What's on your menu today (Photo Friday!) RNYers?

Your poor little girl! One of my godsons had multiple, severe episodes of chicken pox, and was truly miserable. But I hadn't realized kids could get shingles, too. I learned something new today!

Apparently 5%?of all shingles cases are in children. My son missed a month off school. He had it on his face and still has scars. They've faded a lot but if he gets too hot or cold, that side of his face gets bright red.

Your poor boy! Thanks for educating me, I had no idea.

Love your fall decor, Teena!

classes are over for the week - the one yesterday went very well. Now to plow through the three next week - which after doing five a week for awhile should be easy. I hope... So ready for this to end. I love teaching, but the courseload was really heavy this fall - more students, more sections, fewer staff. Doing more with less... It's very draining.

I have a few errands to run this afternoon - plus a meeting with our financial guy to see if it's safe for me to retire within the next year. Although the changes to the ACA are giving me pause (we have health insurance through work, but I'm still scared. It will affect us to some extent, I'm sure - and God knows what else will be coming down the pike..). Anyway, I might just take the afternoon off, but we'll see.

QOTD: I rarely get sick, either pre- or post-op. I usually get a cold every year and get the flu maybe once every 10 years. I never took vitamins pre-op, but I've always been a healthy eater (my problem was volume - extreme volume), and I'm careful. I get flu shots every year, wash my hands a lot, etc.

accountability was great yesterday until I "binged" on bran cereal. I had some on my evening yogurt and then started eating it right out of the box. I love that stuff - I think it's the crunch. Plus it's super filling. Really weird thing to binge on, I know. Ended up devouring 1880 calories in total yesterday (my ideal number to maintain my weight is 1700). I'd normally eat light the next couple of days to make up for it, but we're meeting friends at a German place tonight - German food can be really heavy!! Ugh!

2 years 4 months out

B: full-fat Greek yogurt (TJ's coconut - I'm out of homemade until tomorrow...), 2 T blueberries, 1/4 mango

S: coffee with half &half, SF pumpkin vanilla protein/Miralax latte shake

L: probably just a protein bar, because I'll be running around

D: not a huge fan of German food, but probably the meatballs or the roasted chicken, since they look relatively safe as long as I skip the spaetzle

Forgive me if this is common knowledge here, but what do you teach, Catwoman?

I'm actually a university librarian, not an instructor, but every semester we have all the Freshman Comp, Intro to Speech, English as a Second Language, and Introductory Biology classes come to the library for one or two sessions to learn how to do research, use the databases, evaluate sources, etc. We also have random other classes contact us wanting a session for their class - for example, this past week I had two psych classes. This seems to have caught on well beyond the classes that are required to have these sessions (i.e., the Comp, Speech, etc that I mentioned..). One of our student workers is a history major, and she said every semester at least two of her professors takes their classes to the library once a semester so someone can talk to them about how to come up with a research topic, use the history-related databases, etc. I guess some of these professors don't realize that all freshmen get this training - or maybe they figure some of them might forget and they want it pounded into their skulls. Who knows. I really enjoy doing those classes, but it was a bit overwhelming this year. SO MANY of them. Again, more students, more classes, more instructors from other areas wanting their students trained in it, fewer staff to do the training. At least it's almost over for the semester. I'm feeling very drained!

Thank you for your response. It sounds like you've a very dense, intense teaching schedule, at least in the fall semester, in addition to your regular library duties! I am glad you will soon have a lighter load, and can get some rest!

I hope your meeting with the financial advisor went well. I had that same meeting about 15 months ago. He told me I could afford to retire at the end of 2017 and we could afford to buy a place in Florida for winter. So that was the plan I've been following (with retirement 1.5 months early but including severance).

it did! He said I can retire at any time - at this point, I'm basically working because I want to (according to him). There are days I'm ready to pack it up and go at the end of this semester, but I might wait until after the school year is over. For one thing, I think there are some advantages to staff leaving in the summer rather than at the end of the calendar year (I have a meeting with HR next month, so I'll find out for sure), plus I don't know what else I'm going to do in the winter months. I'll be pretty much trapped in my house. It might be nice to retire in the summer when I can get out and do a lot of things... Anyway, it's very exciting - and I'm feeling very reassured that I can do this. I'm glad I went!