for the first one, because why not, and it turns out that this first recommended doctor is in fact my LENS doctor's own personal doctor. I was just expecting a professional recommendation from my LENS doctor, not a personal recommendation, so it was somewhat startling and gratifying to find that out.
Anyway, the new doctor seems promising enough. She seemed to take an interest in me as a person, particularly since she has a younger relative with autism. That was comforting, as the process of finding the building with her office was very anxiety-provoking, and the nurse who processed me was more professional and businesslike than warm and caring. The building itself is an all-in-one medical facility, with "EMERGENCY" written multiple times on the front of the building. Not wanting to be mistaken for someone in dire need of medical care, I drove to the back of the building... and promptly found out that I needed to be on the lower level and there were no stairs or obvious elevators at the back of the building. So I had to walk to the front side of the building, where there were stairs... but no apparent signage for where the office was.
Fortunately the front desk staffers were happy to direct me, but by that point I was rather wound up and anxious. The person who checked me in for my appointment was very sweet and warm, which was comforting right until the nurse came for me, and she wasn't. But, to be fair to her, she was quite pregnant and probably quite footsore and tired by the time my appointment time rolled around. This sadly didn't occur to me at the time, so I was left wondering whether I had done something to be annoying or offensive. Once the nurse was done with me, I was left alone for what felt like at least 20 minutes, which is quite a long time to stew on your failure to get on with the nurse and navigate the building.
But when the doctor actually did arrive, she was very personable and very interested in hearing about me and my concerns, so overall I guess it was an okay experience. I went back there yesterday to get some blood work done, which was a relatively painless experience compared to donating blood. I think I made the poor staffer feel bad with my wincing about the needle, though. I am unfond of the blood donation needles, which are about the size of the vein they're trying to harness, if I recall correctly. And it's so rare for them to be able to get the vein the first time, I pretty much just pull a face and cringe when someone goes to take my blood. The needles they use for blood work are much smaller and easier to get put in properly. It wasn't a single poke and done process for this, but it was much less painful and upsetting than what I'm used to. I tried to convey that and my appreciation to her, but I'm not really sure I succeeded.
Lastly, yesterday was the first orientation webinar for my consultation with the federal government about their research program. It sounds like I'm not going to have to harangue the government about focusing on helping people with autism rather than curing autism. But the scientists themselves might be another story. The webinar took less than an hour, and about all I had to do was introduce myself. It mostly just covered handy-to-know things and was meant to get us ready to start doing critiques and such for the research projects we're reviewing. None of the other, more experienced reviewers volunteered to be my mentor for the process, but I guess the head of operations is going to find someone.
Honestly the whole thing seems like a cross between being very well organized and being a complete mess. I only just found out yesterday that there will be another webinar for all the reviewers, including the scientific reviewers, this Friday. But nobody told me, or the other consumer reviewers, so now I have to annoy my mother by being late to the Friday exercise thing.
I mostly seem to be doing okay with doing the work scheduled to me thus far... but of course we haven't gotten into the real meat and bones of the work yet, so I guess we'll see how I handle the rest of this. The experience has already sent me scrambling across town to find a fax machine (seriously, who uses fax machines any more?!) and having to pester Chris to do the same. Maybe, if I'm really lucky, I won't have to scramble for anything else for the rest of this job...
Next year Chris and I might try to make applesauce, rather than bringing storebought stuff and stirring in cinnamon. It was fine, it just wasn't as flavorful as homemade stuff. Some of the applesauces Mom has made in the past have real zing to them. The storebought stuff was just sort of bland, and there was cinnamon in it. It wasn't terrible, it just wasn't nearly as interesting.
In other news, sore muscles are now a way of life for me. I think I should probably get a little book or something to track how much weight I lift on each machine in the gym. I've been taking it slow, and not adding too many exercises in at once, but my basic exercise routine starts out with 30+ minutes of cycling, followed by 10-15 minutes of elliptical, followed by abs and back exercises... and I've added in an arm muscle group for kicks and giggles. Which is why I now have sore arms, for the second week in a row. My arms are pathetic and sad, and they will never be pretty and semi-muscular and strong, but apparently I can still bully them into building invisible muscle. (Invisible, because when I flex, you can't really see there's muscle there.)
Also new, I finally got in to see my new doctor. Having married Chris, I became ineligible for Medicaid, so we got me onto his insurance and I needed to find a new doctor. I got recommendations from my LENS doctor, who gave me a couple names that she strongly recommended. I went for the first one, because why not, and it turns out that this first recommended doctor is in fact my LENS doctor's own personal doctor. I was just expecting a professional recommendation from my LENS doctor, not a personal recommendation, so it was somewhat startling and gratifying to find that out.
Anyway, the new doctor seems promising enough. She seemed to take an interest in me as a person, particularly since she has a younger relative with autism. That was comforting, as the process of finding the building with her office was very anxiety-provoking, and the nurse who processed me was more professional and businesslike than warm and caring. The building itself is an all-in-one medical facility, with "EMERGENCY" written multiple times on the front of the building. Not wanting to be mistaken for someone in dire need of medical care, I drove to the back of the building... and promptly found out that I needed to be on the lower level and there were no stairs or obvious elevators at the back of the building. So I had to walk to the front side of the building, where there were stairs... but no apparent signage for where the office was.
Fortunately the front desk staffers were happy to direct me, but by that point I was rather wound up and anxious. The person who checked me in for my appointment was very sweet and warm, which was comforting right until the nurse came for me, and she wasn't. But, to be fair to her, she was quite pregnant and probably quite footsore and tired by the time my appointment time rolled around. This sadly didn't occur to me at the time, so I was left wondering whether I had done something to be annoying or offensive. Once the nurse was done with me, I was left alone for what felt like at least 20 minutes, which is quite a long time to stew on your failure to get on with the nurse and navigate the building.
But when the doctor actually did arrive, she was very personable and very interested in hearing about me and my concerns, so overall I guess it was an okay experience. I went back there yesterday to get some blood work done, which was a relatively painless experience compared to donating blood. I think I made the poor staffer feel bad with my wincing about the needle, though. I am unfond of the blood donation needles, which are about the size of the vein they're trying to harness, if I recall correctly. And it's so rare for them to be able to get the vein the first time, I pretty much just pull a face and cringe when someone goes to take my blood. The needles they use for blood work are much smaller and easier to get put in properly. It wasn't a single poke and done process for this, but it was much less painful and upsetting than what I'm used to. I tried to convey that and my appreciation to her, but I'm not really sure I succeeded.
Lastly, yesterday was the first orientation webinar for my consultation with the federal government about their research program. It sounds like I'm not going to have to harangue the government about focusing on helping people with autism rather than curing autism. But the scientists themselves might be another story. The webinar took less than an hour, and about all I had to do was introduce myself. It mostly just covered handy-to-know things and was meant to get us ready to start doing critiques and such for the research projects we're reviewing. None of the other, more experienced reviewers volunteered to be my mentor for the process, but I guess the head of operations is going to find someone.
Honestly the whole thing seems like a cross between being very well organized and being a complete mess. I only just found out yesterday that there will be another webinar for all the reviewers, including the scientific reviewers, this Friday. But nobody told me, or the other consumer reviewers, so now I have to annoy my mother by being late to the Friday exercise thing.
I mostly seem to be doing okay with doing the work scheduled to me thus far... but of course we haven't gotten into the real meat and bones of the work yet, so I guess we'll see how I handle the rest of this. The experience has already sent me scrambling across town to find a fax machine (seriously, who uses fax machines any more?!) and having to pester Chris to do the same. Maybe, if I'm really lucky, I won't have to scramble for anything else for the rest of this job...
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