Paintings, Bible verses, Bookshelves, and Carrot Cake

I've been busy lately. Especially when faced with stressful situations, I have a tendency to put myself to work. I'm sure my former roommates can attest to this. This weekend? I rode my bike 50.5 miles, hiked at least 5 miles on a VERY hot day, rearranged the furniture in my room, vacuumed, balanced my checkbook, made a bookshelf, wrote up Bible verses to put on my wall, baked a carrot cake for lunch and Amish baked oatmeal for breakfast, and even marinated pork chops for supper!

The source of all of this I am sure you will find amusing, given that I have had very little trouble with this in the past - or very much, depending on how you look at it. But to put it simply, I found out that two of my coworkers were in a competition to see who could get me to like them first. Meanwhile, I was really enjoying the opportunity to go hiking and such with my coworkers, attributing this to the younger age of the staff this year. Apparently I am horribly naive. The real problem with all of this is that I am now in a predicament because I am not interested in having a relationship with either of them - but I still have to work and live with them without things being awkward. Okay, all you college friends can start laughing at me now. Go on, laugh away. ;P

Why does this always seem to happen to me? What wrong signals am I sending? Is it too much to ask people to not think I'm hinting because I don't realize that they're hinting!? C'est la vie.

So anyway, the produce of all this? The pictured creations (excluding the first couple paintings - those I did over the last couple weeks), a newly assembled bedroom, a delicious dinner, and very tired legs. And yes: there are chocolate chips in the carrot cake - it's to make up for the lack of frosting. There are worse things I could do when stressed...

201st Entry: A reflection on the journey

Most useful thing in my road trip arsenal: spare old towel. Original purpose was to insulate my bike from the terrors of the stuff that was packed all around it in the car. Since serving that initial purpose, it has found many uses, from lawn blanket to bicycle shade. Definitely a good thing to toss in when all is said and done.

Item I've missed the most: definitely my trash can. That Wishbone trash receptacle has been with me for years! In Arizona I made do by putting a plastic bag inside a paper one and changing out the plastic one when it got full. Unfortunately that bag ripped in the move to California (and got soaked with maple syrup, but that's a whole nother story!), and here I've just forced myself to walk my garbage to the kitchen or bathroom receptacles, though I do have plenty of paper bags that I could probably put to work if I really wanted to - perhaps I'll do that today...

It's been over 200 entries and almost half a decade since I started this blog. My first entry is from 15 December 2007, thanking God for the snow that I had been praying to see that day. I was still working at the bike shop, I was still in high school. I'd had little knowledge back then of where I would be four and a half years later. I had no idea that I would go to Africa, not only once, but twice! I didn't quite see then that my days at the bike shop were numbered, but that God had a much more fulfilling line of work for me in a remote ghost town on the other side of the country. Since I started this blog I have: gone through college; had my first official "boyfriend" and first kiss (it was gross) as well as my first experience dumping a guy; ridden two 100-mile bike rides; lived with 17 different people (at least) at different times in different places apart from my family; learned my third language; had to disappoint at least a few guys who were set on chasing me; fallen deeper in love with God; felt a deeper connection with nature; hitch-hiked; driven across the country; driven across the state; started paying my student loans; made some real friends; learned more about myself, who I am, and how to give voice to my thoughts and feelings; watched the entire Avatar: The Last Airbender series; and so much more!

It's been 200 entries, and a lot has happened. A lot has changed. But I can't complain: I love my life, and I'm grateful to God for bringing me safely through this far. I look forward to what He's got planned for me next. What an adventure!

~Jay

More baking!

Yesterday was full of baking. I awoke in the morning, found a recipe, and made my first batch of cinnamon granola before I went to work. It turned out well, though it didn't clump as much as I had hoped it would. I read about it, and they say I need to get oat flour and mix that in to allow the oats to "glue" together. We'll see if I can find that. For the super-easy granola recipe that I found, click here.

Before I went off to work I set a half cup of almonds soaking in two cups of water in preparation for another batch of almond milk.

After work I utilized the last of my previous batch of almond milk (which I'd probably let go a bit too long for drinking, but it wasn't bad for baking) and made three batches of cereal - one blue corn, one yellow corn, and one plain flour. This time I learned from my last experience and was patient. I didn't try to toast them all on two big sheets, but toasted each half-batch on its own sheet just like the recipe says. The results were a magnificent set of perfectly crisp cereals. Once they had cooled down, I added my granola from this morning to the bowl, mixed it all up, and separated it into containers. I would say the whole thing only took me a couple hours, as I started sometime after 6:30 and was done before 9 o'clock. Not too shabby, if I say so myself.

This morning I cracked open my almonds, poured them into my blender, and whipped up some delightful almond milk, which I poured fresh over my new cereal + granola, with some raisins added in. Delicious! I would say this was definitely a success, and I'm looking forward to making more cereal + granola in the future. I will soon be running out of blue corn, and then yellow corn flour, and I am wondering what I should purchase next. I would very much like to try graham flour and see if it tastes like graham crackers. Sorghum would be an interesting one to try as well. And certainly, I ought to try some bran flour sometime, since that is was the recipe calls for!

Denise says I should market my own cereal... Jack's C+G, anyone? ;)