November

 It is almost birthday time for Esme.

Just a quick update of the past week or so.  It has turned cold and below freezing in the mornings.  I am still trying to get my mail truck sorted - it has been more than a month that I have not been able to run it on a route and I am doing only my normal company vehicle routes - but I would like to be available to make more money with it.  I am attempting to make some more little dolls to bring to the gallery in Camden The DayLight Gallery... I have only updated the display there twice this year and the knitting hurts my hands if I do it too fast.

I made this TeePublic site because Mark asked me to - the Be Brave Lion is something I drew for handing out stickers and magnets at the shows I went to - to encourage people through example of hey I'm such an introvert this is really hard for me but Be Brave, and put yourself out there ---> https://www.teepublic.com/user/knitowl

I started this little bear / cat yesterday, and have part of the body finished today.

 

 

And I began reading a book Esme got from the library last year - In The Hall of the Dragon King, 1982, author Lawhead  // this beside The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan

I am still working on Japanese, Spanish and to top out my Welsh.  I looked at what translator jobs there are floating around and they are mostly in Japanese and Spanish - neither of which I feel well enough advanced in to actually try for anything.  Mark asked why I didn't look for a job in French or Welsh translation - because *roll eyes* I didn't see any.  I wouldn't this side of Canada and the U.K... really.  The market, if I'm doing any of this for 'the market', is in the Japanese and Spanish, both of which I've really just started on the journey within the past two years - if you're counting actual retention and branching out into grammar (Spanish) and kanji (Japanese).

I feel a bit trapped by how distant we are from any little town for a job - much less one of the ones an hour drive one way -even if I am just thinking about a grocery or manufacturing job, I have this drive to 'be there' and 'work hard' that I've been told is too much - I care too much - and I hang on too tightly to things depending on myself to do them with some intense level that others see as 'ridiculous' at times.  I don't know why I'm built this way.  It has to be for something?  Post office seems to have helped because I really like getting the job done and knowing everyone got their mail and packages today.. but there is the vehicle to worry about, and without my own vehicle, I'm only eligible for half the routes I have memorized - and I can memorize like nobody's business... so I just have to get the vehicle part worked out or decide when enough is enough and go back to something a bit more soul-sucking where my .. natural inborn diligence??... is not going to get in the way - that sounds absurd, but it feels like that, and even if I say 'I can tone that down, I can not care so much' it's like saying I'm going to suddenly be a social butterfly, not going to happen no matter how many times I try.  I'm woven out of this strange string.

and the winters have gotten so intense here in the past few years there have been days I could not get into town to work at all and had to call in.  Mark says I take that too seriously - other people would just shrug and say 'oh well' and not consider it.  I look at the jobs and say 'do I even want to take that job if in the winter, a few weeks, I might have to call in?'... Mark sees that as a bad way to think.  I wouldn't even really be thinking, perhaps, about other jobs if my truck wasn't 1.) costing money and still not working and 2.) working and being called for jobs in it and paying the money back so that I can save some next year

I'm not even sure what else I want to say at the moment - it's a bit stressful being a singular adult person sometimes - I wish I was twins.

Yogurt Cake or Yogurt Bread

I made yogurt bread the other day - sort of cake, but tasted like bread

It doubled at least twice it's volume in the oven!

350 degrees, 40 minutes

regular plain not-Greek yogurt

2 large eggs, stirred well into the yogurt

added salt, a few dollops of light cooking-style olive oil and a large swirling of honey, and a few tablespoons full of brown sugar add a lot more brown sugar maybe if you want it 'sweet'.. but it will change the chemistry that happened here

mixed it all up again, it was so smooth with the yogurt compared to making this with butter and milk

added regular white flour, and into the flour well put baking powder AND baking soda all smashed up fine, and then mixed it all up together again, adding flour until it was the consistency I wanted

poured into the baking dish, hesitant because it might expand too much!

let it sit for 10 minutes while the oven preheated

put it in and watched it - it didn't overflow

When it got nice and brown, I took it out

The top texture was a bit like a cheese souffle, slightly rubbery but in a good way, only slightly 'burnt brown butter' tasting

It was great with some maple syrup and apple jelly, and I've eaten it the past few days from the refrigerator container with a mixture of rice and other leftovers.

 

 

nicely browned, maybe too brown? anyway, still good

a kanji book test I took on the computer - this is something like 107 kanji including the other few I've obviously added on.  The pink ones were the ones I didn't have answers for or were wrong the first guess.  It's getting better.  I know a few more beyond these as well and will be working to make another list of what I do know to test from.