Truck Nuts an Vitamin D

Our paint team started today with the usual array of first day IT issues. It was great to see everyone again. We went through the usual first day meetings. A good start with a great team.

I was able to get a lunch time walk in this afternoon. I realised it had been over two weeks since we had done this. I get a decent walk when I walk from the station to the studio, but I really missed these walks at lunch. It was a sunny day, and the skies were blue, the air crisp and clean. I was surprised at how bitter cold the breeze was and could have worn something a bit warmer, but I survived all the same.

About halfway through the walk, I started to physically and mentally feel better. It’s amazing how walking increases my sense of well being. As the weather warms up, we will head back to the Bronte Provincial park and walk under the trees. For now, we stick to the sidewalks and put up with the noise from the busy street. It still better than not walking.

I was able to do some reading last night as well, something I haven’t been able to get around to as much as I would like to. So far, I am on target with my writing quota and the pressure has eased off a bit in all regards, which means I may have more time to read.

I am still reading ‘The Hedge Knight’, the first novella in the ‘A Knight of the Realm’ collection. I am still enjoying the illustrations and the story. It is easy to see how the tv show was translated into a success. The writing in the book just comes to life in your head when you read it.

I have been thinking more about my childhood friends these past weeks. We all grew up in the Niagara Region and eventually most of us, including myself, moved away, some to Ottawa, another to B.C. and now a third to Nova Scotia. That makes getting everyone together difficult to say the least. I should make a more concerted effort to see the ones close enough to visit.

My mentor puts up a free story a week on Mondays. I often give them a read as it helps me understand why she thinks about story. Today’s story was under a thousand words, so a real quick read. I find I don’t like short stories that are that short. I get to the end and always feel short changed. As such, I don’t think to write things with such a low word count. My mentor has made a book cover for it and written sales copy too.

The next time I am writing to her, I’ll have to ask about it. Are they worth writing? Do they make financial sense? Was I written because that’s just what came out or was it from a prompt.

Obviously, she gets to use it for the free story per week on her website and maybe it generates sales for her other books and projects. I do know they often give these kinds of stories away as part of the stretch goals when they do a Kickstarter campaign. And I imagine she will tell me that she wrote for the sheer joy of writing, because that’s what she does.

There are or at least used to be journals and magazines that would specialize in publishing stories of certain lengths. And maybe that used to be a lucrative market for writers to make a little extra money. Many of the magazines are shutting down or now have such predatory contracts that it would be foolish to sell them your work.

There is always someone out there willing to part you from your assets.

Speaking of assets. I was listening to the Gordon Ramsey documentary on Netflix while I was working today. In this episode he has finally opened his restaurant and gone through all the harrowing and stressful moments of building delays, menu creations, and the daily worry of possibly losing all his money. Of course, in the episode he achieves his goal, has a lavish opening and we get to see the final space all decorated and gorgeous food coming out from the kitchen.

He gets into his chauffeur driven SUV and drives off with his wife. Inside the car he rambles on about his success and relief that is all over. Misson accomplished. All he wants to do is sleep in and have a nice breakfast with his family. And then his phone rings, and you realize there is no stopping and relaxing for this guy, He’s already on to the next big thing.

It’s absolutely exhausting! But good luck Ramsey one your next adventure.

But move on over Gordon. Last night I made some malt bread. I took the amount of dough I usually use for a single loaf and split it into two. The I put the dough into the oven set to proof. I came back and checked it after it had doubled and then baked it.

The loaves came out fine but much lighter that usual, which should be no surprise. The bread was very light and airy and made for decent sandwich bread. It toasts much faster than when I only make one loaf. But I think I prefer the regular way of making it. On of the nice things about malt bead other than the flavor is the density of the bread and this batch was missing that in spades. But it was a fun experiment and I could see doing that way if I wanted to make soft and fluffy sandwich bread.

Now that I have my malt bread recipe locked in, I want to try and make some rye bread. It is another favorite of ours and so far the homemade breads we’ve made have been delicious and not full of dough stabilizers and preservatives. Have you noticed how bread and cheese don’t seem to get moldy anymore. That’s because they add all kinds of things to the bread that are all about making bread more shelf stable. The goal isn’t to make bread that is healthy, but bread that can stay on a shelf as long as unnaturally possible.

And that’s a bit scary.

My stepson’s best friend took possession of a brand-new Ford truck the other day. It was one of the smaller models, don’t ask me which one. After getting over the fact that she was gifted the truck by her father, I think he works at Ford, I decided to order something for her. She’s one of those friends who can come and go in our house like she was one of our own.

When I asked her if she had named her truck she said without hesitation, “Stacey.”

This complicated things because the gif ti ordered and was going to install one day while she was here was a pink set of saggy truck balls.

Bought mostly as a gag, I thought we’d all get a chuckle out of it when she, months later, finally realized they were swinging off Stacey’s backside. They haven’t arrived yet, apparently our local Amazon warehouse doesn’t stock them. But they be hanging low by next week or so. Never in my life did I think I would be making that purchase. Just goes to show there is a time and place for everything.

The last time I went in for my physical I had to do a blood test. The test revealed that I had a vitamin D deficiency, which came as no surprise because of my skin type. I stay out of the sun as much as possible because of how fair my skin is and how easily I burn. My father and I joke about how we burn it the shade. Except it isn’t really a joke, we actually do burn in the shade after about five minutes.

A since most of our vitamin D comes from sun exposure through the eyes, I am not getting enough. I purchased some drops that also had vitamin k and tired that for a while. It tasted unappetizing so I sought out other possibilities.

Then I came across Vitamin D gummies at the pharmacy. You have to understand what a huge gummie fanatic I am. I have a serious addiction to gummies, wine gums, Jujubes, and fruit slices. So when I came across a gummie that was giving my my vitamin D it was a win-win. Now, I expected the gummies to taste terrible due to the vitamin addition, but to my surprise the tasted amazing. I would eat them if they didn’t have the good stuff in them. Every moring I get to wake up and have a treat, that’s giving my some much needed vitamins and is tastey.

I’ll be interested to see what the blood tests reveal when I have to go for my physical this year. Are the gummies working or is it just a waste of money. I do know that vitamin D is difficult for the body to absorb by digestion.

I guess time will tell and until then I will suffer every morning and eat my vitamins.

It was another long day today; I am going to call it quits for the nights. I am about four hundred words short of my daily word goal, but I think I can easily make that up tomorrow.

Sunday was too depleting to make Monday a good day to start a new story. But I’ll make myself a promise to get it started tomorrow, which means I’ll have to break out the titles sheet and see if I can come up with something that inspires me.

And that also means heading down to the writing cave to get some distraction free writing done.

Nite all!