real life

A 3821-post collection

Bread Day the Second!

I got enough wholemeal flour to make a loaf and keep the starter alive, so I'm making some proper sourdough that hopefully won't go flat as a tack this time.

I also made some pancakes and I think I've perfected the recipe enough that I can put the final version up on my foodie blog.

The bread will likely appear there tomorrow. Sourdough takes time. Lots of time. Lots of time and heaps of flour.

I only realised yesterday that the reason why all the flour is missing is because everyone and their kid brother's dog have unanimously decided that sourdough is going to be their stay-at-home sanity project. At least, that's what I can infer from the absence of flour everywhere.

For all I know, they're making damper, but I can only hope at this point. It's way more likely that folks just went completely crabonkers and will discover in a month or two that they are now the proud owners of a thriving weevil farm.

Flour spoils. Rice will go rotten. Potatoes melt... everything edible will go off. Even hoarded petrol will spoil. The reality of all this will likely hit months down the line, long after the madness has ended, and people attempt to use their hoards in an effort to economise. Then it will be realised how much money they wasted being selfish arseholes.

I can only hope that the insurance payout they try to gain from this idiocy will result only in a smack on the snoot and a firm refusal.

Shopping centers have queue spots on the floor to keep people apart. So, too, do take-out places. Everyone has forsaken cash and switched to electric money. Australia has 89% effective 15-minute pinprick blood tests, and the US only has testing for the wealthy and powerful.

This entire thing is beyond nuts. At least I know where I am with bread.

FuuuuuuUUUUUUCK!

Day 4 of official home quarantine procedures. Mayhem has work, and I started my morning thinking that my cat was going to die.

Apparently, when cats taste something they don't like, they smack their chops and make a lot of spit bubbles. I learned this because I spent a panicked half hour and $100 taking Pippi to the vet to find out that she wasn't poisoned or victim to a surprise disease.

AUGH.

Lots of public places prefer to keep their distance

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Officially Day 3 of Quarantine

I've more or less been self-isolated for a majority of my time. Introverts are ahead of the learning curve on that count. It turns out my productive output lately has been tied to my emotional state. Therefore, I'm working on my mental health with my own personal regime of treatment.

  • Only viewing new news about the continuing plague crisis
  • Singing when the mood suits me no matter what the family has to say
  • Seeking out some new experiences to enrich my noggin
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Whoof...

In the annals of "that escalated quickly", we have:

  • Queensland closing its borders
  • Parents keeping their kids at home if they can
  • Schools remaining open for the parents that don't have anywhere else safe for the kids to go
  • People fistfighting THE ELDERLY for more TP than they probably need [yikes!]
  • Empty shelves... empty shelves everywhere
  • There's been mass layoffs and a subsequent mass run on firkin Centrelink
  • ...and in other news, I'm shifting where my stories go because Steem decided to
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Self Quarantine!

We're keeping Miss Chaos at home this week and next week. Beloved is staying home. I'm braving the wilds of the local shopping center to see what supplies I can acquire that we also need.

I am only sticking to what we need.

With all the best luck, we should stay plague free for the interim. I am the most at risk out of my family. Yet, I am the one taking the most risk by going out there and acquiring whatever.

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Stream Morning!

I'm functioning on a thin chain of naps and a lot of caffeine this morrow. Yeeps.

I owe a thing about my bread since both loaves came out... edible. Not perfect, but at least edible.

Perfection will take time.

Longer than I expect because everyone and their kid brother's dog has emptied the shelves of literally anything that could plausibly be long-term food.

I can only hope that sanity returns before I run out of enough flour to keep my starters alive

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Bread Fail!

People should make their instructions (a) clearer and (b) linear. If you're doing an instructional video for noobs, don't make a big deal out of the allegedly proper way and then mumble something about never doing that in person.

Share. The method. That actually. WORKS!

::Anguished ASD gargling::

So yeah. Instructional video said "use this portion" with way more importance than what the guy who made it actually did. So my dough was too moist and the loaf turned into a roofing

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Bread Day!

I made starter harvest pancakes and I have one batch of starter growing on the countertop ready to make some firkin multigrain sourdough. YEAH!

I got maybe a half hour before I need to start mixing and whatnot. I shall be measuring some of the important stuff with the house scales after I'm done with the blog.

If you're reading this, there is already bread underway.

Today's nonsense is going to include another episode of Inter-Mission and attempting to refine the backlog

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Fuuuu...

I went to the pet shop to acquire some base essentials, which included kibble, litter, and three packets of sachets.

I forgot the damn kibble.

Hence the title.

Part of today's nonsense involves finishing the podcast off, actually acquiring kibble for my poor starving felines, and rearranging my ENTIRE KITCHEN so I have the space to make bread.

I may surrender to the inertia gods and merely add a vinyl mess mat to the table IDK.

There's something about the recent insanities

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Shutting down everywhere

Beloved managed to score some limited little luxuries and, by all reports, everything be completely batshit bonkers out there. People are panic-buying ALL sorts of bullshit. I know when I went for my week's ration of ice cream, there was almost NO flour. There were three packets of wholemeal flour, of which I only took one.

I only needed one. So I got one.

Meanwhile, Beloved got SIX firkin packets of eggs. Like, each one is 18 eggs, and they got six

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Welp. It's a crisis...

I'm making a mostly-vegetarian stew because there was no beef available when Beloved went for ingredients. So far, the ingredients include an entire Wombok cabbage, 1.5 kg of "low carb" potatoes [really, love?] and a decent dollop of vegemite.

Next on the chopping block, a decent container of carrots. I'm definitely adding some celeries to offset the potatoes in there. Lots of celeries.

On today's agenda, the Patreon nonsense, blogging about bread, writing the Instant of course, and making a bloody

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Okay. Let's do this!

We have, my Beloved and I, located a one-stop shop where sourdough accessories can be acquired. The problem? Even the closest one is fuck-off far away. 46 kilometers versus 51. South versus North.

Shall consult Beloved about the routes.

Honestly, I think North might be less bother, but more fuel. Things be a little bit nonsensical around here.

On the plus side, I do have enough prepped meals to last me almost a month. If the rest of the family starts eating

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Stream morning yaaaayyyy

I set up the skeleton of ep 25 of Inter-Mission and because the stream is still going as I write, I can't edit. That might happen later today.

I gotta count my prepped meals to figure out how long it's going to be before I prep a buttload of meals again. Whether or not that's going to happen in the middle of the Covid Crisis.

Which would make everything... interesting to say the least.

Stream action's back on. Hang on.

Ah, that

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Fun was had. Friction is generating.

So we had some decent RP. Not a lot of decent fights, but some decent RP. We had all players but I didn't have enough warning to buy Krispy Kremes for the entire group. I let them know though.

I might be on the hook for a gigantic box of doughnuts, next fortnight.

Highlights:

  • Barbarian too scared to confront my Tief so he sent a note up with his invisible servant
  • My Tief gave him lines ["I will not shoot my allies"
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Finally! Rest... (sort of)

Well, today is the 7th day of feeding the starters, and I now have them resting in the fridge so that I have time for other things. Like taking a firkin BREAK.

It's the thirteenth this month, which happens to be a Friday, so there is an almost mandatory uptick in gambling. I won't be having a flutter via $1 scratchie. I am content in hoping my "cheesy bread" will actually turn out okay.

Chaos has swimming and I have D&

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