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Aug. 30th, 2008 08:40 amI survived the week of nature camp. It's been hot and dry, but reading in the community garden is always pleasant (at least compared to reading anywhere else in the park). I did start hoping for rain fairly early, not because I'd have enjoyed being out in it but because seeing that much gray dust and brown grass on the hills depressed me. We definitely need several days of rain, preferably gentle rain that will soak in.
Monday was easier than I'd feared. The tightness in my chest subsided, and the cold started to go away. Thursday was kind of bad again, though. I'm almost certain ragweed is the culprit with the resurgence. It's that time of year, and I saw some starting to bloom. Friday, I took Sudafed before we left and avoided drinking anything. For some reason, dehydration seems to help my allergy symptoms. It's not a course I care to take often, but when I need to be able to breathe in order to do something, I end up balancing the benefit and the harm. In this case, I was better off not drinking (up until the walk home. If that had been any longer, I'd have been in trouble) until after I got home.
I read about six volumes of manga per day and still didn't get through my backlog of unread manga I own. I made a huge dent, but I could probably keep going for another week without running out (though I'd probably run out of things I was in the mood to read right at that moment). Being limited to the contents of my backpack for occupation makes me get through things that I both want to read and don't want to read.
Barton, the road that Cordelia's elementary school is on, was torn up Thursday. From the look of it, they were repairing the waterline going to the fire hydrant in front of the school. I hope the pipes to the school weren't affected. Ann Arbor's water infrastructure is, from what I gather, relatively old and relatively poorly maintained. That is, all of it was put in at about the same time, a few decades ago, and it's all starting to fail. Repairs are happening as they come up with nothing going on with preventative maintenance.
I made sunflower seed butter cookies Thursday, using a peanut butter cookie recipe. I couldn't find the all purpose flour, so I picked one of the canisters of whole wheat looking flour, taking the one not labeled 'whole wheat' in hopes that it wasn't just whole wheat. Scott told me later that that one is half whole wheat and half all purpose. It made the cookies a little grittier, but they still taste good.
It's been long enough since I last had a peanut butter cookie that I have no idea how well these approximate them. I probably shouldn't worry about it. Substitutions tend to taste bad when viewed as substitutions but are often fine if I think of them as different. Carob is not at all like chocolate and makes a lousy substitute, but it's not awful taken as a different flavor.
While I was making the cookies, I thought that it's sad that it's something I do so seldom. Cordelia loves baking, but I generally can't face it while she's around. It's too tiring and stressful. A measure of how rarely I bake cookies can be seen in the fact that she came home while the last batch was baking and had no idea what she was smelling. She thought it was something really nice that the cleaning lady had used on the floor (the cleaning lady was here that afternoon). That was an advantage in that I didn't have her clamoring for cookies immediately. She'd brought the little boy from down the street in to play, and I wasn't sure if he had any allergies or not, so I didn't want to offer without asking his parents first. (I now know he has no allergies, and they know that Cordelia has none.)
Monday was easier than I'd feared. The tightness in my chest subsided, and the cold started to go away. Thursday was kind of bad again, though. I'm almost certain ragweed is the culprit with the resurgence. It's that time of year, and I saw some starting to bloom. Friday, I took Sudafed before we left and avoided drinking anything. For some reason, dehydration seems to help my allergy symptoms. It's not a course I care to take often, but when I need to be able to breathe in order to do something, I end up balancing the benefit and the harm. In this case, I was better off not drinking (up until the walk home. If that had been any longer, I'd have been in trouble) until after I got home.
I read about six volumes of manga per day and still didn't get through my backlog of unread manga I own. I made a huge dent, but I could probably keep going for another week without running out (though I'd probably run out of things I was in the mood to read right at that moment). Being limited to the contents of my backpack for occupation makes me get through things that I both want to read and don't want to read.
Barton, the road that Cordelia's elementary school is on, was torn up Thursday. From the look of it, they were repairing the waterline going to the fire hydrant in front of the school. I hope the pipes to the school weren't affected. Ann Arbor's water infrastructure is, from what I gather, relatively old and relatively poorly maintained. That is, all of it was put in at about the same time, a few decades ago, and it's all starting to fail. Repairs are happening as they come up with nothing going on with preventative maintenance.
I made sunflower seed butter cookies Thursday, using a peanut butter cookie recipe. I couldn't find the all purpose flour, so I picked one of the canisters of whole wheat looking flour, taking the one not labeled 'whole wheat' in hopes that it wasn't just whole wheat. Scott told me later that that one is half whole wheat and half all purpose. It made the cookies a little grittier, but they still taste good.
It's been long enough since I last had a peanut butter cookie that I have no idea how well these approximate them. I probably shouldn't worry about it. Substitutions tend to taste bad when viewed as substitutions but are often fine if I think of them as different. Carob is not at all like chocolate and makes a lousy substitute, but it's not awful taken as a different flavor.
While I was making the cookies, I thought that it's sad that it's something I do so seldom. Cordelia loves baking, but I generally can't face it while she's around. It's too tiring and stressful. A measure of how rarely I bake cookies can be seen in the fact that she came home while the last batch was baking and had no idea what she was smelling. She thought it was something really nice that the cleaning lady had used on the floor (the cleaning lady was here that afternoon). That was an advantage in that I didn't have her clamoring for cookies immediately. She'd brought the little boy from down the street in to play, and I wasn't sure if he had any allergies or not, so I didn't want to offer without asking his parents first. (I now know he has no allergies, and they know that Cordelia has none.)
