It's been getting hot enough during the day that the upstairs bedrooms stay too warm to sleep in at night without a lot of tossing and turning (even with ventilation), so last night, I dragged a twin mattress downstairs and crashed in my old office, falling asleep almost immediately. Shiloh was very curious about the procedure, but stayed upstairs.
Work is pouring in. It would appear I am very nearly 100% committed until after the 15th, so I might have to start turning away work.
I find it increasingly difficult to "escape" using the television. There really does seem to be nothing on that I find interesting, or interesting enough to engage my attention for an hour. I've been recording NCIS on the video recorder, but quite a number of the downloaded episodes are repeats (and I have no burning desire to be able to quote passages of dialog from various shows).
I also managed to snag a dozen episodes of a "marathon" for a series called Burn Notice, which I am beginning to find tedious after three shows. Speaking of tedium, Warehouse 13 made a move away from that direction and may just redeem itself in my eyes with the introduction of Claudia Donovan, who appears to be a foil for the guy who apparently runs the warehouse, Artie. I found there was better chemistry between them in this most recent episode than between Pete and Myka.
* * *I am feeling the blahs with Galina gone. I find it's a pain to cook for one, as it is entirely too easy to eat too much (especially considering how many groceries - perishable groceries - I bought last week).
Apropos of the kitchen, the kombucha turned one week old today, and bubbled merrily when I bottled it this morning. I now have something like 3/4 of a gallon of the stuff, so I've refrigerated the "mother" for the time being. I'm also running a huge surplus of kefir. (I may have to start giving it away to the kids, but I wonder if anyone will drink it?)
I baked the balance of the dough and if my other three loaves were on the small side, it wasn't by much, because the fourth loaf was only slightly larger than its previous three, um, siblings. However, the result of the process was noticeably better (or I was just hungry for bread this morning).
I plan to change the brand of yeast I'm using to make an "identical" four-loaf batch of dough and see if the change has any effect. The stuff I have been using is theoretically within its expiration date, but it doesn't seem to be all that active (which I noticed back when we used it with the breadmaker in Houston). The resulting bread is pretty dense, so I'll consider the next batch to be Yet Another Kitchen Experiment.
In other news, I've been doing something I've never done before, and that's calling Galina on Skype almost every day (I think I've missed two days since she's been in Russia). I've been using the SkypeOut service, which is easily affordable, and although my sister-in-law has installed Skype on her new laptop, she hasn't been able to set me up as a contact yet (though I have initiated contact from my end). Once my sister-in-law's Skype is fully functional, then Galina will be able to reach out from Russia and call me or the kids or whoever she likes.
I just hope she calculates the time difference correctly.
The day is drawing to a close, workwise. I've put in a hard 7 hours wrestling with documents in revision mode, and completed another 1200 words of a State Standard (I have 240 words left, which I might just put off until tomorrow, I don't know).
Time to go feed Shiloh. And me.
Cheers...
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