I'm trying a half-batch of Apple Cider Vinegar soda bread in the oven, after mulling over the chemistry for few days, rabbitholing a few times, and thinking about what I have in stock. I thought it was a good day to try something new.
baked
cut up hot
eaten with peaches and peach syrup
I put the rest of the soft slices away in a container, and the hard bits and crust into a bag to add to some soup later today or tomorrow, it's a recipe that is going to need some trying out different chemical reactions (sugar?, honey? I added an egg above the board of the boildown recipe I had found, and what did that do, if I don't add that next time, what would happen? I used the 1:.75 ratio of the flours that four out of the five recipes had.. why did that other one have the smaller ratio of wheat flour? worth looking at) and techniques (did I cut too deep? did I knead too much and should have left it with some of the air trapped in it that happened right away? if I made twice the size of the loaf instead of halving it, would it not have been so very hard outside or would it have been about the same?)
It took about 45 minutes total to make, and I keep all the ingredients.
It's worth experimenting.
Languages:
I thought it was about time to update the language tree - but anything not nearing level 10 means I'm not really working on it... there are a few of the harder languages at 9 right now. The site that keeps the info only makes 'level' ratings up to 25, although the French and the Spanish go way beyond that in the actual program. So I'm barely halfway through the French's 'section 5' which is only B1 rating, comparatively. But still, that means I'm still working on it. I just can't stick to it and only it - my brain needs to have the connections and variety. Besides these, I'm still doing a little Latvian and Lithuanian elsewhere, and studying Chinese characters randomly as they come up on another program to extend the Kanji (Japanese) learning I did last year.
I still find it funny that I was told, as a young person, that my speech impediment (lisp) meant that I would never be able to speak any other language well, and I shouldn't even try. Not to mention the dyslexia, which I had found my own ways of getting around*, which were considered to be me just being overly imaginative (with my phonetic script I learned to transcribe things in so I could connect them better, starting from age 9*, and informed by much of the other philosophy and language things I was randomly finding and absorbing as fast as I could understand it) and playing around with things like a child plays dollhouse or something. * I did have a good teacher that got my feet under me and then started me on the way, it wasn't all on my own, no, but the phonetic language was my own work, later, because things still didn't make sense.
And also, repeatedly told that I was 'never going to use any of that' so why would I even want to try to learn something like Portuguese or Japanese.. but of course, that was in the 80s and 90s. If I had only really pursued some of these earlier, besides the German I was put into in high school - where would I be in them today? I had a head start in French from my grandmother, but then I didn't get enough resources and definitely no encouragement to continue it. That's so hard - you can't do that! And the high school class 'was full' because I was at the end of the alphabet and not high in GPA.. so German it was. And I still don't really feel the compulsion to follow learning German in the way I do a few other languages... it's there. I could. And yet, why don't I? I can read some of it and understand some of it and then as usual I drift away and go do something else.
But then, with the internet making it so much easier to find resources and confirm translations than the hunt and peck and order things of dubious provenance of the 80s and 90s... and maybe I just needed time for my brain to organize itself, before I could 'take off'. There's also the real chance that my brain began to organize itself better by learning these the past 8 years, and the faster I put those pieces together, the better everything else has worked for my learning, as well.
French L 25 XP 52758 22758 XP beyond Level 25
Welsh L 25 XP 30114 114 XP beyond Level 25
Spanish L 23 XP 25578 +422 XP to next level
Japanese L 19 XP 14380 +620 XP to next level
Czech L 19 XP 13888 +1112 XP to next level
Romanian L 17 XP 11143 +857 XP to next level
Portuguese L 16 XP 9632 +868 XP to next level
Italian L 15 XP 7952 +1048 XP to next level
Greek L 14 XP 7226 +274 XP to next level
German L 14 XP 6086 +1414 XP to next level
Finnish L 13 XP 5515 +485 XP to next level
Catalan (es) L 12 XP 4303 +597 XP to next level
Russian L 11 XP 3818 +82 XP to next level
Swedish L 11 XP 3689 +211 XP to next level
Spanish (fr) L 11 XP 3190 +710 XP to next level
Norwegian L 11 XP 3097 +803 XP to next level
Hungarian L 10 XP 2591 +409 XP to next level
Ukrainian L 10 XP 2288 +712 XP to next level
Irish L 9 XP 2174 +76 XP to next level
Turkish L 9 XP 2044 +206 XP to next level
Chinese L 9 XP 1882 +368 XP to next level
Polish L 9 XP 1798 +452 XP to next level
It rained in the night, and everything needed it. It could have rained a little more - it was just enough to take the dry off of most things but not enough to soak in good.. on the bright side, the road was not muddy for walking to the school bus. Esme and I saw a baby deer up on the road on the way to the bus. It was a little magical, with very big ears and spots, and it stopped and looked at us before deciding it needed to run off into the woods again.
I had strange dreams in the night, including that I was suddenly careening down the road, even though I had my foot on the brake, and it was dark, so I didn't realize I was moving - fumbling for the headlights, because I hear the wind whipping through the windows and I know there are turns up ahead - and get the headlights on and the absurdity is just ten times higher, my brakes aren't working well.. I'm making it around the corners (like I did when the power steering went out in the other truck) but just barely and I realize that no that isn't the wind, I'm not moving, it's raining outside in the real world and I am in bed. And I get up and let the dogs in and out. I stayed up a few hours, then laid back down.
Later, the same type of of dream.. except it starts in the driveway. My mother and stepfather are there, loaded down with bags and winter clothing - they are going to try to get in my mail truck (there isn't even room, it only has one seat besides the driver and its small) and I don't know where they want me to take them or why etc etc.... I realize walking up to the truck that it is running and for how long? How did I leave it running, and I'm going to run out of gas? That was so irresponsible of me, why would I do that... and I get in and they are going to load the things in, my mother is talking about some rash on her hand, and then she sees this huge mass of blood and scratches over my right shoulder (which isn't there, it was some sort of analogy) and I say yes, that happens... it'll be alright, and she gives me this look like 'what in the world how does that happen?' and I shrug it off... (shoulder, analogy, shrugging things off.. yes)
And at that point I realize that I'm also 'half-naked' as I say to my mother in explanation - in tank top and shorts and barefoot and they are wearing full winter jackets and boots and such.. and I tell them I'm going to have to turn the engine off and go inside and get dressed, because I obviously can't go like this.. "I don't know what I was thinking, etc"... and I don't even know where we are going but obviously, I can't go like this. And yes now I fully realize that this is a dream... that they aren't here, that I should wake up - but for some sort of completeness I go to turn the engine off, but then suddenly again the brakes aren't holding, which they were, before.. again, brain playing games, trying to force me to continue 'playing' and the truck is drifting down the hill.. and I'm trying to figure it out and then a big piece like the element of an oven comes out from underneath it and spits out into the garage... my stepfather and mother aren't there, now I am standing in the garage with Esme and Mark, the vehicle is off and up on blocks and turned 180 degrees, we're trying to figure out what the piece is, if we can replace it and if Esme needs to learn welding to fix it and I am realizing a lot of the things that are in the garage are only sort of 'half-formed', my brain is working really hard to make the air compressor and windows and shelves and things I don't look at often but I'm getting the picture again that this is a dream.. and I should just wake up.
I realize also, in both parts of the dream - that I was sitting in a seat on the left hand side of my truck which is not true - it is a right hand drive. The lights are even harder to reach from the right-hand seat, but they were right there where they should be on the left and styled like the other vehicle. So I was somehow merging the two trucks we have on the inside, while it was all the mail truck on the outside. Everything else about it was the same - just with a left hand seat, and no right-hand seat etc.. I find it interesting that my brain did that.
So, yes, lots of worry allegory there, not in control, things beyond my control etc. I'm still trying to figure out what the bloody shoulder means 'shrugging' I guess - just the fact that I ignore a lot of what goes on with my body other people would naturally find alarming, perhaps, and just press on.
((footnote* : I had a really good first grade teacher, who got me on the right path when she realized what my issues were, didn't call it dsylexia, but later, I realize she did a lot of talking with me and 'worming out the problem' on each thing I was having trouble with, asked me to describe things, and turned things around or related them visually to me which is dyslexic teaching nowadays, showing me structures like 'gh' and to just mentally replace that in my head puzzle-piecing and trying to match words I knew until the word became apparent phonetically. AND she kept up with me. I had a bad second grade teacher, but the first grade teacher still visited my mother and I and helped me out. She gave me projects and helped out on a Halloween costume I had picked out of a book, helping me follow the instructions and so forth. I had a better third grade teacher, and at that point, the first grade teacher gave me a set of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books and a bible, and said I was doing better than she had ever hoped and was so proud of me - and to promise to read every one of the Little House books.))
No comments:
Post a Comment