This week . . .on the tenure track

It is Thursday, and I'm actually using my writing time to write this instead of the research blog post I need to be writing, the stats I need to be reading, or the endless calls I need to make.

Nothing interesting has happened food wise this week. We've eaten simple, repeat recipes from the fridge, ranging from frozen ravioli to pork tenderloin. Nothing exciting. I've barely ran - yesterday was the only day it happened, but the next three days look pretty good for 3-4 miles. I did 3.2 yesterday.

My schedule has been jammed packed. We're in the last week before busy season, and everyone is slammed. I spent 9 hours at work with lab related projects on Tuesday, but that big project is now 100% done - and worked out perfectly. We're starting a new project today with the Thursday group - they will do a nice, easy half run to get comfortable working as a team and get used to the new assay. I've blocked four hours in the lab today - hopefully I can spend the rest nearby working on service.

Ah service, that 10% of my job (50% teaching, 40% research). Technically, 22% of my job, since I have a service related course release. I have 12 hours blocked next week just for service related meetings, and this is a theme that will continue for the next three weeks. This does not include my national service - this likely includes another 10-20 hours, although my work study student is rocking the sign making and scheduling.

So this week, how did my time break down?
Monday: 7 hours writing, 2 service (9)
Tuesday: 6 hours lab, 3 reading, 2 service (11)
Wednesday: 4 hours teaching + prep, 2 reading, 3.5 service, 30 min lab (10)

Rebooting - and trying again

It is January. And as I do every January, I revisit this blog and try to think what will make me stick with it this year. My research blog is now two years old, with regular updates. This blog? Well, I update annually.

So this year, I'm giving it another shot. If I fail, I'll delete at the end of the year.

How is going to roll? The goals for this year: run 842 miles. Make 84 new recipes. Be kind to myself 42 times. Easy?

Well, the year has started off with a lot of stuff going on. I left for a 10 day training course in North Carolina on Jan 2, and got back Jan 11; the day before classes started. B had a severe illness on Jan 11, and has been unable to get out of bed or do much since. We are now one week out, with very modest improvement. It will be a long, slow road ahead.

I've turned to my challenges and cures as a coping mechanism. I'm doing the Apartment Therapy January Cure, and am only a few days behind now, thanks to an aggressive catch-up schedule this weekend. The week plus in NC was also great - I ran 16 miles, and have done another 4 this week, putting me at 20.1 for the year.

Food wise, it has also been a busy week. Tuesday night I made Tomato and chicken pea sauce for sweet potatoes, following this recipe on The Kitchen: .

Sweet potato with chickpeas and tomato sauce.

This dish was also the first time in months I had used our can opener, after realizing that I had failed to soak the dried chickpeas the night before. I did not use canned, diced tomatoes as recommended in the recipe - I find canned tomatoes taste tinny, plus a student did an awesome presentation on BPA + tomatoes last year and now I can only eat tomatoes in glass or fresh.

Thursday was recipe #2 for the year. I'm making up for the lost week of microwave cooking while in NC. It was canned soup followed by canned soup followed by easy mac. Our wonderful admin is moving on to a cool new job in another city, and since she is a huge sweets fan, I made chocolate chip cookies. As a scientist however, I had to make the best cookies, and turned to the awesome Handletheheat.com for their 4 part series on the science of chocolate chip cookies. I ignored all crisco or lard based recipes, as I think cookies should taste like butter. This recipe was "Soft Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies". It adds 2 oz cream cheese to the mix, 2 hours of setting in the fridge, and a lot of deliciousness. I omitted the corn starch - I don't keep it, and I did not have tme to run out and buy more. Sick B ate 3 - the first solid food he ate all week, and I got 2. They were delicious, and I'd certainly make this again - in fact, I nearly did on Saturday night. 

The two parts of the dough. And my wonderful kitchen aid. Our kitchen is so small we do not have 30 complete inches of counter space, so I often have to use the stove as extra space.

The finished product as I was loading them up for the party. 

I made these while also writing a grant, and they proved a nice way to think about the grant while writing - and kept me from staying at my desk all day. 

 Recipe #3 was Friday evening. I told B I would make him anything he wanted, and he wanted chicken and dumplings. So I called my 90 year old grandmother, as we back worked out my great-grandmother's recipe - with a few modifications my grandmother had made over the years. She now buys her dumplings and has for the last three decades, so we did have to cross check the recipe with the internet. She did this on her tablet (my grandma rocks BTW) while I sanded down some furniture. I rolled the dough out with my great grandmother's rolling pin (I have her pin and her cast iron skillet, and they are the best cared for kitchen implements I own). I cut them, and while they dried I made the soup from some stock I had made in November and frozen (the stock came in handy this week). They were delicious. B still can't really taste anything, but I had two giant bowls.

Chicken and dumplings get in my belly. 

And, we had enough dumplings left over that I could freeze them for a hearty dinner later in the month when things get crazy and I don't pre-plan dinner.

Recipe #4, like recipe #2, was a recipe from my childhood that others had made me, but I had never made myself (it counts!). These were homemade donuts. The mother of my best friend in elementary school would make these for spend the night parties (the morning after). So good. I found the post on The Kitchen, but back tracked it to Serious Eats: donuts here! These are the Pillsbury dough donuts.
I know, you are thinking "cheater! That is not real cooking."
I beg to differ. These were probably the most complicated thing I made all week, because the oil was so hard to control. It got very hot, and then too cold.

The first failed attempt. The oil was well past 400 - the needle was going back around the candy thermometer when I dropped these in. 

The first attempt was a miserable failure. It is my fault - I got distracted reading about symphysiotomy and let the oil get too hot. There was then a long period of cooling (and further reading) before the oil was the perfect 350F.

I ate one before remembering to take a picture. It was warm and gooey and delicious. 

I could not bring myself to dip them in one of the butter-based sauces listed on Serious Eats, so instead I dusted them with powdered sugar and cocco powder I had on hand. 

Tomorrow, I'll post about the Apartment Therapy Cure - my big project is almost done and then (and then), I can get back to working on grants and papers.

The continued desire for packs, pledges, and other hazards

I stopped blogging mid-way through the Savage Minds writing series. I'll be doing the fall series again (1 hour/day) and I haven't really stopped writing this year. I'm currently in a heavy editing phase where I am no longer generating new manuscripts but working on revising and revising existing manuscripts and grants. Again, I'm hoping to get a few more out over the next few weeks, so post-wedding I can get the decks cleared and get back to writing instead of revising.

My other pacts however, are a continued passion. I did the Academic Muse Writing Group, and decided that it was too pricy for me. I wasn't getting what I wanted out of it, even if I did get a paper submitted during the month. I was just as productive the next month on my own.

I'm currently doing gympact, everymove, walgreens rewards, and Achievemint. Also, CharityMiles, and currently, the #RunAnnaRun pledge of 0.1 miles per day EACH for Wounded Warrior Project and Red, White, and Blue. I'm accomplishing these through a midday sanity walk, that breaks up writing and forces me to move and think. Lifehacker had a great piece on the need to unplug and reconnect with nature (Darwin did it!), and I am finding it really useful.

With EveryMove, I've personally saved $25 off new running insoles (which I like, but don't love), and donated $30 to charity.

Walgreens Rewards gives us money off purchases. We'll easily save $5/month just from what I was already doing.

Achievemint continues to plug along. They've modified what is accepted and balanced out the points a bit. But I can still regularly gain 200+ points per day, towards my $50 visa gift card. I'm at 38,000 thus far - and for a long time, not a lot counted.

Gympact is the stick, if Achievemint is the carrot. Everymove and Achievemint are just rewards. You earn what you do. They are essentially giving you money for your data, which I am okay with.

But gympact is a stick. A big stick. I do 4 gyms, 3 food logs, and 8 veggies a week, each at $5. I pay $5 if I don't complete the pact. I get much less for completing the pacts - usually around $2/week. But man, does it get me moving, eating, doing.

Overall, I suspect by the end of the year, I will have donated $400 to charity between all the apps, and earned around $100 for myself. Not bad for being healthy!

Week 2 - Sabbitical

Blogging fell by the wayside. I can barely keep up with the research blog.

But I'm trying to turn over a new leaf, and reboot myself during year 4. Year 4! I've been TT for 3 full years.

What's going on? Training to run a 10k after injury after injury. I am down to a 9:43/mile for a 5k, with a goal of 9:40/mile (under 30 5k) for my last 5k of the season. According to runkeeper, I've logged 304 miles so far this year, significantly under the target goal. But, I spent May in an ankle boot after a fall and was not back to regular miles until July.

Writing - 3 papers in review (woohoo) with a revisions to a book chapter due mid-month. Two other papers are out for comments. We're halfway done with the lab analyses on two more.  It has been a mad, mad summer of productivity.

I'm also turning into a DIY wedding freak. I'm wrapping vases, making my own invites, maps, info cards, designing the website, and making favors. Plus spray painting welcome bags in my spare time.

Tomorrow is the last evening race of the summer series, then a 10k and 5k and my season is over. I'm planning on doing group runs Thursday morning, so we'll see how that goes. Probably will fade as the weather cools.

Current count
Miles: 304!Only 538 left to go! Probably not going to make this goal - but I am doing a minimum 1.5 miles each day, with long runs on T, Th, Sat.
Meal/dishes: 54. Only 30 left to go! Today was a tasty "science of cookies" experiement. Link: http://www.handletheheat.com/ultimate-chocolate-chip-cookies. I also think this goal is possible.
Writing: 4 in review; 2 of which are accepted with tiny edits needed. 2 others out for comments. Well on track to make 8/8 this year.

Sunday check in

Another week, and the first with all my pledges and the semester running simultaneously. It was a long week; revisions submitted Monday, revisions to other draft sent Tuesday, full lab days Tuesday and Wednesday,  comments back on Thursday and the Monday revisions accepted, and grant writing Friday and Saturday,  with the grant sent to collaborators just before midnight. We've started the next set of analyses with great success thus far.

The weekend started off rough,  but a nice walk as a lego Ent cheered me up. I am still struggling with balance, as my fitbit can attest - not a lot of sleep. Some of that is fueled by a respiratory infection. The rest was service commitments. 

Role call:
Miles: 10.2! Now under 800!
Recipes: 1. Pear hazelnut muffins. We had way too much pizza this week.
Writing: manuscript accepted! 1/8.

Goals next week:
Revisions, revisions,  revisions.
2 days in the lab.
2-3 new recipes.
10 miles, 3 gym trips.
The week is going to be busy, and as part of my "be kind to yourself", I am being honest with my priorities next week. I am also going to try to prioritize sleep, so I can shake this cold.

My fixation with groups and pledges

In an attempt to motivate myself and reinforce accountability, as well as maintain some semblance of work life balance, I have signed up for no less than 3 challenges/accountability groups for the new year. The first was FitPursuit, 4 weeks, 9 miles/week with proceeds going to the Make A Wish Foundation. Easy, since my personal running goal is 10-20 miles per week.

Next, I signed up for 3-30-3 at the gym (3 times a week, for 30 minutes, for 3 months). This was the logical progression of the above - given the weather and my headaches if I run in the cold, I'm going to the gym 3-4 times a week to run. I might as well commit to doing it for the next 3 months.

Most recently, I signed up for the Savage Minds Writing Group, pledging to write 1 hour a day for the next 10 weeks. All of these, of course, directly address the challenges I have set for myself this year. I have been, however, really bad at tracking my mileage for my personal goals.

I did however, finally cook a meal worth counting towards the 84 recipes: oven roasted amaretto sour chicken (recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/amaretto-roasted-chicken/) with mashed parsnips and carrots. Tonight, I plan to make hummus.

The "Accepted with Minor Revisions" piece was submitted yesterday, marking my first submission of 2014, even if the bulk of the work was last year. Maybe it can be the 0.42 of the 8.42 papers?

Current count
Miles: 39.9!Only 802.1 left to go!
Meal/dishes: 1. Only 83 left to go!
Writing: 0.42. Only 8 left to go!

Behind, already

It is only Jan 10, and as expected, I am already behind. The January Cure is sort of happening - at least, I think the 11.5 inches of snow will have melted enough that I can move the brewing and baking supplies, in their new airtight tubs, from the kitchen to the outside store room. Once this is done, I can probably do the rest of the Cure and get the kitchen semi-functional for the semester.

I received another rejection email, for a paper submitted in November. I was actually quite surprised by this one. The review was thoughtful and mostly helpful - if nothing else it certainly identified the problem I thought was going on. I just have to think critically about how to resolve this issue. I suspect the best answer is simply more - read more and write more. But it was not a good week writing wise. I made no progress with this goal.

It was a good week running wise -
Monday  - gym closed, massive snow and cold.
Tuesday - 6 miles
Wednesday - 3.5 miles
Thursday - 4.5 miles
Friday - zero
Saturday - goal is 6 miles. 
Total: 14 miles (+ 6) = 20

Cooking. We ate old recipes. Nothing to report.