Hmm. This commute is making me spend my spoons quicker than I thought I would. I'm actually looking forward to the end-date lurking on the horizon. While job and money is good, run down and sleeping all the time is not. It would be nice to have enough time in the evenings to spend some quality time with Timothy, rather than just falling asleep on the couch.

Tomorrow I'm off for the day and will be making cheese with two goat owning ladies, they are interested in the modern processes. One is a bare beginner and the other is experienced but unhappy with the flavor of her cheese, we just need to find a recipe that her goat milk wants to be. That will be fun! :)

On a not-as-happy note my lab values are not where they need to be, which could be contributing to my not feeling so good lately. They switched one of my immunosuppressants over to a generic a month or two back and it doesn't seem to be working as well. I pick up a refill tomorrow and am having them fill with the brand instead. We'll see if that makes a difference or not. Blech...

Talking about Spooning, Timothy is a champion in the sport. ;) He's all warm and snuggly and it just makes the world a better place to be in.

Another innovative marvel to fix some problem caused by an architectural wet-dream. Enjoy! :)

http://spectrum.ieee.org/blog/robotics/robotics-software/automaton/shady-robot-climbs-windows-blocks-sunlight

I have a wheel of cheese aging that didn't get tended while we were gone, I flip it and check the rind daily. Top and sides looked great when I glanced at it last night, when I went to pick it up this morning I found a lovely growth of mold on the bottom. As we aren't going for a natural rind (it's an oiled, built-up type of rind instead) the mold needed to come off. It took a good 10 minutes to wipe away and oil the rind.

I used a new type of cheesecloth and am not happy with how it works in the mold. The cloth didn't lay smoothly when the curd was put into the mold and so the rind set up imperfectly and isn't smooth, this makes great places for mold spores to anchor and take off. The good thing is that the rind is built up enough that it won't be able to get into the cheese at this point.

I can still smell the spores down in the kitchen when I walk in so the sanitizing didn't get it all. It's probably going to take a couple of passes to get it all. Frack, frack, frack!!! I hate mold spores!!! You can't make any new batches until the spores are all gone. Next time I may actually bring my cheese with me on vacation.

It reminded me I need to get my wooden wine boxes out and seasoned again.

I am a hairs breadth away from banning the soprano tabor pipe from the house. When you have a woodwind instrument that has three finger holes and requires over or under blowing to move the pitch up or down it can make practicing rather painful for the victims rest of the household. Timothy is an energetic over blower.

On another note, the house is in disaray from all my projects and today we just spent some decadent hours just hanging out and relaxing instead of tidying or working on projects. Babs is coming over tomorrow to work on sewing for the Steampunk track at Darkover next weekend. As I'm leading a discussion I need to get some appropriate clothing put together. Thanks to the Ladies and Gentleman at Reconstructing History I have been set up with the correct patterns to make a skirt and over drape along with enough tape yardage to make it gather and drape correctly. The Lady who assisted me assured me that the patterns are quite straightforward and easy to assemble, the skirt took her 3 hours and the over drape only 1. My sewing skills have greatly improved but if I can get these two assembled so they hang and drape right it will make me much happier, even if the skirt takes 10 hours and the overdrape 8. I find cutting the pieces out rather tedious but when the pieces get assembled and the final product takes shape it gets almost fun because it's taking shape.

Here's what Timothy made for dinner tonight. I had to laugh, he calls it the "deconstructed lunchbox". I love it when he's in the mood to cook, he turns it into an adventure. This is three sticks of celery stuffed with chunky peanut butter, two slices of toast with butter and honey, and a sliced banana drizzled with honey. A bit on the sweet side, but a lovely meal nonetheless - and hey, he made me a smiley face on my pretty plates!

I just got home from Holiday Faire and visiting my sister, the two locations are about 10 minutes apart. I was driving my little mini and hit the curvy part of the DC beltway and everything just came together in harmony. The curves, the lighter traffic that gives you room to move, the pounding music. The DJ tonight was inspired; Butthole Surfers, Black Sabbath, Shinedown, Beastie Boys. It was zenlike. This is when driving stick is fun.

I just received an update from the company with the contract job, it looks like funding will be available within the next 10 to 14 days. While the commute will be fairly awful the paycheck and mental stimulation will be welcome. It's building cube farms so it's extremely uncreative but detail oriented, rather like a combination of Sudoku and jigsaw puzzles.

I would like to note for the record, this will be my first cube farm. No bombasting, please! ;) All my other systems furniture layouts have used more humane methods to create workspace where people can actually thrive.

On a more righteous note I sent out an email that will hopefully present some results in getting payment for the contract work I completed for my former company before they folded. The amount is great enough that taking them to small claims court makes sense, if necessary.

Collegium/A&S/University are some of my favorite events, and my friend Collette triggered this post thanks to her thought provoking entry from earlier today. The discussion centers around the lowered number of attendees and the lack of topics being offered which, I have heard, is a common theme in many places.

One thing that a wonderful person several years ago reminded me of was that what gives the heart to the society is _us_ trying to reflect what _we_ think it should be. It's an interactive relationship. The gentleman who offers to carry your chair across the list field is working to make the society more courteous. The lady who lets him is encouraging him to build upon this and encourage others. The fighter that spends lots of time and energy upgrading his kit to look like a tombstone effigy is interested in making his fighting experience more authentic, and in the process is passively encouraging others to upgrade to a more period look as well. There is nothing that is quite so impressive as a big, strong fighter that looks like they have stepped out of a painting or etching. A well researched and presented feast where each dish is scrutinized for it's use of period ingredients and peri-oid is avoided has become commonplace because so many people are fascinated by it, the manuscripts are becoming easy to access, and non-foodies willingly sit down and eat it.

Teaching many of these fields of study can get rather tiresome when you do it season after season - and it's a lot of work! Particularly when it seems like you talk about the same things time after time and no one else seems to be interested in more than just a superficial way and aren't ever going to be serious scholars in the subject. This may be more true in the more esoteric fields of study, like my own. In addition these events are frequently far away, so it can be a very big commitment for what seems like very little payback.

I frankly haven't taught any classes in the last couple of years aside from an occasional small session or tasting (Bad Eibhlin!). I think it's because I felt like the simple to teach classes that don't require someone to devote 4 hours of time to a process that has lots of waiting and watching the clock had been done to death. I mean, really, how many times do people want to learn how to make bag cheese or churn butter???!!?!! But it's freakishly difficult to do anything else in such a short amount of time and without proper facilities. And, yes, I was rather put out when there was no cooking or food related track for a local collegium because they "didn't have enough room" when there were multiple tracks covering one overarching topic. There was no theme and space should have been made. I'm still a bit miffed about that and rather than contribute to change and improvement I just shut up and took my toys home. Not good Peerlike Behavior.

Okay, seeing that in print actually makes me rather embarassed and ashamed. So much so that I am driven to apologise for acting like a self-centred little diva. I apologise and will work to do better.

This past weekend I held one of my longer 4 hour workshops; butter, bag cheese, and a hard cheese were made. We would also have made yogurt if I had picked up enough milk. In January I'll be bringing the hard cheese we made to our local event and it will be part of a homemade beer and homemade cheese tasting that's scheduled for the A&S track. The thing that I have always enjoyed the most is the spark, the pride and almost awe people who made the cheese get on their face when they first taste the final result. It's not until that happens that they make the connection with food and drink and begins to understand what is done in order to get this kind of product to market by the artisan producer. And who knows? Maybe it will be that one in a thousand chance that it's lit enough of a fire in someone to try something new on their own and see where it takes them.

Now what I'm doing is teaching stuff that's interesting to me, unless people ask me to do a big workshop. Yes, I do travel - just ask and we'll schedule something! In January at our local event I'm also doing a class on pickles, a discussion on the methods with simple demo steps and a tasting. I've even started to branch out and am teaching cheesemaking skills and refining recipes for local dairy farmers, creating cheeses that are specific to their animals and their terroir. This echoes what I did before when I started working a cheese counter in my mundane life.

So I guess if you boil it all down and want the kernel of what Collegium/A&S/University is and could be depends on me and others to get off our keesters and getting others energized and enthused in the arts and sciences.

Ask yourself:
When was the last time you attended any A&S classes?
Me: Dun Carraig 7 months ago.

When was the last time you dusted off your A&S stuff or project and brought it to an event?
Me: This hasn't been since last January, but I've done three in-home workshops in the last year. Why? Because people asked me to, I probably wouldn't have done it otherwise.

Did you show someone how you do what you do?
Me: Outside of the workshops no.

Did you complement them on their work and give them encouragement?
Me: Okay, I stuck this in here because I am the kind of person who always does this. I needed this question here to help me feel better about myself and my lack of teaching over the last couple of years. :)

What are you personally doing to make the Society what you want it to be?
Um, Buehler?

I made a 1/2 gallon batch of Koumiss/Milk Beer for the cheesemaking workshop today. It worked out surprisingly well but, as with all experiments, needs tweaking. I say surprisingly well because I actually have a milk product that hasn't soured, has a milky/yeasty flavor, and sparkles on the tongue like a young small ale.

Misha will be at the workshop today so I'm going to talk yeasts and fermentation processes with him. I think I used too much yeast and it has affected the flavor.

I discovered that with the foam caused by the fermenting yeast that I have a touch more than 3/4 of a gallon of finished product.

Later... the official review from Misha.

I just got the call from my specialist, they have the H1N1 vaccine in and are scheduling shots.  I get mine on Tuesday.  Usually it stinks highly to be in an extremely high-risk group, but occasionally it works in my favor.  So a note to all of you - if you're sick, stay home and take care of yourselves!  Don't share with the rest of us.

I woke up with a screaming migraine again this morning.  The drugs seem to have worked this time, thank god.  Timothy is still adjusting back to this timezone from being in Japan, his internal clock is running about an hour ahead.  He fell asleep on the couch last night at 8pm and then woke up around 6am.  The nice thing was that we were able to take our time this morning and putter around the house a bit while we chatted and took care of morning chores: laundry, litter box, dishwasher, etc.  Usually it's pretty rushed, today it was very relaxing.

My younger brother, Brendan, is coming up with his new girlfriend, Morgan, over Thanksgiving.  I think she may be "the one" because he actually wants to bring her home to meet the family.  He had previously dated Jen for about 5 years, they moved down to NC and within about 6 months ended up breaking up.  He's had it pretty rough getting over the whole thing.



Here he is with Lacey.  He's a total cutie.  ;)

So we discovered that one of the better things to bring to a birthday party with a 6, 3, and 2 y.o. were Pixie Stix.  Their Uncle Chris showed them how it was done and then they began the race to see how quickly they could get their tongue colored blue.

It was terribly funny and I'm sure their Mom has the rest of the candy under lock and key.  :)

When we left the kids and their parents  and grandparents were all ready for a nap, as were we.  I would say that Lacey's 2nd birthday was heralded in with sufficient fanfare to appease the birthday gods.  And Laura, my sister - their mom, can cook a mean cupcake. 

I got a call back from the interview I went on last week. Even though I was late to the interview, I had to move my car because towing was imminent, I apparently made a good impression.  It's a temporary contract that will last 3-6 months tops with very little chance of being brought onto the company afterwards.  This is really no problem, I've done contract work before and after it's over may get called back for more or will find the job market has opened up some.  The only problem is that they're waiting on the Gov't's okay to proceed, it's probably part of the budget trickle down effect.  They know they have the money they're just waiting for the contract to get the funding.

In the meantime I've been churning out christmas presents and have 3 ladies taken care of, but lots more to go.  It's nice to actually be able to make them, I never would have had the time before.  In the process I'm improving my sewing skills and am really happy with how it's going.

This morning I woke up earlier than normal and drove down to Davidsonville, MD.  My goal was to arrive by 6:30 so I could help Anita with her morning milking and take a look at her setup.  She has been raising Nigerian Dwarves for about 18 months now and just happened to have her borrowed buck onsite and in with the girls to get them bred for Spring.  Anita has three does; Tigger, Una, and PJ (she's on longterm loan).  PJ is an eight year old doe that has a very impressive lineage, is the premier champion of Tiny Town Goats, and is a tremendous milker for a Nigerian Dwarf.  All three of them are really delightful ladies and are very easy to handle.

( First impressions )

( Bucky love )

( Breakfast and the indoor tour )

( The barter )

So, that's my brain dump!  This is only scratching the surface of what I learned today, more may percolate to the top in the next few days.  The nice thing is that I turned out to be a good milker.  I think it's my long, narrow fingers.  ;)

Yesterday I put a mess of chili in the crockpot and let it perc away for most of the afternoon.  Now, I love food - but I detest most chili recipes.  They are usually too hot to taste any real flavor of the meat and sauce and can make eating the dish a traumatic experience.  Don't get me wrong, I do like a bit of heat in my meals and tend to go after the spiciest kimchi when we eat Korean.  I just find that most people who make their "signature chili" are just trying to go for as much heat as they can possibly get.  My cahones are intact enough that I can go without that kind of challenge.

My favorite chili is Cincinnati style.  Yum!  Really more of a mole type sauce with lots of flavor, spices, aroma, and bitter chocolate.  I made a pan of cornbread to go with.  It went great with a Guiness and will be even better as today's lunch.

( Tubbing )

Today CC and I went to the Walter's Art Museum here in Baltimore.  They have an astounding collection of beautiful decorative arts that spans across a significant time period and area of SCA period.  They currently have an exhibit running in the manuscripts collection that covers miniatures, this is on display through Nov. 8th.  If you are local and are studying C&I this museum is a *must* for you, and I highly recommend the exhibit.  The most remarkable book was one made for one of the Medici wives who was a great lover of lace.  This book contained 52 pages and each page was cut to resemble delicate lace.  Each page used a different design and it was all done by hand.  If anyone has done cutwork on embroidered fabric, where you embroider a design and then snip away the threads from the internal fabric base, this is the same concept.  It was amazingly tiny and intricate.  I think they may have to polish the display cases in there a couple of times a day to get rid of all the nose prints and smudges left behind by people like CC and I.  :)

After we left the manuscript room (we saw lots more before we got there but a great deal was modern...19th century (!) ) we headed to a local coffee shop for lunch.  Here's what we saw on the way:



We were highly amused.  LOL!

Here is a photo of the fresh churned butter and the wheel of Emmental from the cheesemaking workshop on Sunday.



The butter on the plate is about 1/3rd of the overall volume.  We started with 1.5 quarts and ended up with almost 3 cups of butter.  The wheel of cheese is an Emmental recipe and was made in the two pound mold cylinder shown in the photo.  The cheese started as two gallons of whole milk and now stands approximately 5 inches tall and approximately 5 inches in diameter.

We also made buttermilk cheese, which has a very low yield and produces something that looks like a very fine curd cottage cheese without the added cream.  We started with one quart of store bought buttermilk and added another quart of buttermilk from churning the butter.  Out of a half gallon of buttermilk we ended up with about 1.5 cups of buttermilk cheese.

For the yogurt I took enough milk to fill my crockpot, approx. 3/4 of a gallon, and a rounded tablespoon of Fage yogurt with live culture.  Heated the milk up to 120 deg. F and unplugged the crockpot.  When it cooled down to about 110 I whisked the yogurt into a small amount of the heated milk to just break it up before adding it to the milk so it would become better distributed throughout the crockpot.  Mixed the yogurt mixture in and put the cover on the crockpot and then wrapped the whole thing in towels to make it retain it's heat.  Left it overnight and then in the morning when it was starting to set up poured it into jars.  The jars then went into the fridge to finish setting.  If you want flavored yogurt you could put your flavoring in the bottom of the jars before adding the cultured milk or you could mix it into the milk before adding the yogurt mixture.  I prefer to flavor it just before I eat it because I don't want to be stuck with four cups of just one flavor.  Yes, I like choices.  :)

Today I held a cheesemaking "workshop", where I have everyone else do the work for me.  :)  Cristianna, her two delightful little girls, and Anne Rose came over.  I will state for the record that I have absolutely no compunction at putting children to work, and churning butter was much fun for them.  Then we heated up some buttermilk (both storebought and from the butter making) and watched it separate into curds and whey.  They then started playing with the kitty cats under the door at the top of the stairs.  This eventually led to them coming and asking if we had any more of the little "jingle ball" cat toys.  Our collection place is downstairs under the dining room hutch.  Eventually everything you have ever lost ends up there.  Those two young ladies managed to get every stray rubber band, bottlecap band, and hair pin out from underneath the hutch and would have gotten the dust bunnies too if their little fingers could have reached.  As it was, they created their own tools to get everything else out - and managed to find the cap to my root lifter that Pyanfar had absconded with.  I looked for that thing for *days*!!!

Cristianna, they can come over here any time you need a break.  ;)

After that we made a batch of Emmental, which is now down in the press for it's overnight pressing.  I am really, really pleased with how it turned out.  The curd is knitting together very nicely and the rind only has a few very shallow indentations from the cheesecloth.  I'm not going to age it on very much because I slacked a bit on the sanitation side.  Everything that touched the milk was clean but not sterile, so it will go in the fridge after it's brining tomorrow.

Cristianna and Anne Rose went home with butter and buttermilk cheese.  When the Emmental gets opened up I'll try and get them pieces of that as well.

Anne Rose and I went out for a delightful chinese dinner at my favorite chinese/japanese restaurant.  It's run by a local family and the dynamic in there is just fun and friendly.  Last visit the owner was having sake drinking games with guests, tonight it was a birthday party for a regular customer.  They had a huge cake and it was just covered with burning candles.  They have this disco-pop birthday song they play over the muzac that is just too funny.  The best part?  My fortune.

"You have a quiet and unobtrusive nature."

I think I'm going to have to put that where Timothy can see it whenever he needs a laugh.  :)

So I have been unemployed since the middle of June and have been diligently (really!) looking for work and networking ever since.  Today I was required by the state's unemployment office to attend a job seeking skills seminar.

At first I was offended that they thought I needed help sharpening my skills, but then realised that for a majority of the pool of laid off workers they really do need the help.  In the past I have always gotten the first job I've applied for and I do interview really well.  Others don't have the same kind of experience and the process can be daunting.

I did find that I got some things to think upon out of it - the main one being should I try to retrain into another profession.  My current field, commercial interior design, is just not hiring.  Anyone.  At all.  I've been looking since January.  It's really depressing and I do have my days of funk when I don't budge from the couch or change out of my jammies.

As I begin to think about possibly changing careers (back to the food end would be nice) I get an email from a technical temp firm that I talked with a few months ago.  They have a short term contract job doing space planning and furniture reconfiguration available and am I available for an interview?  We have it scheduled for Monday morning.

My thought is if I do get the temp job it's too far away for me to want to go permanent, yet would allow me to make more than I do on unemployment.  It would also give me time to consider my options if I do decide on a career change.  The outlook for my current career path is grim and isn't expected to turn back into a hiring mode for another 14-18 months at the earliest.

The real deciding point hinges on this interview Monday, we'll just have to see how that goes - and in the meantime start researching my other options.

Okay, I feel better now that I have that written down and not just floating around in my brain in disjointed little bits.

Who knew you could take apart one of the old metal tricycles and run most of the pieces through the dishwasher.

Total niftiness.

Timothy flies out for Japan again next week and will be gone for almost 3 weeks, however the date could shift a bit depending on how things work out on the other end.

One of the things we like to do is take off in a car for somewhere, spend the night at a B&B, explore a new area and then take our time driving back home.  One of the things that worked in our favor was yesterday's holiday so we decided to take advantage of it.  We've seen a lot of the local areas south of us in Northern VA so we ended up heading north and ended up in Strasburg, PA.  This is in the heart of Amish country and is an interesting mix of the modern and the traditional.  There were lots of horse drawn buggies sharing the road and

( Tales from the farm )

( Antiques )

( Girl power purple )

Having spent more than we planned we went looking for a fabric store so I could get started on christmas presents.  Success was had and we found a yarn and weaving shop as well.  We finally got on the road at about 4pm and toodled on home tired and happy.