I’ve had fun going through my “following” list on Twitter and giving love to some of my favorite tweeters each Wednesday this month.   This time around, I’m putting D-Tweeters in the spotlight, as American Diabetes Month winds down.

@tmana, @vovh, @MomsL8, and @rpederse – my fellow type 2 tweeters.

@CureT1Diabetes, her old blog was one of the first I found on the ‘net a few years back when I was looking for support on my type 2 diabetes as well as my husband’s type 1 diabetes.

@Childhood, whose young daughter was just diagnosed with type 1 in the past week and has been tweeting from the hospital.

@JayCutler6, whose Touchdowns for Diabetes program rocks, even if my favorite NFL team has been only so-so this season.

There are so many of us out on Twitter and blogging and living.  It’s a strong online community and I’m glad it’s out there.  :)

1. An easy morning routine for a change at work.
2. Walking at lunch.
3. Husband doing the dishes while I was at work.  (’twas really piling up…)
4. Husband making dinner early so that we could watch our DVR’ed shows before I “conk out”.
5. 104 comments in November to help support iPump.

(And now I nod off the computer and pay attention to those DVR’ed shows.)

1. A cinnamon roll after this morning’s perfect blood draw.  I shouldn’t, but I do it anyways twice a year after a fasting panel.
2. A 20-minute walk from the hospital cafeteria to work.  (That worked off some of the cinnamon roll, I’m sure.)
3. Getting one big work project out of the way.
4. Getting to work early enough to leave early and get two writing projects out of the way.
5. Going to relax with the December Williams-Sonoma catalog for a few minutes before bedtime.

I’m the kind of girl who requires a butterfly needle for a blood draw.  I’m the kind of girl who requires a warm compress on my arm before even attempting a blood draw.  I’m the kind of girl who usually spends more time in the lab chair getting poked and prodded than in the waiting room.

You think you comprehend?  No, I don’t think you quite understand.

I’m the kind of girl who shows up to work after a blood draw with a compression bandage around each arm AND one around the back of a hand, bruises developing quickly on all three sites.  Yes, it’s usually that difficult to get enough blood for a “simple” A1c, TSH, and lipid panel.

For whatever reason – enough water consumption in the past couple days (thanks to past lab tech advice) or being warm enough on my own bundled in my winter coat until my name was called (thanks to a blood draw veteran’s advice) or all the planets were correctly aligned – Ryan the lab tech had absolutely no problem finding a vein this morning.  AND I was in and out of the lab itself in only five minutes (though I still needed that necessary butterfly needle), only slightly shorter than my time spent in the waiting room.

And look, ma, no bruising!

1. Sleeping in after a quick breakfast break.
2. Getting out in the sun for a few minutes on a Walgreens’ run.
3. Better blood sugars since replacing batteries in meter.  Coincidence?  Hmm.
4. Homemade-by-the-husband WINGZ.
5. There’s always next year?  (For the Bears and the Broncos.)

I know what you’re thinking based on this post’s title.  Rachel is off talking football again and I’ll just ignore it because I don’t follow football.  But this post is about more than football.  It’s about the budget crunches that state governments are facing.

The University of Colorado regents are facing an agonizing decision.  Dan Hawkins, fourth year head coach, has not produced the results that the athletic department or university was expecting when hired four years ago after several successful seasons at Boise State.  The Buffaloes have been downright awful the past two seasons, in fact.

The regents’ hands are tied, as they are obligated to buy out the Hawkins contract should he be fired without cause.  They just had to do that with Hawkins’ predecessor, Gary Barnett, only four years ago.  The athletic department is still repaying the loan to the campus and university system from this last firing.  And right now, the state of Colorado is under fiscal crisis, just as so many states around the country are.

Some say, fire the athletic director and get someone in there to light a fire under Dan Hawkins.  In that, they risk another subpar season and a recruiting class less attracted to a subpar team.  After all, this is being talked about with Rich Rodriguez at the University of Michigan as their athletic director retires next year, too.

If coaches at private schools like USC or Notre Dame don’t perform, it’s easy to fire them.   The boosters feed enough money into the system to fund buyouts and they don’t have the consideration of state budgets.

This is where I have to admit that college football has become more of a “minor league” to the NFL than a means for excellent high school athletes to get a college education.  It’s about hiring head coaches with the best salaries and making sure the best athletes keep healthy, making it easily into the NFL.  Oh, and then there’s all the money that flows in and out of bowl appearances.

I know plenty of people who are fully into the NFL but are discouraged by the fanfare (no pun intended) that college football has become.  I’m starting to buy into that line of thinking, especially looking at what buyouts can mean to already financially strapped state universities.

While the ever-increasing salaries of NFL players and coaches are also questionable, at least there isn’t something behind all the hype that’s being forgotten.  In college football, they’re absolutely forgetting the “college” part of the equation.

1. Back to wimpy arm weight exercises AND abdominal crunches after a long absence.
2. Afternoon naps after feline alarm clocks insisted on going off at 5:30 AM.
3. Getting out of the house and away from the computers for a social function.
4. Traveling to a part of the metro area we rarely see (SE Denver/Aurora).
5. Learning more about the friend who isn’t just G’s former manager or our cat caretaker for vacations by joining him at his barbershop quartet open house.

1. First book to leave a lasting impression?

The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton.  Written in the years following World War II with the rise of suburbia, this speaks to today’s world with how much has changed since then.  We’ve made progress, sure, but are we happy with it?  This was my favorite book as a smaller child and I still think of it often.

2. Which author would you most like to be?

Barbara Kingsolver.  She’s managed to marry her love of biology with her talent for writing beautifully.

3. Name the book that has most made you want to visit a place?

Anne of Green Gables – Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, Canada

Margaret Truman’s Murder in Washington series – Washington, DC

Many novels, including Dracula, Great Expectations, and (dare I say it) Bridget Jones’s Diary just to name a few – England

4. Which contemporary author will still be read in 100 years?

John Irving, Barbara Kingsolver, Cormac McCarthy, Kazuo Ishiguro, Marilynne Robinson

5. Which book would you recommend to a teenager reluctant to try ‘literature’?

Anything by Mark Twain.  Or Ray Bradbury.  Or Markus Zusak.

6. Name your best recent literary discovery.

John Irving.  Despite my brother and mother having had adored his works for years, I’d been reluctant to tackle the looming volumes of his writing.   I’m glad I did, even if it takes weeks instead of days to finish the stuff.  It’s so detailed, so funny, so devastating.

7. Which author’s fictional world would you most like to live in?

Tralfamadore from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.

8. Name your favorite poet?

I don’t like most poetry, even though I can bullshit my way through analysis of poetry much more easily than through fiction.  That being said, I do like Marianne Moore and John Donne.  Some specific favorites include Andrew Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress”, Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”, and Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est”.

9. What’s the best non-fiction title you’ve read this year?

All Creatures Great and Small – James Herriot.  (You could put this one in the books that have made you want to visit a place, too.)

10. Which author do you think is much better than his/her reputation?

Alice Sebold.  I adored The Lovely Bones, as she was able to conquer the point of view of a dead person with surprising results, and Lucky, the memoir of Sebold’s own rape and its aftermath allow us to know what a victim feels, thinks, sees, hears, etc.

1. Getting much of my desk and surrounding space packed for my company’s upcoming move.
2. Revving up the diabetes blog material.
3. Which includes some exciting (to me) review material.
4. Knowing that I WILL exercise this weekend.
5. Lower carb comfort food in the form of pork chops and mashed rutabaga.

I wonder if Neppie knew how silly she looked in this picture:

(Yes, she was happy about being held like a baby.  And yes, she was purring like she almost always is.  And, why, of course, that’s her tongue sticking out.)