Done This Week

[scrubjayspeaks]

For the holiday events, my workplace decided to do a voluntary gingerbread house team competition. I, in my infinite wisdom, wrangled my work friends into doing this with me. Cue me staying late by at least an hour every day for the past week to work on it. Technically, we were allowed to work on it on the clock. This was all well and good for operators, because we have very little work at this time of year. I, however, have approximately five thousand machines to clean and couldn’t really spare the work time.

This activity was fun, but gods, at what cost?

Lewisia: 3 new pieces, plus another bonus piece written

Day job: 44 hours, not counting all the extra time I stayed over to work on the gingerbread house

Cooking: biscuits, sauteed mushrooms and gravy (sadly not in conjunction with the biscuits)

Gardening: succulent club holiday party

Reading: Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, which was fascinating and unexpectedly poetic--so much so that I bought the audiobook just so I can listen to him wax on about fungi as background noise

Listening: Out In The Moonlight by Skyhill (another project involving Dan Avidan of Game Grumps, and so utterly up my street I can hardly stand it, “Live Another Day” could not have arrived in my ears at a better time)

Comments

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Oh, Buddha's hand! <3 Your post about it and the recipe for shortbread is what turned me on to it in the first place. <<

Yay!

>> Sadly, I somehow missed it this season. I can usually find it at one or two local stores, but I never spotted any.<<

It's hit or miss here too. Some years there isn't any, others it's no good. But this one is lovely. :D

>> I do have some from previous years packed in honey, though, which I've had good luck in using for baking.<<

Cool. I usually candy most of mine.

>> One of my projects for the new year is going to be making a running list of things I want to cook. <<

That's a good idea.

>> I always end up getting to the weekend, when I have free time, and realizing I don't have the spoons to both obtain the ingredients AND make the thing. So if I start planning ahead, I hope to have everything I need for a particular experiment going into the time when I'll be able to make it.<<

For recipes where I don't have all the ingredients, I have to put them on the list in advance. However, I try to stock things like butter, eggs, flour, sugar, spices, etc. so I can usually make a general type of thing. If I want to make cookies then I have multiple options from the kitchen.

A problem we have is schedule chaos. Even if we make plans carefully, stuff often requires changes, and that makes cooking a real challenge.