So, oatmeal. Eat it, y'all.

OK, I'm eating oatmeal RIGHT NOW and it's ... sorta OK, so, how much, and is Quaker Instant good enough? Because my LDL/triglycerides need to come down a few points.

I assume Quaker Instant is good enough -- the "instant" just makes it easy to make, it doesn't subtract any of the oat-y goodness.

I make it from the canister, because I'm a cheap bastard, and per bowl, the canister oatmeal is so much cheaper. You can just microwave it, which is easy and awesome. Then I put applesauce and fruit in it.

Hmm. I think How I Fix Oatmeal is probably Buffista Conversation #371.

ION, instead of an actual pie for Pi Day, we're having apple turnovers, with the reasoning that turnovers are portable pie. (Which isn't true; there's no crust, but they're still tasty, and as close as I'm getting this year.)

I make it from the canister, because I'm a cheap bastard, and per bowl, the canister oatmeal is so much cheaper. You can just microwave it, which is easy and awesome.

I do that at home, but for the office, the little packets are super easy to make with hot water from the coffee machine.

My scallops were awesome. I'm not sold on the broccoli rabe - kind of tough and stringy.

I think the instant oatmeal has a higher glycemic index.

Hivemind, research help? My faux niece (BFF's daughter) is in college part-time and working full-time, majoring in Philosophy (yes, she knows). She's 20. She wants to get out of the dead-end town she lives in. She wants to take a course in dental hygiene, but must take it full-time, which means not being able to work enough hours to support herself, which means she needs some kind of financial aid that will pay some of her living expenses. I've been looking, but this is not my area of expertise.

Does anyone know of such financial aid, or where I should look for it? I really want to help this kid out; she's smart as hell and really deserves a chance at a better life than she can get where she is now.

Also, thank you, Steph.

When I was in grad school, I got private loans above and beyond the tuition. The school had a financial aid office that hooked me up with the info. I guess it depends what kind of school the dental hygiene program is connected with.

For the record, my loans were from Citibank, and I'm fairly sure my parents had to co-sign.

We are having pizza pie as our pi day pie.

She wants to take a course in dental hygiene, but must take it full-time, which means not being able to work enough hours to support herself, which means she needs some kind of financial aid that will pay some of her living expenses. I've been looking, but this is not my area of expertise.

Depending on what the tuition is, and what her living expenses are, she may be eligible for enough in federal student loans to make that possible. Her age makes it tricky though - she may be on the young end where they still expect a parental contribution.

ita, Hec's been telling me to do that for a couple of weeks now. I just have to nerve myself up to it--it's awkward being only a very occasional poster/mostly lurker and saying, "Hey, people I don't talk to very much [albeit because Typepad craps out on my work computer and I can only post from home]! You, people I don't talk to very much, seem to be teetering on the brink of disaster but I know how to fix it!"

Curse you, Teppy. Hec just got home and started a pot of his delicious veggie chili, and now I want oatmeal.

Oh, yeah, and there was the time I woke up at 2am going 70 mph on the interstate between Knoxville and Nashville, headed right for the flimsy guard rail, beyond which was a gazillion-foot sheer drop off a mountain. If you want to believe in guardian angels, there's a little piece of evidence for you.

Although I was a pretty boring youth, one of the things I did regularly was sleep while driving on my way home. I commuted 45 minutes to college, worked 40 hours a week and was a double theatre/english major. Which led to me driving home around 2 am, and needing to be back at school around 7 am. There was this one stretch of road that was just a long country road, and I would purposefully sleep while driving it. I don't even know how I am not dead.