Song of the day: “Someone you loved” by Lewis Capaldi,
such a gorgeous song, although it is incredibly sad. Sometimes I find it really
relatable, for some reason…but then, admittedly those are my bad days.
Well, life has been busy as usual. The time gets
away from me more often than not, and the fact that I work, usually, a minimum
of four days a week doesn’t help much in that regard. It seems at the moment
that I am only working and going to school, which is ridiculous, of course.
There are still two days, off (even though I usually spend some time of those
on homework) and infrequent attempts at working on the books. It doesn’t always
work, and we are not going fast, but steady and slow at least.
The book, Lost Soul has been finished. At least
the writing has. Did that a while ago, despite everything going on. It felt
good to finish the story, especially because it is so dark and sad. That certainly
didn’t improve my overall mood, despite loving the story. The character is just
such a tortured soul, which makes the title rather fitting, in my opinion. It
was high intensity, dark and painful, which makes for an excellent combo, when
we’re talking psychological thrillers, right?
Work. Well, I seem to be doing it right. Takes effort
and time, and there are times that my friggin’ feet kill me at the end of the
day, but I get satisfaction from doing it right. The challenge is to get all
the parts done proper without forgetting the important stuff, keeping track and
basically make things run smoothly. But that’s okay. I know the importance of a
good atmosphere, and work hard at that, which pays off most times. I have been
doing a lot of sushi (a rather new skill, still) which means I get to practise
new tastes, styles and basically anything that I hadn’t thought of before,
simply because personally I am not a sushi person. Still, it’s a good
challenge.
Christmas came and went, and though I worked
from the second day of Christmas, almost straight through to the new year, it
was a quiet time, without much, if any obligations. Instead we visited family
on the 28th, so we could celebrate big brother’s birthday too.
Also joined in the catering of a big event at a
dolphinarium for a day. This meant prepping food for more than 1100 people. Very
interesting, if tiring, and a good experience to have. There was a nice bunch
of kids working there, needing some calming experienced guidance, which we
managed to supply. It was long day, and I didn’t get to see any dolphins, which
I would have liked. Alas, only work.
My birthday came and went. The actual day was
spent at work, meaning that folks sang happy birthday, of course, which felt a
tad awkward, yet sweet at the same time. Instead of celebrating on the day, I
did a dinner party a week later, which was a big success. Had about a dozen
people come over, and we had this big Italian style, big table dinner, with
everyone talking and laughing. I enjoyed that tremendously.
There was family, there were friends…what more
can you ask for, right? Had a lovely four course menu that involved a nice zucchini
cream soup, an Asian style spinach, grilled vegetable, satay salad, followed by
stuffed peppers, pastry zucchini roses, linguini with a parmesan, cream and
lemon sauce, with a dessert of real hung yogurt with saffron and mango. It was
absolutely awesome, and I had just enough for everyone, meaning we weren’t left
with a massive amount of leftovers, which I had feared…of course that meant
that I hardly had any food for the following workdays, but in such cases grilled cheese sandwiches
with veggies did the trick.
Heard that a very good friend of mine has been
diagnosed with acute, malignant leukaemia, for which he has been hospitalized.
He is now going through his second round of aggressive chem therapy, but the
prognosis is very bleak. This saddens me. This friend always reminds me of
grandpa, so that is doubly sad. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that something
awesome happens for him, right.
I have not been liking winter. Despite a lack
of snow, I’ve been finding it cold, and yes, I have bagged my first sickness
with a bad nose cold, that followed up a just as bad throat ache that went
straight up my nose two days later. The only thing I am grateful for is that it
didn’t sink into my lungs this time.
Studies are…elaborate. I’m not sure if they’re
supposed to be, just that I seem to take a lot of time with them. The assignments,
the reading. I hadn’t realized the extent of them until this who experience.
Did quite a few already, and I did my first tests, several of which I passed
already, thankfully. The dutch seems to be less of a problem, but I’m pretty
sure I flunked math…but we’ll see. Maybe I did better than I expected…I doubt it,
but hope springs eternal, I guess.
The big wall in the living room is finally
painted. So much better now. So much more light, and so much prettier to boot.
I might alter more there in the near future, but for now it is rather comfy…and
looking good, because we passed two house inspection, maybe even three, since
the last blog. A relief that, even though the inspections are more frequent these
days. I think the company has changed its policies.
Went to the cinema recently. The Joker.
Considering we had gotten a cinema gift certificate it seemed like the right thing
to do. A fascinating movie. A little slow maybe, and dark, but the acting was
incredibly powerful. Also, it was a fun night out. We don’t get many of those.
Although there have been some cooking sprees of
late, for the most part cooking is something I do at work and in bulk for the
days that I work. This means that I don’t have a lot of pretty images to post. Instead
they have been sustenance, which is important too.
There are some changes coming, but they are not
as such that I can share them yet, regretfully. Still, they ought to be
interesting, or at least I hope so.
And this makes for today’s blog. It is late,
and I have an appointment in the morning. Added to that I had school today and
that took longer than usual since I was chef de partie for desserts today. It
went well enough from my perspective. All the guests were content, and that’s what
counts.
But now it is time for bed. I’ll be back.
