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Learning a bit of focused action...
Jul. 3rd, 2011 11:37 amFriday I cooked rice. Maybe I'll make fried rice to take to work on saturday.
Yesterday, I got up, mixed some rye flour and sourdough starter, mowed my lawn, watered my lawn patch-repairs (lots of moss, and so I'm trying to kill a patch, rake out the dead stuff, and then plant fresh seed - just a few patches at a time), raked up the clippings, packed lunch, made breakfast (cheating - sourdough bread and blue cheese, which means slicing cheese and bread and making a sandwich), and got to work almost-on-time to work my 12 hour shift. No time to make fried rice.
Then I went home, made bread dough, and let it rise for about 45 minutes before refrigerating it and going to bed.
This morning I found the bread dough had doubled in the refrigerator (!!), so I warmed the oven for a minute, put it in to warm up a bit, watered my patch-repairs, kneaded and shaped my dough, put it in a bread pan, and put it in the refrigerator again. If it doubles again, I'm going to be truly impressed with the strength of my sourdough! Then, with 23 minutes until 10, I made my fried rice. (I forgot egg - but it was good anyway, and with chicken, it wasn't lacking in protein).
I also made tea both mornings, somewhere in there.
Time has long been my enemy, slipping away uselessly, and I've been trying to fight back by learning to be more focused and active, and I think it's starting to help. The interesting thing is that, I know that if I *had* to do this, I'd be cranky and upset at all of this work. But since it's my own choice, I'm feeling a lot better about it. (Which is not to say that it's not frustrating sometimes. But as Mark Twain put it, work is what a body is obliged to do, and play is what a body is not obliged to do. Just taking out the obligation can sometimes make it play.)
It does occasionally remind me of a line from Stranger in a Strange Land about how Michael is always rushing from one place to another, telling people they must never hurry. That is an important key... if you have to *hurry*, things go wrong, and it's a lot more frustrating. But with practice, and patience, you can learn to do several things relatively quickly, and things that used to feel like they were hurrying can become more sedate.
Yesterday, I got up, mixed some rye flour and sourdough starter, mowed my lawn, watered my lawn patch-repairs (lots of moss, and so I'm trying to kill a patch, rake out the dead stuff, and then plant fresh seed - just a few patches at a time), raked up the clippings, packed lunch, made breakfast (cheating - sourdough bread and blue cheese, which means slicing cheese and bread and making a sandwich), and got to work almost-on-time to work my 12 hour shift. No time to make fried rice.
Then I went home, made bread dough, and let it rise for about 45 minutes before refrigerating it and going to bed.
This morning I found the bread dough had doubled in the refrigerator (!!), so I warmed the oven for a minute, put it in to warm up a bit, watered my patch-repairs, kneaded and shaped my dough, put it in a bread pan, and put it in the refrigerator again. If it doubles again, I'm going to be truly impressed with the strength of my sourdough! Then, with 23 minutes until 10, I made my fried rice. (I forgot egg - but it was good anyway, and with chicken, it wasn't lacking in protein).
I also made tea both mornings, somewhere in there.
Time has long been my enemy, slipping away uselessly, and I've been trying to fight back by learning to be more focused and active, and I think it's starting to help. The interesting thing is that, I know that if I *had* to do this, I'd be cranky and upset at all of this work. But since it's my own choice, I'm feeling a lot better about it. (Which is not to say that it's not frustrating sometimes. But as Mark Twain put it, work is what a body is obliged to do, and play is what a body is not obliged to do. Just taking out the obligation can sometimes make it play.)
It does occasionally remind me of a line from Stranger in a Strange Land about how Michael is always rushing from one place to another, telling people they must never hurry. That is an important key... if you have to *hurry*, things go wrong, and it's a lot more frustrating. But with practice, and patience, you can learn to do several things relatively quickly, and things that used to feel like they were hurrying can become more sedate.
