Life

I’ve always been an introvert, but when the pandemic hit, I took it to a whole other level. Like a turtle retreating into its shell, I basically disappeared into my fortress of solitude and lost contact with the outside world—including most of my friends.

The only reason I didn’t become a complete hermit is that my best friend is a huge extrovert and likes to talk on the phone. And my brother. He likes to talk on the phone, too. I’m pretty sure he’s adopted. 😉

Without them continuing to reach out even though I rarely reciprocated, it would’ve just been me and Mr. M in our own little bubble. And even though I always think, oooh, I should check on X, time seems to slip away, and then it’s been three months… then six… then a year, and I’ve yet to check on X.

But we’re starting to see an end to the pandemic on the horizon. More people are getting vaccinated. Travel is picking up. And there’s no reason to continue to turtle, at least not quite as hard, but changing a year-plus habit is hard.

I’ve been meaning to reach out to friends for weeks, literal weeks, and I’ve yet to get it done. It doesn’t help that I’m also on deadline again, which comes with its own brain fog.

I guess I don’t really have a point to this ramble (sorry! see: deadline brain), but if you’ve been turtling, too, know you’re not alone. And I hope my friends don’t blame me for disappearing, just like I don’t blame them. We all did what we had to do to make it through.

Here’s to many happy reunions as we all emerge from our shells and re-establish contact. :)

Yesterday was Memorial Day in the US, which meant Mr M had the day off, giving us a three-day weekend. I decided to take the day off, too, because I needed a break. I’ve been chipping away at the next book, but writing is going slooooow, and while I’ve been trying not to work weekends, I haven’t been super successful.

Three whole days of not thinking about work was amazing. We played video games and read books and finished watching Shadow and Bone (someone please give Jesper a spinoff with ten seasons to do whatever he wants).

We also made bacon and tomato sandwiches with tomatoes Mr M grew in the garden. Some people will ruin this sandwich by turning it into a BLT (my husband included), but no one needs lettuce messing up the sheer perfection of thick bacon and homegrown tomatoes on lightly toasted sourdough.

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I’ve eaten this for lunch for three days straight (leftovers are amazing!), and I couldn’t be happier. This is one of my go-to meals for the summer. 10/10 would eat everyday.

But now I’ve eaten all of the tomatoes and the holiday is over, so today I’m back at work. Kind of. It’s still going slowly, but the manuscript is over 42k words, so I’m inching ever onward. I have two months to finish it, which should be enough time if only I could find a bit of motivation.

Hunt the Stars turned out amazing, and I love it even more after edits. Book two is a hot mess. Books generally are, when they’re being written, but this one is more so than usual. My alpha readers tell me that it’s not, but I don’t believe them. 😂

The only way out is through, though, so back to it. Wish me luck! 🤞🏻

Last week, Sludge (my sourdough starter) celebrated his one-year birthday. That means we’ve been in a pandemic for over a year at this point, but let’s not dwell on the negatives.

For the past year, I’ve mostly been baking sourdough in round boules in a dutch oven. A round boule is pretty easy to shape, and it bakes up nice and tall in the dutch oven without a lot of fussing, but it’s a bit harder to cut than a nice loaf-shaped loaf.

So after a year of baking, I decided to try my hand at loaves. The problem is, sourdough likes to have steam to really get that nice oven spring that gives it its height and airy texture. Professional bakery ovens have a steam setting that does the work for you. Home ovens, not so much (at least not mine).

There are a myriad of ways people try to get around this: pans of hot water, cast iron skillets filled with lava rocks and boiling water, spraying the oven walls with a squirt bottle, and so on and so forth. All of it requires fussing, and I am anti-fussing.

I tried a few things and none of them worked as well as a dutch oven, which traps the bread’s own steam in the vessel. So I set about finding a loaf-shaped dutch oven equivalent.

Enter the Emile Henry Italian Bread Baker. This ridiculously priced piece of ceramic seemed to be exactly what I was looking for.

But that price. Ouch.

So I waffled for weeks. I looked at every other option in the history of the world, most of which weren’t that much cheaper and some of which were way more expensive.

Finally, in a fit of retail therapy, I gave in and bought it, and a few days later, my new ceramic precious showed up.

Shaping a long loaf is a bit weird, and I’m still in the learning stage, but I made something vaguely log-shaped, plonked it in the bread baker just like it was a dutch oven, then deposited the whole thing in the oven—no fussing required. (If you’re looking for a no-knead recipe, I highly recommend King Arthur’s.)

Fifty-five-ish minutes later, out came a beautiful, light, crusty loaf. I didn’t quite get the scoring right, so there was a bit of an explosion, but the bread still tastes fantastic.

And the best part was it was very low effort, which, really, is my favorite kind of baking.

Was the pan ridiculously expensive? Yes. Am I glad I bought it? Also yes. Will I get my money’s worth? Ehhh… that remains to be seen, but I’ve baked bread for a year already, so it’s possible.

But even if it wasn’t the most financially sound decision, it’s already made me happy, and that’s worth a lot. :)

This week, I got my second dose of the Moderna vaccine, so now I’m fully vaccinated! 🎉

I was in group 1B, but with a lot of the country expanding eligibility to everyone, I thought I’d tell you about my experience so you know what to expect if you haven’t gotten your shots yet.

I got the first shot about a month ago and it gave me a sore arm for a few days. The first twenty-four-ish hours were really sore, then there were a couple of days of just lingering soreness. Otherwise, I didn’t have any other symptoms. Easy peasy.

Shot two was a whole different beast. If you don’t have a flexible work schedule, I recommend getting the second shot when you have the next day off. I got my shot Wednesday afternoon. By Wednesday night, my arm was once again sore, but this time the pain was bad enough to interrupt my sleep.

So Wednesday night I didn’t sleep well. By Thursday morning, I was feeling achy, but I got up and tried to work. I spent two hours staring at my computer in a fog, wrote a grand total of seven words, and decided that maybe the couch was a better option.

I spent the rest of the day dozing. I ran a low-grade fever (the highest was 100.3F) and my bones ached. Specifically, my thigh bones and hip joints. Why those? Who knows! In the evening, I went for a slow walk with Mr. M, then promptly returned to the sofa.

By 9:30, I decided to move to the bed, “to read.” By 9:35, I was asleep, which is kind of a miracle on its own. I slept eleven hours and woke up this morning feeling pretty good. My fever is gone, I can no longer actively feel my bones, and while my arm is still sore, it’s a lingering pain, not an intense one.

Could I have powered through it yesterday and worked anyway? Probably. And if I was on deadline, I might’ve tried harder. But I’m doing my best to be kind to myself this year, so I took the day off.

Would I get the shot again if I had it to do over? YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES.

I hope everyone gets their shots. Selfishly, I want to be able to return to normal and go out and see my friends and travel and do things.

But I also don’t want anyone else to die. I don’t want the virus to have enough hosts to continue to mutate into something that will once again kill hundreds of thousands. I want to be able to stop worrying about my parents, and my friends, and my brother, who is on the front lines as a fireman.

If you can get the vaccine, please do. And encourage those around you to do it, too. :)