Journal, Cheese, and Goats.

So, yesterday was my official "end of stripping" cut-off.  It ended with a whimper and not a bang.  I guess I'm glad.  I don't know what a bang would have been like.  Probably unpleasant, considering the nature of the job.

Anyway, I am no longer a stripper.  Or at least, I no longer consider myself a stripper.  Which isn't saying much. I haven't considered myself a stripper for some time now.  I haven't worked in... a while.

I saw going to post something to mark the occasion, but as it turned out, I had a to-do list as long as my arm.  And other things just seemed more important.  For example:

I was researching cheese-making.  I knew I really wanted to do it, and I figured getting cozy with yogurt-making would be a good way to break into cheese.  But this was something I assumed I wouldn't be able/ready to do until I had my own livestock.  I particularly wanted goats.  I don't know why.  I just like goats.

So, I went online and finally looked up cheese-making.  I got this lovely site right here.  And I can't wait to try out their recipes.  The thing that got me laughing though, was that they use goat milk.  From their goats.

So, then I was researching goats.  So now I'm all kinds of excited about having goats someday in the future.  I've wanted goats for forever, but now I have another reason to want goats.  I now have recipes for cheese.  That I can make myself.  With milk from goats.

I guess I get manic about weird things.  Anyway, in order to do any of these things I so very much want to do, I need to figure out how to make yogurt without destroying gallon after gallon of grocery store milk.  If I can make yogurt, I can make lebneh.  If I can make lebneh, I can try to make... yeah, just visit the link above.

In all of that confusion, I got myself a journal at the Walgreens.  A cheap thing.  The cheapest I could find.  It is now my new bestest best buddy (after my fiance).  I spend a massive amount of my spare time visiting websites for all kinds of information.  How to make relaxing bath salts.  How to make your own soap.  How to make your own cheese.

So, that's great and all, but the problem is that I usually have to re-read most of each of these lengthy articles to get the ingredients and steps of preparation of a lot of these things.  A good writer adds entertaining anecdotal whatnots to their article, and most of the articles I read are written by excellent writers and bloggers.  So, I find myself wasting lots of time fishing through my massive bookmarks collection for the right page that has the right recipe.  Having done that, I have to scroll through the entire article to find the right ingredients.  And then there's always the danger that I'll miss a step.  "You mean you needed flax seed flour for that?  But you didn't mention flax seed flour with all those other ingredients in paragraph six!"

See my problem?  So I went through and copied down all my favorite recipes and cures into this journal which I now find myself using for everything.  Wanna de-flea the cat?  Journal!  Wanna make the beet hummus you can't stop eating?  Journal!  How do you plant garlic?  Journal!

So far I've copied twenty pages of information into that thing, and I'm nowhere near to stopping yet.  How do you make cheese?  This must go into the journal.  What do goats eat?  Journal!

I love it.  Everything in there is scattered in this disorganized hodge-podge.  And at the same time, because it's all hand-written, I remember where everything is just by the feel of the pages.  (It's weird, but I'm like that with stuff I touch.  Particularly stuff I write.)

At some point, I do want to write an index on a piece of loose-leaf and shove it in there.  And I think I'm going to print out the cheese-making instructions, because those are very detailed and my hands are already cramping.

But I'm very happy today.  I'm also very energized, because I couldn't sleep last night and I made up for it with lots and lots of coffee.  So, I'm typing all this a mile a minute, and feeling perfectly wonderful with Everything while I'm doing it.  Oh, blissful euphoria of coffee.  My only drug.

So, I'm making a tincture (?) of rosemary and mint in vinegar.  I know it's supposed to be used for cleaning, but I'm thinking I might use it to wash my hair.  I've been using the vanilla/clove/vinegar spray in my hair and its worked out wonderfully.

But now I've got to run off and do more errand-y kinds of things.  If anyone's reading this, I hope you're having a good day.  I will be until the coffee filters out of my system. :)