A Few Quick Notes 185

-As predicted, today was another was a relatively low quality day. We started things off with overcast skies, low temperatures, and a little precipitation. This was followed my more of the same, but with a little less precipitation for much of the work day. Just as I was walking home from work the precipitation levels picked up a little, though not too much. It seems more of the same has been predicted for the coming days (only on Tuesday is any sun predicted).

-Some of the beans that I planted almost three weeks ago have started to sprout. In particular, it seems that one or two, maybe even three, of the scarlet runner beans have popped up. At least one of the yellow or green beans has also showed signs of life.

These recent developments are giving me some hope that I will be lucky enough to have a few more plants over the coming days. Maybe I will soon have a much better sense of how much re-planting will be needed.

-Soon after returning from work I decided to take a quick nap. Unfortunately I ended up sleeping for almost three hours. Now, later in the evening, I feel much more awake that I would like to be at this time of day.

-Almost as soon as I awoke from my nap I saw a recipe for bread on my floor and decided to try and make it. The deciding factor was that the recipe was for beer bread, a concept that I found particularly enticing.

As the recipe was from a British flour bag things were done a little differently. Instead of in cups ingredients were listed in grams and ounces and millilitres. This difference allowed me to use our kitchen scale for the first time, something that was a little easier than I would have predicted.

Another difference with regards to this batch of bread from others that I have made recently was that I made it in a mixer using a dough hook. While this cut out the hand stirring it did make things a little easier, particularly the kneading and initial mixing.

A third major difference was that the bread called for only one session of rising. I am typically used to letting my dough rise twice, the second time in the pans in which the bread will eventually be baked.

-As the bread was baking I realized that my friends Dave and Amanda were just about to move away. As it was likely that they would be driving I thought that they could possibly use a loaf of bread on their travels, and dropping such a loaf off would be an excuse to see them off.

As the bread was just about to come out of the oven my parents returned and agreed that the idea seemed reasonable, the only problem being that they were due to leave very early the next morning.

Eventually we just decided to head out and try to find them and drop off the bread and say good-bye. Fortunately, almost as soon as we pulled into the driveway at the house where we suspected they were staying Dave pulled up the drive. Soon after Amanda joined us in the driveway and we were able to talk for a while.

-To kill the day off I will be engaging in some Settlers. Hopefully we will have good boards, unlike some of the more recent games I have played.