wfh day 28: happened

[seperis]

I am moving out to the porch as long as the weather is nice (aka not broiling hot death). Even with my new desk, sanity should not be fleeting. I need sunlight and Vitamin D, even if it's indirect. It may also inspire me to regularly change clothes, something that might have been sketchy for a bit. Also, apparently I chose better porch furniture than I thought; it's firm (hard) and the cushion barely helps. You bet your ass I'm sitting straight.

I may look into moving my desk out here, actually; it does have wheels.

So, updates:
1.) Child got a sewing machine dropped off at our door by mysterious means and plans to learn to sew. For cosplay, he says, but I say, cool masks made out of old flannel sheets.
2.) I adulted in a new way: I (and three others) bought a portion of a cow. Like, maybe an eighth of a cow, not sure, but so much meat holy shit. As Mom is the only one with a freezer--as they are out of stock for all reasonably priced, reasonably sized ones literally everywhere--she's holding the meat for us. Child is supposed to spreadsheet it for us at some point so we can do an equitable split.
3.) I found out my favorite vape store hand delivers in two hours. Joy can be found in the oddest places.

Comments

[out_there]

I love the idea of using a spreadsheet for dividing up big chunks of cow. It feels very appropriately Texas to me. (My best memory of Texas was the best cooked steak ever. On a size of plate that I found very satisfying -- and my UK cousins would be horrified by that much red meat for one person.) Still, yay meat.

And good luck to Child. Sewing is one of those skills I have just enough mastery of to know that it's not one of my strengths and really not one of my interests. No matter how good a pattern looks, I'll end up happier in a $8 T-shirt from Kmart.

[seperis]

Texas = giant steak, yeah. Your iron was great after that, I bet.

But did you have chicken fried steak the size of your plate? There's a place in Round Rock I went to years ago where one (large) plate and the second was split evenly between the sides, all covered with a river of gravy; my face was very '....' and I grew up here. IF you ever visit Texas again and come here, I'll take you just to get a picture of both our expressions staring at that.

[niqaeli]

Buying part of a cow is such a THING.

We buy 1/10th of a cow at a time from a local ranch because it soothes the SIL's guilt over buying horrible carbon-foot-print-y meat. It's 40-50lb. We have a GIANT-ASS freezer that I am really fucking glad we upgraded last year given this time of plague, which means we can store it easily, but yeah. SO MUCH MEAT.

[seperis]

I've been wanting to do this for years but never bought a freezer, even when I could afford it and they were still available (I am pissed at myself now). In the town near where I grew up, there's a local meat market that sells entire cows/half cows/quarter cows (local and semi-local!) and I think I can convince my mom and sister to go in with me now that we've tried this.

We all have problems with low iron/borderline anemia, and when my dad was alive, he barbecued and made chicken fried steak or grilled ribeyes regularly enough we averaged red meat at least once or twice a week, but since he died, we all slowly defaulted into a higher chicken ratio, especially when chicken got cheaper than ground meat. It took me way too long to realize part of my fatigue was low iron (not anemia but my mom does get that so its something I think about) between everything else going on, and even then...red meat is getting more expensive.

Honestly, I can't afford to keep skimping on red meat even if it keeps getting more expensive; between being Vitamin D deficient (and taking the weekly super pills for it along with daily multivitamin) and hypothyroidism (and taking the daily meds for that), I can't afford to skimp on anything that might help with the fatigue and up my energy; when methylphenidate barely makes a scratch, this isn't a problem of will power. The cow (and it's very economical price) will definitely help; my share is at least three months if split with Child. I'd really like to avoid iron pills again.

[jesse_the_k]

Does the spreadsheet split the good parts and inedible parts in equal measure, or does the cow-factory strip off the inedible before delivery?

[seperis]

I got it through a friend of a friend (it was fof's cow) and it came to us packaged as ground beef, ribs, steak, roasts, etc. Mom's fridge is goddamn epic; one entire shelf of two pound packages of ground beef.

[jesse_the_k]

Mmmmm meatballs!