If anyone is giving out awards for a Procrastination Queen, I think I ought to be nominated.  No, scratch that; I definitely ought to win.  There is no other reason why I would be here, blogging, when I have a paper and two presentations due on Monday.  And yet, here I am…  I am sure that at some point in my life, I will learn that ignoring unsavory situations actually does not make them disappear.  However, that time does not appear to be now!

On Friday night, my parents, brother and I went over to my brother’s house to see my new niece.  Naturally, she is adorable.    I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I have a lot of nieces and nephews; so much so, in fact, that I’m not even sure exactly how many if I don’t stop and count!  But it is still always a marvel to me… a few days ago, she didn’t even really technically “exist,” and now she’s like this whole little person.  Very strange.  My sister-in-law keeps calling her “him” … I guess it will take a while to get used to having a girl in the house! 

I went to Whole Foods on Friday to pick up the next experimental flavor from Turtle Mountain’s lines of dairy-free ice cream… after a lot of debating, I upped the challenging factor a bit… it is the “Weekend Challenge,” after all!

Cherry nirvana and blueberry cheesecake… I decided it would expedite the process of trying every flavor if we had one on Friday night and one on Saturday, instead of just one a week!  To explain why this is more frightful than some of the other flavors (though I don’t see why it matters that I got these now, as we will eventually try all the flavors anyway), have a look:

I have this notion that anything over 150 calories in a serving of something like this is “unreasonable.”  I have no idea why I came to think so, but as I apparently need to get over it at some point in my life, I guess now is as good a time as any.  For the record, the cherry nirvana tastes an awful lot like cherry liqueur; this isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, though I actually do hate cherry liqueur.  There were also big chunks of chocolate in it, and I would have liked it better had they been smaller.  But it wasn’t bad.  The blueberry cheesecake, I think, might have been my favorite so far, though again, the crust pieces were way too big.

I don’t know who came up with the concept of this microwave pumpkin pie, but it’s brilliant.  I made an enormous stack, using 1/2 cup pumpkin and 1/2 cup All Whites, along with nutmeg and cinnamon… and dusted a lot more cinnamon on top!  I think I’d actually increase the ratio of All Whites to pumpkin next time, because I prefer a firmer texture.

Soy yogurt, Truvia, raspberry acai applesauce, and Puffins (finished a box of cereal… whoo!).  This was good.

This, however, was not.  It ripped off a recipe I found on my gym’s bulletin board (not literally; I actually took a picture of it)… 1/2 cup pumpkin, a scoop of vanilla protein powder, 1/2 cup ice cubes, 5-7 ounces water, two dashes cinnamon, and a dash of nutmeg.  I have this annoying tendency to forget that I don’t actually care all that much for canned pumpkin.  Maybe that’s why I didn’t like this, or maybe it was the protein powder, which I’d never used in a smoothie before… either way, this was not a “pumpkin delight” at all.  In fact, I couldn’t even drink it.

Carrots and “Mediterranean Medley hommus” had to satisfy my need for something orange instead.  Pardon the horrible picture.

Allow me to indulge in self-congratulations for a moment, because I think I may be a genius.  A stupid genius, if such a thing exists, but a genius nonetheless…

This box of granola had a “best by” date sometime in December… but it had been open for a while, since I developed a completely irrational fear of it, and there was one serving left in there.  But I guess since it had been opened so long ago, it was no longer crunchy!  I decided to pop it in the oven to see if that would help.  It wasn’t happening quickly enough for my impatient self, so I turned up the heat over 400 … and I wound up with very dark granola.  It actually wasn’t all that crispy, but anyway…

I stirred it into soy yogurt mixed with Truvia, and even though it wasn’t crispy, it was still warm… a fact that was very welcome, given the nasty weather!  So, filed for future reference: warm granola + yogurt = good.

My “best friend” texted me earlier… I am kind of at a loss, here.  First of all, I can’t figure out why, seemingly out of the blue, she wants to lean so heavily on me for support.  (I know it sounds weird to say I don’t know why my best friend wants support from me; for those of you who aren’t aware of this, the quotes mean she was my best friend once, but now she is just my oldest friend.)  I’m not sure if it’s because, for whatever reason, she doesn’t feel like she can discuss it with anyone else.  I guess her husband can’t deal, or whatever.  The thing is, you would assume that someone like me — who has had my fair share of depressive episodes — would know how to support someone through something similar.  But the thing is, I don’t.  I don’t know what I want from someone else when I’m going through something like that; all I ever wished for was for someone to just make it all go away.  And nobody can do that.

This is all making me feel quite like a horrible friend… a horrible person.  Because I’m doubting why she’s coming to me.  Because I’m still thinking about how it makes me feel, when it isn’t about me at all.  Because I don’t know what I’m supposed to say or do, and I don’t want to resort to trite comments, so I’m saying nothing at all.  Because a small part of me is actually upset that she doesn’t realize how much she does have, when I am definitely guilty of the same sin.  Because I’m afraid of saying that I’m there for her no matter what, since I don’t know if I can or will be and I don’t want to lie.  Because any of this is a question to me at all.  I wish I was the type of person who could just drop everything for others, but I’m not.  I’m just far too selfish for that, and I hate myself for it.

But I guess I don’t hate myself enough, because if I did, I would just drop everything and run to her.  Even though I’d practically rather drink acid than talk.  I don’t mind talking, really, I just mind terribly when it comes to talking about such things as feelings.  Talking about others’ feelings isn’t as bad as talking about my own, but still.  I used to love the phone, and now I hate it.

It all baffles me, really.  While I definitely don’t know exactly what “support” is, I’m fairly certain I’d recognize it if I had it.  As I don’t, how on earth am I supposed to know how to offer it to someone else?!

I’ll stop babbling now.  Enjoy what’s left of your weekend!