That Escalated Quickly (wait for it)

Feels like a song on repeat, getting tiresome.

Sleep <--> Work <--> Eat <--> Sleep

My sister (the middle one, not the one who's pregnant now) sent a lovely pic of her little boy, Drexel.
Dude, wasn't he just born?? How is he already so big??


King Arthur Flour left a very kind comment regarding my English muffins, for which I'd used their recipe and then posted photos on social.
I'm amazed that big corporations still do that kind of stuff, randomly commenting like that.
And it made me feel first good, then a little bad because I'm probably going to switch to a more traditional recipe for the next batch :p
Gotta get them nooks and crannies!

But before I attempt that again, Jameson's dad is coming to visit for a few days. I had already planned to make brioche cinnamon rolls (next in my lesson book), but in addition thought it would be nice if I could make a bread for his sandwiches too. So I texted to ask what he'd prefer.

"Anything but sourdough," I said, because I haven't gotten that far in my book yet.

"Ok," he said. "How about ciabatta?"

Aah, crud. I haven't gotten that far yet, either. Real ciabatta requires a biga, which is the Italian term for a preferment.
As much as I'd like to make a true ciabatta, first of all I haven't learned how, secondly even if I had I won't have enough time to develop a preferment AND make the cinnamon rolls AND cook dinner AND clean for Jameson's dad's visit AND work AND do steno and all that.

I was able to find a recipe that only makes six ciabatta rolls and does not require a preferment (although it does have an overnight rise which should give nice flavor). We will see if I'm able to pull it off.

On Friday work was work, on Saturday work was work. Jameson and I both got haircuts on Saturday, him to look nice for opening night of his production in a few days, me to look nice for my family and get the long hair off my neck for the brutal Florida summer. It rained both Friday and Saturday in the late afternoon, which is standard daily weather for Florida in the summer. I'm grateful for it, it's less time fretting over my plants because I know for the most part they're getting watered.

Saturday night we watched The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Jameson probably hates me when we watch scary movies together. He adores them. I just cannot take them seriously at all. Maybe the reason I find myself involuntarily rolling my eyes at is because I used to work in a haunted house, and got to observe peoples' reactions to myself (a rotting maggoty corpse) and other types of scares. Usually the reactions were to scream and hide one's face, or cover one's ears, or sit down on the floor, or run, or try to hit and then pull yourself back saying, "sorry, sorry!"

I don't do any of those things. It's not that I'm not scared, sometimes I am deep down.
But it's WAY deep down, on a primal level.
And the scenarios, and creatures, and horrors that live in my mind are just way, way scarier than any movie or haunted house.

So the movie was good, if you're into that sort of thing.
I might internally mock horror movies, but they're still fun.

Sunday, workworkwork. I stopped at Trader Joe's even though it's quite out of my way, traffic is lighter on Sunday and I was hellbent on getting some premade meatballs so I won't have to actually cook this weekend. If I'm going to resort to premade food, I want it to be the highest possible quality with the lowest possible salt content for Jameson, so it HAD to be TJ's this time (Whole Paycheck still has high sodium in way too many of their frozen foods).

I want to make those...wtf are they...not Swedish meatballs, but similar to them.
Sweet-and-sour meatballs? BBQ meatballs? Tangy meatballs?

Church potluck meatballs.
Listen, if you're American, you know what I mean. Those Meatballs.

I want to make them, with corn on the cob and some store-bought potato salad and/or cole slaw and/or watermelon.
So the only "cooking" will be me tossing the precooked meatballs into a crock pot with sauce, and boiling the corn on the stove for like 10 minutes. I will need all the time I can get for cleaning everything, weeding, baking, packing to go see my family, steno. And hopefully even some actual rest. I don't wanna cook.

Yes, it's finally that time! On June 14th I will be driving up the coast from Florida to PA to visit my family.
I am starting to really look forward to it. The drive, while long, will feel good because the car is my happy place and long drives drench me in a happy nostalgia of my time in the circus, and the time before that when I drove cross-country all by myself, twice. The freedom of driving long distances is a wonderful thing.

Staying in a hotel will be a nice post-covid, vaccinated treat. I may even stop at one of those roadside stands, with the billboards screaming "PECANS! FRESH PEACHES! BABY ALLIGATORS!" leading up to every exit south of the Mason-Dixon. Lord knows I'm going to hoard NEPA Amish-country stuff to bring back south; may as well bring some south north while I'm at it.

I was supposed to stop in NC to visit with my Aunt, which I'll still do, but we have less time than I'd hoped because she's a teacher and she's working HARD lately. I would love to sweep her away to a two week magical getaway somewhere, anywhere that would take her mind off stuff. But until that happens, we'll both have to settle for dinner after she gets out of school. And then I'll hit the road again, arriving in PA hopefully the next day in the afternoon.

Ok, I'm getting ahead of myself because I've actually got something to look forward to besides bread.

Monday was Extra Coffee Day, in which I treat myself to a Wawa coffee in addition to my usual morning cup.
Work was work, nothing to report.

I ate dinner in the car on the way home because Jameson had rehearsal and I had class. Got home surprisingly earlier than 5:30 and had just enough time to measure out the flour, salt, yeast, and water for the ciabatta dough, and mix it all together, before class started. Class was ok, I did my best and did notice that I'm getting more stuff now and having fewer instances of dropped content. Just gotta keep plugging away, I guess.

After class I put the dough in the fridge, supposedly it can stay there for up to 3 days but I'll probably be making it on Wednesday morning or afternoon. The cinnamon rolls will get made Thursday morning. Jameson's dad is arriving Thursday around midnight, so both breads will be 1-2 days old by the time he gets them, but it can't be helped if I have to work on Friday. I'm not making both breads on Thursday, I have a life to live.

When the dough was done I vacuumed, dusted, showered, ran the dishwasher. What an exciting evening.

Tuesday, WFH day, and Citrix did not crash thank God.

And I woke up to the news that MY SISTER HAD HER BABY!!!!!


Sometime around 5am, little Declan was born, about 1.5 weeks early.
Little booger, he couldn't wait for family to come!!

It's fitting, though. My middle sister Kayle had the whole family there when her daughter was born, and that's the kind of person she is...she'd WANT to be cooed and fussed over and enjoying the social interaction that can come with such a major life event. Kate, though, is quiet and reserved, and prefers to do things on her own. So it is not surprising to me that her baby was born at a quiet time, with the least possible family presence, at an unexpected time. It just seems right.

I spent my day exclaiming over photos while trying not to ask too many questions or pester, knowing that if the baby came out at 5am nobody had gotten any sleep, and now that he was here no one was GOING to get any sleep. Now the pressure is off for our family visit, it's just Family Visit + New Baby instead of Oh My God She Could Go Into Labor At Any Time Family Visit.

Work was fine, I practiced steno in between and was very distracted by thinking of my new nephew and how nice it will be to see everyone.
After work Jameson went to rehearsal and I hit the grocery, getting the rest of the stuff for meatballs and replenishing some baking supplies. I threw the meatballs in right when I got home because Jameson won't be around for dinner tomorrow, and if it's just me I don't care if anything is "fresh from the oven", I'd rather have the food cooked and on hand for whenever. I didn't boil the corn, however, because that IS better fresh.


Then I fertilized the banana plants, had a little internal cry over my passion vine which is definitely dying this time, and weeded the pool deck before allowing myself an actual evening, to myself. I watched anime and planned my trip and booked hotels. I visualized making the cinnamon roll dough tomorrow, and wondered at the bubbly, gooey-looking ciabatta dough resting in the fridge. I read a little, and listened to nature sounds, and felt glad that I myself don't have kids.

It was really, really nice.