9th of Elul

For Duolingo's Dutch course, I finished the School and Relative Pronouns units today. Next will be Weather. I'm surprised to still be in the Sapphire League, despite only being active for 1 or 2 days last week. Hopefully, I can get to doing it every day again. 

Managed to get back to drawing Junko. I realized her torso was too elongated, even though I was following a guideline. I had to shorten everything below her waist a little. She's looking a lot better now. I'll make her legs look more anatomically correct next, or at least more proportional. I'll refine the rest of her a bit more, too. Then, I'll add her clothes. 

Edited more of Alliance. Made it well into chapter 5. Went through 8 pages of the ebook, and 11 of the print. I think that's the most I've done in a day. Wahoo!

I practiced my clarinet today. Haven't played it in roughly 7 months. Mainly because of my health. It felt so good just to get back to it. Played much better than expected. I'm not breathing as well as I used to, both my arms are still in a lot of constant pain, and my pinkies are very stiff (making it difficult to play the alternative keys...). All of this makes it more difficult. I was happy to do 40 minutes of it. My target normally is an hour. I went through a little of the advanced classical solo pieces, a jazz book, and Irish tunes. I was nervous about starting with an advanced book, but it wasn't too bad. Hopefully I can get to practicing every day during the week again.

Another aspect that made it a bit more difficult was the new sores in my mouth. I've had this thread-like one inside the left corner of my lip for a while. Had a weird clear blister inside my right cheek. It was scary looking, but disappeared the next day. Last night I found a much scarier looking one on my lower inner lip near that thread-like one. It's wide, black, occasionally has a little white on top, and the edges look weird. I've never had something like that. I only noticed it last night because I accidentally bit down on it. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't hard enough to draw blood. It feels weird. Most of the time it's not painful, just feels like there's a sticky glob of some sort. After having snack today, I noticed there's another sore on the other side of my mouth. This one seems more normal, but thick. So, it feels like there's a piece of food stuck there. Really annoying. I didn't have mouth sores in the past as extraintestinal symptoms of my colitis. I think it's related to that 'new' unknown thing I've been having symptoms of since February. We know it's another autoimmune disease (specifically rheumatic related). I still think it's scleroderma, but I don't know if it's common for patients who have that to have mouth sores.

I decided to drop Possession. It's a Korean supernatural detective show. I was halfway through, but it was getting too painful story-wise to watch. Plus, it's a pretty lengthy show (16 episodes, each about 1 hr and 15 min), and I didn't want to push through that. I'm thinking of watching Darr Sabko Lagta Hai or Everybody Feels Fear on Netflix next. It's an Indian (in Hindi) anthology horror show. It sounds very interesting. Kind of sounds similar to Goodnight DJ. 

Tried out another flavor of Betty Crocker's Mug Treats: chocolate chip cookie with chocolate frosting. It really was like a huge cookie in a mug. This one cooked for about 10 seconds less than the cinnamon roll one. Used milk again instead of water. It was great. I don't think it really needed the frosting, though. It's packed with sugar and calories, and I think omitting the frosting would take a lot of that away. I could use the frosting for something else in the future. I've decided to only have it Friday nights (the start of Shabbos), since it's a treat night where calories don't matter as much. There are 4 to a pack, so it'll last a while. Also, have a big thing of rainbow chip cookies from Safeway. I think there are 12 to a pack of that. This way I have roughly 2 weeks worth of desserts for myself. That's not counting occasionally getting desserts at restaurants, or even if I want to try the tea cookies my parent got. Or, if I need a break from the mug cookies on a Friday night. I like that I'm covered on that for a while. 

I made pumpkin spice pancakes yesterday for lunch. The mix was from World Market. It was new, and since I like their banana caramel one, I thought I'd give it a shot. Plus, all their pancake mixes are cheap. It was ok. It smelled great, but had a very mild spice taste. They used real pumpkin, but I couldn't really taste it. It probably would have been better with powdered sugar and/or syrup. Didn't have syrup at the time, though. I still have quite a bit of the banana one. Maybe I could combine them for a serving next time. Sounds like they would taste great together. I'm glad I tried it. Hope to try their other flavors in the future. Some of them seem really creative. I have to at least get through the banana one first. Also, tried the pumpkin spice yogurt pretzels from World Market. They were amazing! I'm saving them for snacks during the weekend, which are my treat days. They have a lot of sugar. Not bad on calories, at least. 

I searched for some new apps this weekend, as well. Found some Jewish ones, more color by number ones, and a game. Still using a small fraction of my iPhone storage space. The game is called Cat Cafe. You get to own your own cat cafe with cats you adopt, orders to fill from customers, cleaning it, getting thank you notes from customers, toys, decorating it, and more. Both the cats and customers are so cute! They say the cats are based on real shelter cats in New Zealand. Interesting side to it. 

With the Jewish ones, I found a daily Torah study app from Chabbad. It's really fascinating. I can try to study a little of it everyday. They have a calendar where you can tap on that day and get the lessons for it. You can look into other days this way, too. The lessons are on Rashi's commentary, psalms, Tanya, thoughts on holidays/time of year or parsha (Torah portion), a daily mitzvah, and one other thing. Quite a lot packed into it. 

Redownloaded Jewish.tv. It's also through Chabbad. Full of videos for studying, documentaries, cooking, music, and more. I only got rid of it before because my old phone had ran out of space. 

The last Jewish app is one that I also had on my old phone. It's called Sefaria. It's a really vast and valuable resource. They have the Tanach, Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, Halachah, Kabbalah, Tanaitic, texts on philosophy, liturgy, Musar, and so much more. It's like having a huge library of Jewish texts on my phone. You could even download whatever you want to go through offline. I'm still surprised it's free. They've managed to keep it up through donations alone.

Oh, I also got Yelp. I was using Foursquare for a while, so I decided to try this, too. Swarm, which I still use, is part of Foursquare. I can try it out. Might be better.

3rd of Elul

This is my wallpaper for September. It's Tanjirou from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon-Slaying Blade). I've been really amazed by this anime. Wasn't expecting much. The animation has been top-notch (just looking at the water scenes, it looks so real, which is difficult to pull off), music is haunting at times, the characters are well developed, epic fight scenes, and the plot is interesting. I wasn't expecting much because it's essentially a zombie anime. There's so much more to it, though. It takes place in the Taisho period, which is 1912-1926. So, more 'modern' than some of the other anime I've watched that are historically based. I like the idea that Tanjirou only joined the Demon Slayers to cure his sister, Nezuko, of being a demon. The demons in the story more closely resemble zombies in that they eat people and were once human themselves. They still have a sense of self, intelligence, and magical abilities. Scarier this way. Nezuko seems to be one of the first demons that hasn't eaten a single human. Instead, she gathers energy by sleeping. She was kind of tricked into thinking all humans are family and to protect them at all costs. She's incredibly strong, even for a demon. She's also cute. Tanjirou is kindhearted and a huge empath. He feels for most of the demons he defeats.  

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.