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Entry tags:
Growth
I didn't have time for much this week as Jameson's dad was visiting.
I mean, I did all the usual stuff, but less gardening or cleaning in order not to disrupt, I don't know, the vibe?
He stayed in our guest bedroom, which I hope was comfortable. Neither of us has slept in there and I often wonder what the noise from the street is like. The bed is definitely nice though. When Jameson has gigs I will usually splat in there on the cozy bed and watch anime. Currently I'm enjoying "Slime Isekai", second season. Reincarnation animes are popular right now, and at anything popular I'm required to roll my eyes, but this one has depth and quality storybuilding mixed in, so it can stay.
Usually I do my steno classes in the spare bedroom, so this week I was pushed to our bedroom, which wasn't a problem at all. My computer sits on a music stand and the steno machine stands on its own, so all I needed was a chair and I was good to go.
About steno school. I continued to practice for at least an hour every evening this week.
Last week I managed to pass two tests, a Jury Charge and a Q&A.
I needed one more of each of these, plus two Literaries, to pass out of the 80wpm class.
On Friday I was discouraged by getting a 79 on a test (remember that although a 79 is traditionally "passing", it's not a pass in stenography. We need at least a 95% accuracy at 80wpm to pass any test.)
On Saturday I wanted to try again, but thought I'd start with some literary warm-ups at 60wpm since literary is pretty hard.
I accidentally selected a 60wpm lit TEST instead of an exercise though, whoops. I casually got a 99% and moved on to other things.
Probably about 30 minutes later, my brain actually turned on. With a burst of excitement, I remembered that because literaries are harder, we only need to take the *60wpm* tests to qualify!! So I had inadvertently passed a needed test!
I quickly went and took another, scoring a 98. Sweet!
On Monday, I was determined to pass my other two. I started with the Q&A, and it took two tries but I finally got a 98!
And after two tries on the Jury Charge, I got a 96!!
I emailed my teacher right away, and around 10:30 at night she sent this back:
I did it!!! Yay!!!
So now I will be in the 100wpm class. I'm excited and horrified.
At 80wpm I feel like I'm running faster than my feet can go, about to fall on my face. I do a lot of "cheating", that is if the test is speeding along and I'm about to fall behind or drop content I type something phonetically similar to what I *should* be typing. For example I had one test that used the word "Commonwealth" a lot, which is typed in two strokes: KPHOPB / W*ELT.
"KPHOPB" is fairly easy to stroke, "W*ELT" is not, and the test is rocketing along. So to prevent dropped content, I type just "KPHOPB". The word "common" comes out alone, but thanks to context I know what was supposed to be there, and can correct it while creating my final transcript.
It's actually OK to do this for the most part. If you're not a realtime court reporter, i.e. providing captions that are to display instantly to people in the courtroom, what comes out hardly matters as long as you can read your own notes and correct them before making the final transcripts that the lawyers pay for. This is how briefs came about too: instead of having to type out "beyond a reasonable doubt", you just stroke "KWR-RD" which is phonetically Y-RD, and the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" comes out for you.
So I could make a brief for "Commonwealth", maybe something like K-LT. But then of course I'd have to remember it during a test.
Anyway, I'm amazed to have passed and excited and apprehensive about the 100wpm stuff. Wish me luck.
While Jameson's dad was here we did some activities every night, mostly introducing him to VR games.
I mean look, here he is playing Beat Saber. How cute is that??
He left on Monday morning. Hopefully he'll be able to stay with us again soon. Other people too!
Work was hellacious this week, we have a new monitor scoring system and while it's really not that difficult to grasp, a lot of the new rules don't apply to our older captioning mode, and a lot of captionists forget to "unlearn" the new rules when switching from one mode to the other. This has resulted in some frustration and some uncomfortable conversations with people who have been doing their jobs well for years, and now suddenly need to relearn things.
Tuesday was especially bad for me, Murphy's Law was in full effect.
First thing in the morning I stopped to get gas and none of the pumps would accept my credit card, and only 15 minutes later after switching to a different card and having it decline did I realize my card wasn't the problem, it was something wrong with the pumps. So already, late for work just because I needed gas.
Got to work and so many people had called absent that there was far more work to be done than could be done, and in addition there were unusual meetings related to the new scoring, and various things cropping up throughout the day to basically prevent me from being productive whatsoever. On Sunday someone had been assigned part of my workload, and I discovered that they hadn't done any of it when my boss messaged me to ask about it. So, double workload for me. And then literally 10 minutes before my end of shift, Quality Control called because one of my captionists was underperforming. ARGH!! I mean QC is just doing their job, and my captionist needed a talking to, but why do these things have to happen RIGHT when I'm leaving?? I was so angry I almost cried.
Ended up staying 15 minutes late to complete everything, which probably doesn't sound like a lot. But when you have to drive through tourist traffic in Orlando at rush hour, a 15 minute delay equates to a 30 minute delay if you don't pass certain theme parks by a certain time. Anyone who has lived in a major city will know what I mean. For me, I gotta be past "I-drive" before 5pm or I'm f*cked, it's an automatic extra 15 minutes to get home.
Anyway, I got home eventually and enjoyed a quiet evening while Jameson was at a gig. Had a big ol' glass of wine, much needed.
On Wednesday I watered and fertilized the garden. It's finally starting to warm up, so the plants are starting to stretch and grow.
The passion vine is absolutely insane, I can actually see how much it's grown over the past two months. More and more flower buds each day. I counted ten growing passion fruits, and certainly there will be MANY more. This is exciting! I definitely want to make a passionfruit cheesecake. Maybe also a passionfruit tart, or curd.
The jalapenos are coming in nicely, I have some tiny peppers growing. I've got one tomato (these are not cherry tomatoes so there will be fewer of them). The finger lime has new growth too, I'll have to keep an eye on that so as to not let it get out of control in its pot.
The butterwort is putting out a second flower! What a crazy little plant. I love it.
Everything else is just kind of hanging on for now. Oh, Burpee Seeds sent another Joe Pye weed, and this one actually looks like a living plant. Makes me wonder if whoever sent me the dead thing the first time got in any trouble. Anyway, I'm glad to have another chance at this plant because supposedly butterflies absolutely love it.
The milkweed and roselle are coming along too, I'll have to repot them soon or transfer them to the yard.
As I was finishing up the fertilizing and putting things away, I saw motion from the pollinator garden.
A monarch! She spent a lot of time going from one milkweed plant to another, seeming to check out every single one from bottom to top. Every time I tried to get close she flew away, but always circled back as the milkweed was too tempting. After a few tries I finally managed to sneak up to the fence for this short slomo clip.
After she had left I examined the milkweed and sure enough...eggs!
Eggs on the flowers, eggs on the seed pods, eggs on the undersides of many of the leaves (which is actually where they are supposed to go lol). I have really, really been hoping that I would get monarch caterpillars!
The problem is, in the wild only 2-3% of eggs survive to the caterpillar stage. And my garden is absolutely crowded with milkweed assassin bugs, which eat monarch eggs. I resolved to do some research and see what I could do to help.
In the meantime, it was time to make some bread.
This week's loaf from Bread Baking for Beginners is a lemon zest rosemary fougasse.
Fougasse is a lot like focaccia, only it's got decorative cuts in it to make it look like a leaf and I think it's supposed to be crunchier.
Anyway, I made it just like the others, brushing it with olive oil and lemon zest and rosemary right before it went in the oven.
I think it came out much puffier than it was supposed to, but I have no idea why. Maybe I should have deflated it a bit. Actually, this is a lot how I'd like my pizza dough to come out for once! Go figure.
Whatever, it was still very delicious, absolutely nothing wrong with it texture or taste-wise.
We enjoyed it with dinner, which was pork chops with apples and onions and roasted brussels. No picture because dinner was ugly even though it was very tasty :P
Later on Jameson had his D&D session, and while he was doing that I researched what to do about my newly acquired monarch eggs.
Eventually I got so excited and worried that something would eat them during the night, I went out into the yard in the dark and found a few milkweed leaves with eggs on them, and plucked them. Per my Google research, I put them egg-side-up in a tupperware lined with a wet paper towel, losely closed the lid, and put the container in a place where it won't get hit with direct sun. Then I went inside and ordered a small mesh enclosure for the caterpillars, assuming I'm lucky enough to hatch some.
I didn't expect to be raising caterpillars this week, you guys. But it seems extremely easy to do, so why the heck not?
The next morning I did all my usual Thursday stuff: meal prep, laundry, dinner planning, writing this blog.
Since I've tested out of 80wpm I no longer have to attend the class this week, and it's the end of the semester so the 100wpm class hasn't started up again yet. I'm grateful for the reprieve, but will still be practicing this week in order not to lose speed.
Upon checking my Instagram I got a nice surprise, Bonnie O'Hara (or one of her interns) left a nice comment on my fougasse!
When the author of the recipe tells you you did it right, you shut up and listen :) I felt quietly proud, and enjoyed a piece of my bread for lunch.
After lunch I repotted the Joe Pye and the milkweed seedlings to larger pots, and gave the tomato a cage.
A gulf fritillary was inspecting the passion vine, so I had to go bother her for a bit.
Jameson had some errands to run in the afternoon, and while he was doing that I packed my lunch and took myself for a walk around the neighborhood. It was a nice day, although I can feel the heat of summer coming already.
Back home I baked the potatoes for homemade gnocchi, then grated them with a box grater which is one of the weirdest culinary things I've had to do so far, not to mention time consuming and messy. But it worked. The gnocchi dough was fluffy, and so were the gnocchi. I shaped them using the butter paddles made by my friend Matt, who owns That Old Thing Furniture.
Having never made gnocchi before, mine are clunky and too big. But the taste and texture were exceptional, so light and fluffy with just a hint of tang and creaminess from the parmigiano cheese worked into the dough. We were both hungry so ate these fresh out of the pot, topped with bolognese and green beans on the side.
Afterward, though, we both agreed that pan-frying the gnocchi gives it an extra level of amazingness. So I quickly heated a pan and fried the leftovers. They're gonna be so stinkin' good.
Soon after Jameson had to leave for his gig at Epcot. I'm so glad he's got gigs!
Part of me misses performing and music. But a larger part of me still knows that I was unwanted and unneeded in the Orlando music scene. Regardless how I feel about it or what I want, I can't be a musician any more. I wasn't good enough, and my time is up.
But Jameson can still make it. He's skilled, he has amazing friends and network connections, and he's an incredible music teacher as well. I'm excited to see what the future holds for him :)
Anyway, after Jameson left I cleaned up the kitchen and allowed myself to chill for the rest of the evening.
Tomorrow it's back to work, another week until I get to cook or bake bread or enjoy my garden again.
What should I make for our dinners next week? Hmm.
I mean, I did all the usual stuff, but less gardening or cleaning in order not to disrupt, I don't know, the vibe?
He stayed in our guest bedroom, which I hope was comfortable. Neither of us has slept in there and I often wonder what the noise from the street is like. The bed is definitely nice though. When Jameson has gigs I will usually splat in there on the cozy bed and watch anime. Currently I'm enjoying "Slime Isekai", second season. Reincarnation animes are popular right now, and at anything popular I'm required to roll my eyes, but this one has depth and quality storybuilding mixed in, so it can stay.
Usually I do my steno classes in the spare bedroom, so this week I was pushed to our bedroom, which wasn't a problem at all. My computer sits on a music stand and the steno machine stands on its own, so all I needed was a chair and I was good to go.
About steno school. I continued to practice for at least an hour every evening this week.
Last week I managed to pass two tests, a Jury Charge and a Q&A.
I needed one more of each of these, plus two Literaries, to pass out of the 80wpm class.
On Friday I was discouraged by getting a 79 on a test (remember that although a 79 is traditionally "passing", it's not a pass in stenography. We need at least a 95% accuracy at 80wpm to pass any test.)
On Saturday I wanted to try again, but thought I'd start with some literary warm-ups at 60wpm since literary is pretty hard.
I accidentally selected a 60wpm lit TEST instead of an exercise though, whoops. I casually got a 99% and moved on to other things.
Probably about 30 minutes later, my brain actually turned on. With a burst of excitement, I remembered that because literaries are harder, we only need to take the *60wpm* tests to qualify!! So I had inadvertently passed a needed test!
I quickly went and took another, scoring a 98. Sweet!
On Monday, I was determined to pass my other two. I started with the Q&A, and it took two tries but I finally got a 98!
And after two tries on the Jury Charge, I got a 96!!
I emailed my teacher right away, and around 10:30 at night she sent this back:
I did it!!! Yay!!!
So now I will be in the 100wpm class. I'm excited and horrified.
At 80wpm I feel like I'm running faster than my feet can go, about to fall on my face. I do a lot of "cheating", that is if the test is speeding along and I'm about to fall behind or drop content I type something phonetically similar to what I *should* be typing. For example I had one test that used the word "Commonwealth" a lot, which is typed in two strokes: KPHOPB / W*ELT.
"KPHOPB" is fairly easy to stroke, "W*ELT" is not, and the test is rocketing along. So to prevent dropped content, I type just "KPHOPB". The word "common" comes out alone, but thanks to context I know what was supposed to be there, and can correct it while creating my final transcript.
It's actually OK to do this for the most part. If you're not a realtime court reporter, i.e. providing captions that are to display instantly to people in the courtroom, what comes out hardly matters as long as you can read your own notes and correct them before making the final transcripts that the lawyers pay for. This is how briefs came about too: instead of having to type out "beyond a reasonable doubt", you just stroke "KWR-RD" which is phonetically Y-RD, and the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" comes out for you.
So I could make a brief for "Commonwealth", maybe something like K-LT. But then of course I'd have to remember it during a test.
Anyway, I'm amazed to have passed and excited and apprehensive about the 100wpm stuff. Wish me luck.
While Jameson's dad was here we did some activities every night, mostly introducing him to VR games.
I mean look, here he is playing Beat Saber. How cute is that??
https://instagram.com/p/CMqVIFSDKy5
He left on Monday morning. Hopefully he'll be able to stay with us again soon. Other people too!
Work was hellacious this week, we have a new monitor scoring system and while it's really not that difficult to grasp, a lot of the new rules don't apply to our older captioning mode, and a lot of captionists forget to "unlearn" the new rules when switching from one mode to the other. This has resulted in some frustration and some uncomfortable conversations with people who have been doing their jobs well for years, and now suddenly need to relearn things.
Tuesday was especially bad for me, Murphy's Law was in full effect.
First thing in the morning I stopped to get gas and none of the pumps would accept my credit card, and only 15 minutes later after switching to a different card and having it decline did I realize my card wasn't the problem, it was something wrong with the pumps. So already, late for work just because I needed gas.
Got to work and so many people had called absent that there was far more work to be done than could be done, and in addition there were unusual meetings related to the new scoring, and various things cropping up throughout the day to basically prevent me from being productive whatsoever. On Sunday someone had been assigned part of my workload, and I discovered that they hadn't done any of it when my boss messaged me to ask about it. So, double workload for me. And then literally 10 minutes before my end of shift, Quality Control called because one of my captionists was underperforming. ARGH!! I mean QC is just doing their job, and my captionist needed a talking to, but why do these things have to happen RIGHT when I'm leaving?? I was so angry I almost cried.
Ended up staying 15 minutes late to complete everything, which probably doesn't sound like a lot. But when you have to drive through tourist traffic in Orlando at rush hour, a 15 minute delay equates to a 30 minute delay if you don't pass certain theme parks by a certain time. Anyone who has lived in a major city will know what I mean. For me, I gotta be past "I-drive" before 5pm or I'm f*cked, it's an automatic extra 15 minutes to get home.
Anyway, I got home eventually and enjoyed a quiet evening while Jameson was at a gig. Had a big ol' glass of wine, much needed.
On Wednesday I watered and fertilized the garden. It's finally starting to warm up, so the plants are starting to stretch and grow.
The passion vine is absolutely insane, I can actually see how much it's grown over the past two months. More and more flower buds each day. I counted ten growing passion fruits, and certainly there will be MANY more. This is exciting! I definitely want to make a passionfruit cheesecake. Maybe also a passionfruit tart, or curd.
The jalapenos are coming in nicely, I have some tiny peppers growing. I've got one tomato (these are not cherry tomatoes so there will be fewer of them). The finger lime has new growth too, I'll have to keep an eye on that so as to not let it get out of control in its pot.
The butterwort is putting out a second flower! What a crazy little plant. I love it.
Everything else is just kind of hanging on for now. Oh, Burpee Seeds sent another Joe Pye weed, and this one actually looks like a living plant. Makes me wonder if whoever sent me the dead thing the first time got in any trouble. Anyway, I'm glad to have another chance at this plant because supposedly butterflies absolutely love it.
The milkweed and roselle are coming along too, I'll have to repot them soon or transfer them to the yard.
As I was finishing up the fertilizing and putting things away, I saw motion from the pollinator garden.
A monarch! She spent a lot of time going from one milkweed plant to another, seeming to check out every single one from bottom to top. Every time I tried to get close she flew away, but always circled back as the milkweed was too tempting. After a few tries I finally managed to sneak up to the fence for this short slomo clip.
https://instagram.com/p/CM0ANkVsRkN
After she had left I examined the milkweed and sure enough...eggs!
Eggs on the flowers, eggs on the seed pods, eggs on the undersides of many of the leaves (which is actually where they are supposed to go lol). I have really, really been hoping that I would get monarch caterpillars!
The problem is, in the wild only 2-3% of eggs survive to the caterpillar stage. And my garden is absolutely crowded with milkweed assassin bugs, which eat monarch eggs. I resolved to do some research and see what I could do to help.
In the meantime, it was time to make some bread.
This week's loaf from Bread Baking for Beginners is a lemon zest rosemary fougasse.
Fougasse is a lot like focaccia, only it's got decorative cuts in it to make it look like a leaf and I think it's supposed to be crunchier.
Anyway, I made it just like the others, brushing it with olive oil and lemon zest and rosemary right before it went in the oven.
I think it came out much puffier than it was supposed to, but I have no idea why. Maybe I should have deflated it a bit. Actually, this is a lot how I'd like my pizza dough to come out for once! Go figure.
Whatever, it was still very delicious, absolutely nothing wrong with it texture or taste-wise.
We enjoyed it with dinner, which was pork chops with apples and onions and roasted brussels. No picture because dinner was ugly even though it was very tasty :P
Later on Jameson had his D&D session, and while he was doing that I researched what to do about my newly acquired monarch eggs.
Eventually I got so excited and worried that something would eat them during the night, I went out into the yard in the dark and found a few milkweed leaves with eggs on them, and plucked them. Per my Google research, I put them egg-side-up in a tupperware lined with a wet paper towel, losely closed the lid, and put the container in a place where it won't get hit with direct sun. Then I went inside and ordered a small mesh enclosure for the caterpillars, assuming I'm lucky enough to hatch some.
I didn't expect to be raising caterpillars this week, you guys. But it seems extremely easy to do, so why the heck not?
The next morning I did all my usual Thursday stuff: meal prep, laundry, dinner planning, writing this blog.
Since I've tested out of 80wpm I no longer have to attend the class this week, and it's the end of the semester so the 100wpm class hasn't started up again yet. I'm grateful for the reprieve, but will still be practicing this week in order not to lose speed.
Upon checking my Instagram I got a nice surprise, Bonnie O'Hara (or one of her interns) left a nice comment on my fougasse!
When the author of the recipe tells you you did it right, you shut up and listen :) I felt quietly proud, and enjoyed a piece of my bread for lunch.
After lunch I repotted the Joe Pye and the milkweed seedlings to larger pots, and gave the tomato a cage.
A gulf fritillary was inspecting the passion vine, so I had to go bother her for a bit.
https://instagram.com/p/CM2jsX4spy5
Jameson had some errands to run in the afternoon, and while he was doing that I packed my lunch and took myself for a walk around the neighborhood. It was a nice day, although I can feel the heat of summer coming already.
Back home I baked the potatoes for homemade gnocchi, then grated them with a box grater which is one of the weirdest culinary things I've had to do so far, not to mention time consuming and messy. But it worked. The gnocchi dough was fluffy, and so were the gnocchi. I shaped them using the butter paddles made by my friend Matt, who owns That Old Thing Furniture.
Having never made gnocchi before, mine are clunky and too big. But the taste and texture were exceptional, so light and fluffy with just a hint of tang and creaminess from the parmigiano cheese worked into the dough. We were both hungry so ate these fresh out of the pot, topped with bolognese and green beans on the side.
Afterward, though, we both agreed that pan-frying the gnocchi gives it an extra level of amazingness. So I quickly heated a pan and fried the leftovers. They're gonna be so stinkin' good.
Soon after Jameson had to leave for his gig at Epcot. I'm so glad he's got gigs!
Part of me misses performing and music. But a larger part of me still knows that I was unwanted and unneeded in the Orlando music scene. Regardless how I feel about it or what I want, I can't be a musician any more. I wasn't good enough, and my time is up.
But Jameson can still make it. He's skilled, he has amazing friends and network connections, and he's an incredible music teacher as well. I'm excited to see what the future holds for him :)
Anyway, after Jameson left I cleaned up the kitchen and allowed myself to chill for the rest of the evening.
Tomorrow it's back to work, another week until I get to cook or bake bread or enjoy my garden again.
What should I make for our dinners next week? Hmm.