The month-long holidays for September are: National Biscuit Month, National Breakfast Month, National Honey Month, National Potato Month, National Rice Month, National Cheese Month, National Piano Month, Pain Awareness Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. Quite a lot this month.
The month of Elul ends with Rosh Hashanah or our New Year. It's also the start of the High Holy Days, which ends with Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. The HHDs last for 10 days. RH and YK are the most important holidays on the Jewish calendar. Many people 'prepare' the month before. One of the customs I follow (as did my mom) is blowing the shofar (ram's horn) every morning throughout most of the month. We refrain from it on Shabbos (which is every Friday night until Saturday night). I sometimes forget to do it until a few days into the month, like this year. Hopefully, I'll remember tomorrow and the rest of the month...It can be fun. It's supposed to wake us up spiritually.
The elements calendar features arsenic this time. The main pic's of pure arsenic metal granules. The one next to it is of a type of arsenic treated wood. Another pic's of an old tin of arsenic. The last pic's of Paris Green, which is useful in pigments and rat poison. Scary one for this month.
Recently 2 groups on fb shared the same post. One in an ace group, and the other in a non-binary one. It was an 'adding' game where you state your age and post a selfie, then friend whoever interacts with it. I almost didn't respond to either posts, thinking it was just a popularity contest. However, it was a good way to let others know it was ok to friend them. Some people might not want to for many reasons. Also, a great way to connect with other LGBTQ+ people on there. So, I did eventually post in both of them. I gained 25 friends through that over the weekend. I think that's the most I've had in such a short time. Also, overall, I'm up to the most friends I've had on my list at once there. They all seem like cool and interesting people.
We did our big monthly grocery shopping yesterday. We normally go to Costco, but it was closed for Labor Day. So, we went to Trader Joe's. I think I only found one thing there: olive hummus. Haven't had hummus in a very long time. I like making hummus and cheese sandwiches. They're refreshing, tasty, and full of protein. The olive one is one of the best. They also had chocolate hummus. That sounds nasty. I did read an article about it, and the author was surprised by how great it was. I don't know...
We also went to a local bakery. I love their Norwegian brown bread, and I usually get it sliced. Turns out that the ones that were available were frozen. They can't cut it until it thaws enough. Last time that happened it took like 3 hours. I didn't want to go through that again. On the other hand, it is getting harder to cut things, so it makes it even more difficult than before for me. I also got a maple doughboy. It's one of the things they're known for. It's huge! It's like a gingerbread man, only in donut form. This one had maple frosting. The other version is glazed.
There's a smoked goods shop right next to it. They have smoked salmon, smoked nuts, smoked cheeses, jams, spices, and other snack-like things. I got smoked cheddar (one of my faves) and blueberry jam. I don't think I had their blueberry jam before. Too many seeds can be a trigger for my gut. So, I thought a jam with either very few/none or really small seeds would be best. I still like to have it. I think the blueberry one follows that.
Went to World Market after that. Found quite a lot of things this time. Got my fave pickled red cabbage and apple salad, an artichoke pasta sauce, dill pickle mustard, pumpkin spice pancake mix (I still have a little of their banana and caramel pancake mix, and it's easy and delicious), pumpkin spice yogurt pretzels, and a few other things.
Went to a local market for dinner yesterday. I just grabbed what I could eat at the salad bar. I'm trying to be better about avoiding trigger foods, and eating more protein. I need more protein than most healthy people, since I tend to have issues with absorbing it. It's hard for me to even get over half of what's considered the normal range for healthy people. Since I have to stay away from most raw vegetables, I steered clear of most of the greens like lettuce and spinach. Making it not really look like a 'healthy' salad. Shredded carrots seem to be ok, as well as a few cherry tomatoes. They had turkey, hard-boiled eggs, olives, and various other types of salads like potato salad and orzo salad. Didn't turn out as much as I expected, but it was ok.
At Safeway, I found another mug cake mix thing. This time it's a chocolate chip cookie with chocolate frosting from the same company that did the cinnamon roll one. Should be interesting. Since it's so many calories and sugar, I'm saving it for my treat days. They also had a 12-pack of their rainbow chip (like M&Ms) cookies that were cheap. I got the small packs of 2 in the past. They're really good. It will last me a while. I pretty much have my desserts set for the next couple of weeks at least. Yay!
Went out to Costco today. Realized later that we got a lot of protein-packed things. I'm going to try 2 more different types of jerky. One's teriyaki beef and the other is beef steak. They actually have decent amounts to a bag there.
I decided a couple of days ago to count the lumps I have at the moment. I've thought for a while that it was just around 5 of them and no big deal, but never counted them until then. There are over 30 of them! Most are in my hands. There's one big one in my neck, another in between my right eye and nose, another on a toe, and another in the crook of my left elbow. Some are soft, but a lot of them are hardening. Some seem to be growing so much they might burst through the surface. The hard ones in my hands feel weird when I grip things. Whatever I'm holding feels bumpy or uneven, even if it's smooth and straight. Some of the bumps are getting so big, I can see them just from looking at the sides of my fingers. I wonder if they're calcium deposits? I hope not. At least most of the time they're not painful. I see my primary in the middle of this month. Maybe she'll order imaging on at least my hands. I'll see my rheumatologist at the end of that week. He'll probably be able to help a lot more.
Both arms are still hurting a lot. I tried Tylenol PM last night, because the pain was also keeping me from sleeping, and I felt I needed to try something for it. The problem is so many sleep aids can mess with my mental health stuff, and so many can affect my colitis, possibly setting off a flare. That eliminates many right there. The only painkiller my primary will let me have is Tylenol, and I've been told by GIs that NSAIDs can cause flares or make it worse. I looked it up online, and Tylenol PM seems to be the safest for people with IBD in general. It basically has Benadryl and extra strength Tylenol. Benadryl's usually safe for the mental health part, too. I think I got a little more sleep. It was mostly calming. So, even when I was awake in bed, I was more relaxed. That's nicer than without. I guess I'll see how it goes after a few nights.
I pinned a sausage and hash browns slow-cooker recipe a while back on Pinterest onto one of my boards. I think I mentioned it on here after I made it. I was the first to share a pic of it. I did not create the pin. However, a ton of people have been repinning it from me. Around 200! It's like every hour or so I get a notification on it. Kind of annoying. I've never had that happen before. Sure, a handful of people repin my pins normally, but this is very different. It doesn't even look that great. It tasted amazing, though!
Despite not going back to my Dutch this weekend (including Monday) on Duolingo, I was promoted to the Sapphire League today. That shocked me. How could I still be in the top 10 by the end of that week? I finished the Kitchen unit, and am close to finishing the Materials one.
Managed to draw a rough outline of Junko's legs. Took a little while to figure how I wanted to position them. Edited more of Alliance. I'm into chapter 4 now. Went through 6 pages of the ebook, and 8 pages of the print. That's more than I was doing each day last week. Maybe I'll get to a lot more this time. It's flowing a lot better now.
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