Made pizza dough last night. Watching dough on the bread hook is sooo satisfying.
Quick, cheap and delicious
It’s so easy for me to get distracted and forget to look for the magic.
Work has been bonkers. People are leaning on me really hard for stuff and I find it impossible to say no. (I’m working on it.) Consequently there just aren’t enough hours in the day.
I planned to stay up all night on Wednesday to finish (maybe?) a project that was due that day, but the internet went out at 3:00 am. Pretty fatal for a web developer (at least while working on a live site).
John was relieved because I’d been pushing for two weeks and he could see I needed rest. But I couldn’t sleep. I was too hyped up on stimulants (which I consumed because I thought I would be staying up all night and the whole next day).
At 7 am, the internet was still out. So I went to Sheetz, which has a quiet eating area with power outlets, free wifi and good coffee. I was miserable. I just wanted to go home. But I kept getting texts and emails from clients asking for updates. And then the lunch rush started and my anxiety kicked into overdrive, and I found myself desperately texting John. “IS THE INTERNET ON YET? PLEASE ANSWER ME.”
Guys, Thursday was the closest I’ve come to having a nervous breakdown, and I’ve come close before.
It took me two days to come down from the caffeine high. During that time it slowly dawned on me (again) that this is my life. It doesn’t belong to anyone else, least of all clients. I have to learn to say no, or at least “not now.”
This morning I remembered to look for the magic. The voice was turned up to 11 the entire time (YOU SHOULD BE WORKING!) but I looked for the magic anyway.
First I knitted a few rows in John’s scarf, but that seemed daunting because it’ll be quite a while before I finish. So I put down the knitting and gathered up the ingredients for pesto.
I had been thinking about making pesto because a) I love pesto and b) we have an enormous basil plant outside. I love basil and put it on lots of things, but I wasn’t making a dent in the plant.
Until recently, when I wanted pesto, I reached for a jar we got from Costco. The problem is we are out of Costco pesto and we can’t go to Costco without spending $400, which is about $350 more than I have right now (despite all the working). When I realized that making my own pesto meant we could actually have pesto without anyone going to Costco, I was sold.
Anyway, we had most of the stuff. Just a quick trip to Walmart for pine nuts and fresh parmesan, and…
The magic of this little jar of pesto isn’t in the home-grown basil or the easy recipe. It’s in the way it made me feel when I made it. Calm, secure, and fundamentally okay.
I don’t know how it works, but it works.
That’s all
Sometimes life is busy. Sometimes deadlines are overwhelming. And you get a little lost in it all. You forget to look for the magic.
And other days this happens:
And when it does, you remember that life is abundance.
You breathe in and see it’s one big circle.
You breathe out and remember we’re all here to spiral upward, one lesson at a time.
You breathe in and know this is one of those lessons.
You breathe out…
That’s all.
Seriously, that’s all.
Tangle
Welcome to the dark side of making things.
These size 1 needles are so tiny. And what do I do with this stupid cable? And why does my work have a big bare string of yarn in it?
I’ve watched 16 YouTube videos called “Getting Started with Magic Loop!” and it’s 11 pm and I was already emotionally raw because we watched the last episode of The Mandalorian tonight, and why did I ever think I could knit socks?
Stop. Reset. Go to bed. Everything will look better in the morning.
Garlic and herb bread, part deux
You guys. I thought it looked good the first time:
First attempt 
Second attempt
I don’t think my active dry yeast is very active. The quick rise yeast is a lot more fun.
Am I cheating? Discuss.
Scarf Update!
John’s scarf is really coming along, as you can see in the following video:
t/w motion sickness
So we skipped green. Just cut that right out of the middle of the first skein. Luckily there was only one section that was green.
I took this video right before I started on the second skein and I’m coming up on green again. The things I do for my man!
About Flicking
I’ve been trying to perfect my flicking. This is a technique that allows you to wrap the yarn around the needle without letting go of your work, which allows you to knit faster.
Bad news: I keep dropping stitches purlwise.
Good news: I taught myself how to pick up dropped stitches.
Either way I’m back to throwing the yarn because it’s faster than flicking, then dropping stitches, then having to fix the dropped stitches. Anecdotally, at least.
Planning on practicing on some scrap yarn soon.
Socks
All the stuff came for my first pair of socks. I can’t wait! Hoping to start on them this week. As a reminder – gorgeous yarn.
Actual Pizza
After the horror that was Strom-pizza, John suggested that I try again with instant yeast, so I did. And woo-eeeee! The dough turned out great!
The recipe I used said it makes 4 dough balls. We used two for making our pizzas and froze the other two. Once we tried it, we thought maybe we should split the recipe into 3 dough balls instead so the crust would be a little thicker in the middle.
Yum!
Sweet Jack
After all the things I’ve made, making friends is still my favorite.
Garden Update
And all this time, the garden has been doing its thing.
Gardening might be my favorite kind of magic because you do all the work up front. Then, one day, you go outside to enjoy the nice weather and surprise! You have veggies.
It’s been raining a lot where we are, and the weather turned cooler than normal, so even though it’s already September, we have a bajillion green tomatoes and only occasional red ones.
We need a little heat wave please! Or at least a string of sunny days.
Meanwhile, we have beans! Remember those?
And here they are!
The zucchini, yellow squash and cucumbers are also doing well. Hoping for a harvest in the next few weeks.
Stalemate
This poor, sad little dragon.
It came with the dogs, stuffed in a box of toys their last family surrendered with them.
Jack and Beau love this freaking dragon.
Like most things that are dearly loved, it has seen better days.