ugh

Up way too late. Stayed late at a friend's to watch a movie, got home to a confirmation that my interviewee IS calling in. Which is good, but I had slacked on writing the blog because I hadn't heard from her. So up late futzing around until I was able to get myself to do the blog. Sometimes are harder than others, probably a lot tonight because I was already freakin' tired before starting. Argh. But they are done! Phew.

Made one batch of cookies. Prepped two other types so for one all I have to do is drop on the sheets and bake, the other needs some mixing up, but everything is measured out. I have 2/3 of the ingredients prepped for little cranberry tarts too I think... I need to go back to Everybody's for a few other things anyway.

Gingerbread

I stayed in and made this gingerbread (cake, not cookie kind) recipe tonight. Inspired by the samples being given out last night at the At Home Store during the Art Walk. Mine did not come out quite as moist and dark as theirs (I don't even know if they had their recipe available, but it was so zoo-y in there it would have been hard to get last night), but it was darn good, and warm, and with a little Radiance Dairy whipped cream? YUMMERS!!!

Poor G came downstairs and looked at the batter and said in a sad voice, "You made it with chocolate?" (he doesn't like chocolate) and I said, "No, molasses!" and he perked up. The whole house smells so ginger-molasses-y, it's hard to think of how it could be mistaken for chocolate, but if you don't know, it does LOOK rather chocolate-y. He had a big piece and liked it. :-)

It's a big 9x13 pan, so there is going to be plenty available for breakfast. :-D

I stopped by a couple of the craft fairs today. No money for buying things, but I like to go see what is there, and support some of my friends at least by saying hi if nothing else... Wish I had had time this year to participate but I didn't since I was gone most of November. Maybe next year. It feels like a long time since I made something crafty. Can't tell if I miss it or not. Getting stuff out is kind of a pain, but then I usually get in a groove and it's hard to have to clean up the creative mess after. Sigh. I know I'll want to get crafty again sometime, just not sure when.

Slowly slowly

catching up on my music theory homework. It's very dry stuff that, for me, involves a LOT of counting on my fingers over and over again. At least so far everything CAN be counted on my fingers. It's the whole backwards and forwards alphabet starting from anywhere between A and G that has me spinning.

Have been wanting cookies for the past couple days, and finally gave in before getting down to the homework, but with them made I really had no excuses. Bummed there was no milk to go with them, but it's probably better as I still have a wee bit of congestion.

Had coffee and a scone at the new Paradiso branch in Everybody's today. Corrected one of my assignments from last week. Intervals. grrr. Was getting really mad because no matter how many times I checked and counted and looked on the virtual keyboard I kept getting a perfect 3rd. Except there aren't any perfect 3rds, just perfect 4ths and 5ths. It's called a major 3rd. doh!

Had to confess my utter lack of maths at work today when I was asked to total up my hours "real quick" and had to admit it would probably take me a long time and that the whole calculating hours things is one of my biggest weaknesses. sigh. Luckily the other hourly guy had a formula that we were able to pop in to the spreadsheet, drop down and it WAS real quick. woof.

Is my brain truly just not wired for this math and arithmetic stuff? It's always been hard for me, since grade school, and it hasn't really gotten any easier. I know the fundamentals of what I need to do to figure out the answers, but I can't snap calculate things. So I can always figure it out eventually, it just takes me waaay long.

But I was able to pick out a bit of the melody of "I'm Flying" from Peter Pan once I figured out it was build on ascending triads. Kind of shockingly simple, and effective - it flies up the keyboard just like the kids fly up in the air, with a couple little blips I had to rustle out by ear. So I might not have a head, but I have an ear. Or my ear is quicker than my head? And neither is great yet but neither is horrible horrible, just the ear is faster. This goes back to FEELING the guitar doesn't it?

Do you ever have that thing...

...where you are making chocolate chip cookies for a bake sale and you've already agonized over whether or not to get the full on organic butter or just the GMO free stuff because it's cheaper and oh crap they're automatically going to have GMO's from the soy lecithin in the chocolate chips so who really cares if they're full on organic and the point is just to make some money anyways and you decide you are going to add some extra special things like cinnamon and coffee to make them different and amazing and wonderful because plain old chocolate chip cookies are boring and everyone else is probably going to bring them anyway and so you're pretty happy with yourself for being original and then it comes to the point where you actually portion out the spoonfuls on the cookie sheet and you start to panic because you don't know what size they are going come out and are they big enough, are they worth it, will people be happy or feel ripped off to pay 50 cents for them and omigod I thought a double batch was going to make more and what if this isn't enough and wow look at what a drastic difference there is between the ones on the baking stone and the ones on the baking sheet and maybe they just sort of taste weird, omigod did I just waste all those ingredients and wreck my bedtime and who's idea was it even anyway to HAVE a bake sale for this event, oh yeah MINE, or is that just me?

PS in other news I am much, much, much, much better with just a teensy bit of a cough left. HOOROAR!