That's why I become more and more vegetarian as time goes by (my dad became a complete veggie at 70 or so); one of my sibs and one of my kids likely fit the "militant vegetarian" category, as was my husband when I met him. We've come to a sort of compromise: I don't buy meat except for some sustainable (theoretically) fish and some local free range chicken. We'll eat whatever is served at other people's houses. We respect our bicycle guests food choices and err on the side of the vegetarians: if anyone is one, a veggie meal is served. (Tonight we are supposed to have five. They are getting roast chicken, organic rice and/or potatoes, apple pie made of organic ingredients. I think.
Now that even my youngest is mostly tied up in her own concerns, I'm getting more time to figure out a) what has gone wrong before, and how to fix it (mostly organizational!), b) teach violin & do music c) do the more optional parts of my part time job, in other words, the things that actually count. A couple of days ago I made the first significant changes to a website that I inherited when I moved here almost eight years ago...I've made small functional changes in the past (when things went obsolete and didn't work), but now I'm gonna rip the whole thing up and start over. (Actually, I'm going to put all of the elements that fit in it, within its constraints...it was built with a program that no longer functions, Dreamweaver, so I'm editing everything the old fashioned way, with vi, and then I'm gonna build a parallel site with a content management system, and then we'll see what happens. Maybe nothing, if I keep on getting more students.)
Skip this part if you don't want to read about violin stuff:
So yesterday I took my toolbox and a handful of old strings (a combination of used Zyex & Helicore) and visited my newest student, with the intent of changing her VSO (violin shaped object) into something functional. All of the strings were broken but for the A, and it had a weird look, like a guitar string pressed into service as a violin string or something. First I sandpapered the feet of the bridge, so it would stop popping out whenever it was strung up. For some reason the foot on the treble side was about twice as tall as the foot on the bass side, so I took care of that too. Then I took the sandpaper to the softwood nut (it's supposed to be something hard, like ebony) and cut that down quite a bit. Then I put on a set of well used Zyex strings, but the A was damaged, so had to use a used Helicore A. (Those of you who know about violins will see that this is not optimal, but functional, because the result is that the two lower strings have nylon cores, and the two upper are steel.) Then I showed her how the tuned I'd showed her when her violin had one string really goes, and she learned it on one go, which made me realize that I am going to have to teach her and her friend (also taking lessons) different stuff, or a mix of my standard repertoire and individualized things. Okay... (I've had the "friends learn at different rates causing problems" before, and I hate it. Some people come wired to be able to put the brain and the fingers together much more quickly than others...I've found that it doesn't mean that much in the long run. But it seems important to those who think they are not playing as well as others.)
Back...I've just made lunch. Lunch is our big meal because husband feels best when he has very little to eat later in the day. I had planned on making the pie at the same time, and I had the pie crust flour (mixed with oil, from the last time I made one) in a mason jar in the fridge...dumped it in the bowl, poured water in from the filter jug, and the lid fell off, turning the pie crust mixing bowl into a lake of water. So, I poured that off and put the whole mess in the bread machine, along with yeast and more flour and stuff. I think it might be a supersized loaf, but I'm not gonna look until it's done.
That other stuff for today? Not done yet.
Except I called our Nurse Practitioner's office to enable Youngest (17) to get vaccine boosters, if she goes to town today. Otherwise, Saturday starts Tech Week for Sweeney Todd, and I get to be in town almost every day, so we'll do it then.