The Weight

I had a lot of time on my hands this weekend, and I sublimed all my pent-up anxiety and energy and emotion from the semester and its end and let my creativity loose!  After my cleaning spree, I really locked in an art studio set-up in the barn.  My Dad salvaged a wooden table easel that my brother never used, I opened the crusty jars of acrylic paint, popped in some of my favorite cds from senior year and just went to work.  Behold, my first piece of the summer:

 

I've reinterpreted the donkey a bit, but I'm pleased.  I only used the three primary colors and white, and I think I reflected the values quite well.  I'm giving it to a co-worker who had asked me to paint it last summer, and I finally came around to doing it!

My activity does not end there!  I have all this active yeast and I've been taking a try at making bread.  Actual loaves are difficult, like the consistency and the flour measurements were slightly off for my attempt at a French-style baguette, but goodness is it gratifying to have a house smelling like a bakery.  It didn't taste bad either.  I also treated my parents to these enormous homemade cinnamon rolls from this recipe.  I didn't have bread flour so they were probably denser than the recipe actually produces, but still delicious and fairly simple.  We cleaned up the leftovers for this morning!  Nothing like starting off the day with a hearty dose of butter, eggs and sugar in pastry-form.

I recently finished a twelve-hour shift at my home turf work establishment, Mill Creek Cafe.  I'm learning how to cook on the line this season, in order to diversify my skills and be useful in all sides of the game.  It's a ton of fun because I love learning how the different dishes are made, but my feet are exhausted-- I need to take a load off.  In the last two days I've had two shifts that amount to 18 hours already this week... bring on the cash monay, baby! 
 

Listening: "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder