Both a Blessing and a Bane
Forgive the weird photo, but this a snapshot of the front of our building, taken by leaning over the balcony railing--in the rain--without letting my phone plummet 5 stories to the ground....
but I needed to give you an idea of what I am going to moan about. :P Let me preface this by saying that I am a fan of electrical storms and have always gotten a thrill when a really good thunderstorm gets going.* Last night, around 11p.m. a doozy of a storm started and went on until 8 am this morning. ** With the valleys running from the mountains to the sea, each thunder peal is a echoing, long-lasting event that makes you think the ruckus can't be natural. That kind of noise is not what bothered me and kept me from sleeping, though. It was the whistling winds and lashing rains and hail that relentlessly pelted those glass windows above, the plasticky aluminium frames in particular. It reminded me a bit of hearing the rains falling on my grandparents' tin roof, only worse because our bed sits just behind some of those windows, the sounds in no way attenuated by a ceiling, etc. And while a seive might let more wind through, those frames do a pretty good job of it, too. So, yes, the windows give us great views and lots of light, but they are not only a blessing. We will see if they qualify as a blessing or a bane in the summer months.
At 5:20, I finally gave up on trying to sleep and got up to another view of a hail-white ground. I worked a bit on my BuJo, and then decided to crochet myself another hat*** as one does when feeling a little punch drunk:
The hat is so warm and matches my mitts/wristies that I made the other day. I then started one for Sprout since I had plenty of yarn left over. However, using a 5mm hook instead of 6mm AND decreasing the intial 15 stitches to 12 was probably not the best idea. I am now adding more rows on hers than I needed on mine. :-/
If you feel like a chuckle, I will share an anecdote to convey just how tired I was: While taking the above photo, I wanted the focus to be on the hat, so in order to make it sharp, instead of tapping on the phone screen, I pressed my head. O.o FYI, it doesn't work. :P
Then I decided to make bread because playing with fire is always a good idea when tired. Because I was exhausted, I forgot to prop open the oven door for a few moments for the gas to really get going. After about about 5 minutes, I went to preheat the Dutch oven only to discover the pilot had gone out. We opened the windows and I waited for a bit, but even so, when I struck a match to finish burning off the gas, the flames billowed out and singed all the hair off my forearm. Luckily, I had my face well to the side.
I don't have any sourdough starter going here, so I used the poolish method and the recipe/method found here. **** (I had started the poolish the previous day)
And while I was at it, I stared another poolish to make some baguettes today following this recipe. I'll let you know how it turns out if I remember.
Since the oven was on anyhow, I made some pumpkin spice bread ***** to use the pumpkin I had cut up to use as a still-life subject. More about that in an post (I hope).
I had planned to get to bed early to catch up on sleep, but J wanted to stay awake as late as possible because he has to work the night shift tonight, so we watched a movie. He of course fell asleep in front of it. :P I am happy to report that while it did rain a bit last night, I was able to get some much needed shut-eye. I hope to buy earplugs today.
______________________
* I believe I already shared many years ago that one of my mother's childhood nicknames for me was "Thunderhead" because I could always hear the thunder coming before anyone else. As an aside, I think of all the other places I have lived, Lebanon has the longest lasting thunderstorms.
** I actually started this post yesterday morning, but Internet problems and then having to share my device with a needy boy means that I am only picking up the thread now while the needy boy sleeps.
*** video tutorial here
**** I used the third method, the one with the pre-heated Dutch oven
***** Living up to my reputation as a food snob, I am here to tell you it has proven hard thus far to get my hands on some decent baking chocolate. Preferring to do without than eat sugar-disguised as chocolate, I omitted the chips from the recipe.
but I needed to give you an idea of what I am going to moan about. :P Let me preface this by saying that I am a fan of electrical storms and have always gotten a thrill when a really good thunderstorm gets going.* Last night, around 11p.m. a doozy of a storm started and went on until 8 am this morning. ** With the valleys running from the mountains to the sea, each thunder peal is a echoing, long-lasting event that makes you think the ruckus can't be natural. That kind of noise is not what bothered me and kept me from sleeping, though. It was the whistling winds and lashing rains and hail that relentlessly pelted those glass windows above, the plasticky aluminium frames in particular. It reminded me a bit of hearing the rains falling on my grandparents' tin roof, only worse because our bed sits just behind some of those windows, the sounds in no way attenuated by a ceiling, etc. And while a seive might let more wind through, those frames do a pretty good job of it, too. So, yes, the windows give us great views and lots of light, but they are not only a blessing. We will see if they qualify as a blessing or a bane in the summer months.
At 5:20, I finally gave up on trying to sleep and got up to another view of a hail-white ground. I worked a bit on my BuJo, and then decided to crochet myself another hat*** as one does when feeling a little punch drunk:
The hat is so warm and matches my mitts/wristies that I made the other day. I then started one for Sprout since I had plenty of yarn left over. However, using a 5mm hook instead of 6mm AND decreasing the intial 15 stitches to 12 was probably not the best idea. I am now adding more rows on hers than I needed on mine. :-/
If you feel like a chuckle, I will share an anecdote to convey just how tired I was: While taking the above photo, I wanted the focus to be on the hat, so in order to make it sharp, instead of tapping on the phone screen, I pressed my head. O.o FYI, it doesn't work. :P
Then I decided to make bread because playing with fire is always a good idea when tired. Because I was exhausted, I forgot to prop open the oven door for a few moments for the gas to really get going. After about about 5 minutes, I went to preheat the Dutch oven only to discover the pilot had gone out. We opened the windows and I waited for a bit, but even so, when I struck a match to finish burning off the gas, the flames billowed out and singed all the hair off my forearm. Luckily, I had my face well to the side.
I don't have any sourdough starter going here, so I used the poolish method and the recipe/method found here. **** (I had started the poolish the previous day)
And while I was at it, I stared another poolish to make some baguettes today following this recipe. I'll let you know how it turns out if I remember.
Since the oven was on anyhow, I made some pumpkin spice bread ***** to use the pumpkin I had cut up to use as a still-life subject. More about that in an post (I hope).
I had planned to get to bed early to catch up on sleep, but J wanted to stay awake as late as possible because he has to work the night shift tonight, so we watched a movie. He of course fell asleep in front of it. :P I am happy to report that while it did rain a bit last night, I was able to get some much needed shut-eye. I hope to buy earplugs today.
______________________
* I believe I already shared many years ago that one of my mother's childhood nicknames for me was "Thunderhead" because I could always hear the thunder coming before anyone else. As an aside, I think of all the other places I have lived, Lebanon has the longest lasting thunderstorms.
** I actually started this post yesterday morning, but Internet problems and then having to share my device with a needy boy means that I am only picking up the thread now while the needy boy sleeps.
*** video tutorial here
**** I used the third method, the one with the pre-heated Dutch oven
***** Living up to my reputation as a food snob, I am here to tell you it has proven hard thus far to get my hands on some decent baking chocolate. Preferring to do without than eat sugar-disguised as chocolate, I omitted the chips from the recipe.