Honestly I’ve spent like 27 hours a day playing the Sims 4 this week (I fell down a rabbit hole of mods, so now my sims all have supermodel hair, zookeeper careers, and the ability to beat each other to death with baseball bats). I love it, but I always end up not knowing what year it is or where I am, and every ten minutes Sophie comes in and tells me it’s the next day and have I taken my meds and eaten some food? Here is some water. Drink the water, you absolute idiot.
So, I feel like it’s maybe not great for me from a mental health perspective. I need to be making things, or doing something, but I feel at such a loose end. Every time I think of something else I want to do, I find I’m missing something, and I can’t go out and get it. I’m bored, but it’s also something more than that.
So here I am, writing, for the first time since about 1893. What am I gonna do, commUNICATE?? Form SENTENCES about it, like a knob??? APPARENTLY.
Anna Does ???, this week.
1.
I am incredibly obnoxious, and also legally obligated to quote, ‘I lived in New York, Troy, I know what a baggle is,’ from Community every time I eat a bagel, so you can imagine how repetitive I’ve been this week. The homemade bagels were basically just a vehicle for the vegan smoked salmon, which is why I have zero proper photos of them, so you sort of have to take my word for it that they’re... there. I used this recipe which was pretty straightforward, and I was really pleased with them, even though I only had wholemeal bread flour (I have been so healthy this lockdown it makes me SICK. I’m livid about it). I would halve the salt next time though - typical that the one time I actually measure salt, it’s way too much.
The ‘smoked salmon’ recipe is from here - I made it pretty much as written but used a dash of liquid smoke instead of smoked paprika, because I am the only person alive who has liquid smoke in their kitchen, but not smoked paprika. Like, you would not mistake this for salmon (unless you were very drunk, I suppose), but it behaves the same way in a bagel and DANG I enjoyed eating it.
2.
I’m finally starting work on some 18th century jumps I originally planned and bought materials for, like, two years ago. ‘18th century jumps’ implies a level of historical accuracy that these are NOT going to reach, because they’re ‘for’ a fantasy character and I’m making them out of faux leather. I don’t know how to explain this project, which is why I’m not videoing it, because it’s not a cosplay exactly - I’m literally just costuming an original character. For no reason. But I love planning it, and researching, and designing all the costume details that tie into the specific character and her story; the more specific, the better, basically. If people are actually interested in reading costuming blog posts, I cannot TELL you how much in depth nonsense I would be utterly delighted to word-vomit at you for hours on end.
As per my Instagram stories: I didn’t have any cheap fabric to draft with, so I cut up my most coffee-stained pyjama bottoms for this. It was their time.
3.
These are just shortbread biscuits and not very complex - 2oz (55g) sugar, 4oz (125g) vegan butter, and 6oz (180g) plain flour. However I added a couple of teaspoons (1 would be enough, but I lack restraint) of matcha powder to one half of the dough, and a little bit of sakura extract and pink colouring to the other half. Honestly, I dread to think how old that bottle of extract was, so it was by no means an overwhelming flavour, but it was subtle and sweet and god I love shortbread.
The centres of the blossom are drawn using an edible pink pen; I didn’t draw on all of the blossom, not because I didn’t like the effect, but because I got very worried halfway through that someone would ask me why I had drawn buttholes on my cookies.
‘Or nipples,’ said Sophie helpfully, when I expressed this concern to her.
WELL I HADN’T BEEN WORRIED ABOUT THAT UNTIL YOU SAID SO.
I’ve definitely stopped taking photographs as I’ve stopped blogging - not completely, obviously, but a fraction as much as I used to. I love making videos, and it means the WORLD to me when people watch them, but such a colossal amount of work and time goes into each one that writing is a much more accessible outlet for the little things like this. And I feel better for doing it, more importantly, like I’ve written you a letter (pls write back soon xoxo).
So I might do this again. Or I might not.
x
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