Vicky Learns to Cook

 I was telling my Mom today, even when I retire someday, I'm going to need some kind of routine.  I feel lost without it.  Yes, I'm a Virgo, yes I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, type A, extrovert, ESTJ on the Meyers Briggs, all of that. (And a night owl, but that doesnt really matter here) Extrovert, Sensing, Thinking, Judging I need structure. I need routine.  And I need to break out of the routine too, routinely. (laughs) It's true! So while I dont' look forward to work, necessarily, I do look forward to getting back to my routines.  Things have a way of changing, however;  my org at work, my meetings, my classes can all shift.  It can actually cause me some anxiety to NOT get the weekly meetings set up immediately after we start tomorrow. All that unknown bothers me.  This is why I end up building structure where there is none, planning where there is no plan.  It's an essential skill, may I even say a virtue to be flexible, to deal with a...

 Well we made it to 2022. I got around to most of the rooms, organized, deep cleaned a good portion of it. I'm beat. Really tired. And it's not done. At this point, I'm running out of days and energy.  But the only person pushing me to do this was me. And work beckons the day after tomorrow.  At what point do you stop the organizing and just live with what you have? Do you push it to weekends when you don't get it all done? I have a box of good dinnerware that needs to be put somewhere. I have cupboards that have stuff in them that I never use. This would be my next project. If you don't count putting the Christmas decorations away.  But your mind can only take so much change, so many decisions. So many new places for things. It's physically tiring too.  Still, whenever I look at my cleaned up rooms, my once again white counters, I don't feel like it as time wasted.  One more day to go, as my routine seeps back in, and thoughts of work come back.  Hope...

 It's Monday. We are in the no mans land of holiday between Christmas and New Years.  Today was Utility room day, not much to do in that room except recycle some bottles and bags, clean up my stuff from culinary and martial arts classes. There's a lot of stuff involved in both. I ended up putting the extra vases in the closet and realized that's where the ironing board was, not that I've needed it lately.   All that's left is to vacuum.  It feels like a chili kind of day. Very slushy and cold outside.  chili !!

Osouji, essentially "Big Cleaning", is a Japanese ritual of the  household that is highly believed to cleanse the home and purify the residence in order to welcome “Toshigami,” the kami (Shinto deity) of the New Year. There is more to it than just cleaning, but the idea that I am taking from it is to prepare for the New Year, one that certainly that will be spent at home for the most part as the pandemic lingers on.  I got the idea from my previous dojo where we cleaned the mats at the beginning of the year.  It isnt like me to want to clean, but the idea of having gone through every room, knowing where everything is, organizing, removing things never used, and knowing that at least for the moment it is truly deeply clean, does appeal to me.  It wouldn't help if I had someone else do it, since there are thousands of little decisions to make as I go - what to keep? what to discard? how deep is deep cleaning?  And it's a personal thing to do. To make the home most...

 I've been nose deep in books lately.  In the hopes that I have more time to read books,  I ordered three more in the series I just read.  Here is the first book: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger.  Looking forward to Curtsies & Conspiracies, Manners & Mutiny, and Waistcoats & Weaponry.  I'm sure some of you have read them already. No Spoilers! I brought my head up long enough to see the cookie supply was getting low, so I grabbed some rice krispies and made one of my favorites from my Mother in Law's recipes - Date Skillet Krispie cookies.  This is one of those recipes that come out hot and you have to roll them or manipulate them while hot or they dont work. So you hear a lot of "ooh! Tsss Hot! Ah!" while making them. Cant exactly surprise someone with them haha.  On the hydroponic gardening front, the lettuce wilted and died, not sure why. Too much fertilizer/nutrients I guess? But the basil has begun to germinate, so I'm h...

 Happy Winter Solstice! (sings "here comes the sun...") An update on the sourdough starters - the Royal Oak grape sourdough starter was pitched last night. It started smelling really bad, not like sourdough bad but like moldy cheese and barf bad. Even if that was the way that one is supposed to go, I didnt want to eat that flavor in a bread!! But the San Francisco starter that I bought is turning out nicely. Tomorrow I start discarding, so it's getting close to being active and ready.  I did some reading up on this and I think that for the future I will also dry some of the starter in case things go badly, i dont have to keep buying starter to get going again. I dont have a lot of freezer space or fridge space so that will be my insurance policy.  I've been getting cookie orders so I need to run to the store again to get more ingredients and boxes. I have  a repeat customer from last year! pretty exciting :) I spent the rest of the day making cookies, both for an ord...

 Today has been dubbed cookie day.  Because we are doing a gift exchange in my small group for Bible Study, I am making a couple dozen cookies for each person to pass, which means 6 dozen cookies. And eventually more... I had also planned on making sour dough bread from the sourdough starter I got from the store, but since  I got it yesterday, I dont have enough time to make it for my dish to pass tomorrow (  need like 5 days or so to go from a dry starter to an active one). I didnt remember this, so I went to the local bread store and got a couple of loaves - country sourdough and a lemon rosemary sourdough. I'm sure it will be fine.  So I have a San Francisco Starter being activated and a hometown Starter on day 4 of 14. Lot's of bread in my future if it all works.  So I'm concentrating on cookies then.  I have Snickerdoodles in the oven, and Oatmeal Raisin, and finally Chocolate Chip.  Snickerdoodles Chocolate chip and Oatmeal Raisin I kept cha...