wherein Liz makes some progress on her to-do list

Cards are all done except the one for which I need to check the address. (Hmm. Do I call Susan and hope she has Cat's address, call Cat's parents, or call Cat herself? The latter ought to be most sensible, but Cat stopped answering my phone calls over a year ago so it will probably be futile. I'd feel odd calling her parents without arranging some kind of visit over Christmas, but I'd like to talk to Susan and my family before doing so, because otherwise it might be awkward. So Susan it is!)

Gifts are in boxes, but not wrapped; I will get to that tomorrow or Friday.

Bed is made; laundry is not yet put away. I should go do that.

No futher Yuletide writing progress, but I am learning a lot about... well, that would be telling, wouldn't it? Suffice it to say that Google's book scans are currently my best friends. *pets the internet and offers it cookies*

And dinner happened. :-)

Tonight's attempt at cooking involved baked chicken thighs with Italian salad dressing seasoning (which is both delicious and idiot-proof, thank goodness; you just shake some dressing onto the chicken, dump it in a Corningware dish, cover it, and stick it in the oven for twenty minutes at 350F), and a mix of green beans and pearl onions that were more-or-less boiled. (By which I mean I used just enough water to cover them, brought them to a boil, then lowered the heat and clapped a lid on to trap the steam... but the pot was damn full and required a lot of water, so I think it still counts as boiling rather than steaming.) I also threw in my last tiny jalapeño peppers, which means that now neither pepper plant has a reason to still be alive and I can toss their dying remains out into the yard where they will fertilize other plants come spring.

Au revoir, peppers! You did good. *sheds a single tear*

Anyway, the vegetables were a bit bland so I doused them with salt and butter while eating. This is my default solution to flavor issues, but one cannot fix everything with salt and butter. Therefore I should invest in some spices if I am going to continue cooking from scratch rather than living entirely off of microwave dinners and takeout.

I used to cook more, years ago. I'd make tacos, or porkchops drowned in applesauce, or random fish-in-butter, with noodles and various steamed or stir-fried vegetables on the side. But I quit almost entirely for a good long while. I'm not sure why. I wasn't getting more tired, and I wasn't getting more annoyed at how long cooking-from-scratch takes -- my annoyance at the tedium of cooking has remained consistently high from as far back as I can remember. But for whatever reason, I basically gave up on doing the meat and vegetable and starch thing. I didn't even make freaking ramen noodles very much, or Chef Boyardee mini ravioli, or hardboiled eggs, and those are the most minimal you can get while still claiming to actually cook something -- you know, pot on stove with flames underneath.

I started cooking again this year because of my peppers, but I'm enjoying the end results, if not the process, and I would like not to fall out of the habit again. So last week I chucked out the disgusting freezer-burned pork chops that had been languishing in my freezer for nearly three years (seriously, since January 2011; I'm not kidding about that) and now, as previously mentioned, I am thinking about spices. Maybe I will even haul out the giant heirloom cookbook my mom gave me last year and try some official recipes! *gasp*

Okay, probably not, but still. Baby steps. Pearl onions were new for me before tonight. Perhaps in January I will try porkchops again, and this time add some onions to the applesauce before sticking it in the oven. Yeah. I think that could work...

But first, laundry.

wherein Liz considers health insurance

I have to decide by the end of Friday whether to continue getting health insurance via my employer, or whether to buy individually through the New York health exchange website. Based on an hour or so of poking around, I think I could buy a personal plan for about half the price of what I would pay through my employer. BUT! That would only be true if I receive the full tax credit that the little spreadsheet claims I am eligible for, and that sort of thing is often a crapshoot. Also the standard silver plan benefits are not as good or comprehensive as the silver plan benefits I can get through my employer, not to mention there is a hell of a lot to be said for not having to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops myself. And even if I continue to get health insurance via my employer, the new plan would cost $10 less a week than I pay now, for better benefits (oh my god, it covers ambulance transport, do you know how much I needed that last year???) which is like getting back at least one of my old pay raises that previous insurance premium increases ate entirely.

I mean, an extra $500 a year! I could do so much with an extra $500.

Another point to consider is that getting insurance via my employer means that the premiums are never reported to the IRS as income, which significantly lowers my taxes. If I buy my own insurance, suddenly I'd have to pay taxes on that money.

*makes weighing gesture*

Decisions, decisions...