daily routine

i dunno. maybe i could work blogging back into my daily routine.

this is my Year of Naturalist Studies, so that's top shelf.

so more or less is my daily routine, barring appointments, which are their Own Thing on the calendar.

i wake up in the morning more or less nine hours from when i went to sleep. note that i do not wake up nine hours from when i went to bed, because those things are different. if the day before was especially difficult in any way, i may wake up ten or eleven hours after i went to sleep. this is essential to allow my body to heal overnight.

first thing i do is check the weather and then my emails. i answer important ones. if my body feels ok and the weather is good, skiing moves onto my list of things to do for the day and i get up.

otherwise, i play a few rounds of toon blast and then practice morse code, because i'm learning that.

then it's time to read. first i read books related to my studies. then when my thinky bits are tired, i read a chapter or so of whatever book i'm reading for pleasure.

only then do i get out of my hammock for the day.

then i work on research or projects that need doing from my desk and early in the day when i am fresh and the light is good. i may intersperse this with life maintenance adulting, or gear maintenance.

at lunch time i eat at my desk, usually watching a video that pertains to my studies.

in the afternoon i go out. this trip may include shopping or errands, but it often involves a trip to my study location for research or observation. in warm weather i may take practice on the archery range as well. i always stop to tag an ingress portal because that's a thing i do every day.

then it's home to eat an early dinner, talk to MB, and that's followed by either evening project work/ research, or if needed, a quick circuit playing ingress to tidy up anything in my area that needs to be made blue.

then i sleep.

i love this woman so much right now.

https://www.wthr.com/article/waitress-confronts-customer-who-wrote-gay-slur-receipt-viral-video

go on, click through.

this here is just one reason why we need to have minimum wage that eliminates employer subsidies for tipped workers.

or better yet, eliminate tipping and institute livable wage for everyone.

awesome. let's go look.

i think i have done something right in this life when i am the adult to whom groups of girls run when they have found a bug. or a dead thing.

this happens to me all the time.

a group of girls finds a bug or a dead thing or a pile of poop and the come running to me. "hey, flask! we found a (thing)!"

"awesome.", i say. "let's go look."

this reaction is pretty much why this cycle repeats. i am the adult in the room most likely to drop everything to go look at the thing. sometimes i am not delighted to drop everything and go look at whatever it is, but i want children, particularly girls, to be interested in natural science. i want them to be excited by the things they find, and i want them to think about how to interpret what they find.

we think this is part of a deer.

there's a trail of it leading from the far shore of the pond to the road.

maybe it's a hunter dragging a kill, maybe critters dragging dressed bits.

either way it's under the ice. it may have been ON the ice until a thaw.

and my heart swelled with pride when the girls came to find me to go look at it.

camping equipment: crêpe pan

in october my girl scout troop went fall camping. it was colder than normal, and it snowed. you never know what you're going to get in october.

anyway, there's this kid in my troop who had her heart set on BRINGING A CRÊPE PAN so she could make crêpes for everybody for breakfast. i asked her if she was prepared to get up before everyone else to cook breakfast, to stand in the cold cooking while others were eating. 

yes and yes.

carry on, i said.

so she showed up with her crêpe pan and a big jug of batter (because everyone knows that crêpe batter is best when left to rest at least an hour and overnight does not hurt it one bit) and she stood out in the field with snow coming down all around her and she made crêpes.

afterward she said it was a dream of hers. 

and she changed her username in our troop chat to Crêpe Master.

yeah she did.

we are right now planning our menu for our winter camping this month and the other leaders were thinking breakfast should be instant oatmeal and muffins and such but this kid is all like "can i make crêpes?"

i do not understand this child's need to make thin tasty pancakes on camping trips but i sure as heck support this initiative.

it turns out one of the other girls ALSO has a crêpe pan.

this is going to be epic.