i guess what i'm tryna say is i need the deep end, keep imagining meeting, wished away entire lifetimes

I was much more hermity than intended today, but it's because I spent over three hours making a breakfast that I normally would have spent fifteen minutes on. We're doing some Olympics-type activity at work, with a variety of competitions, and one of those competitions is a cooking challenge. But since no one can taste or verify whether any output is good, the challenge is instead to make a single meal with as many appliances as possible.

I think I successfully used every single appliance I own, with the exception of my grill (it's been violently windy off and on all day, and I didn't think lighting a grill was a good idea). This included doing truly inefficient things like using my food processor to shred some cheese for an omelette (I have bags of shredded cheese, or I would normally just use a grater). But I made another batch of those pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting that I liked so well a couple of weeks ago, and the omelette that I made was one of the best ever - using an immersion blender to beat two eggs was overkill, but the omelette was certainly fluffy.

I also made steel cut oatmeal in my instant pot in the first time, and I was v. impressed - it doesn't save time from cooking it on the stove, but it seemed creamier and didn't require monitoring/stirring, so I'm a fan. And I grilled slices of apple to put on top of it using my panini press, which is another trick I never would have tried but was actually quite nice. So while I don't intend to make this particular combination of things with this particular level of appliance overload again, at least I learned some new techniques.

But that meant I didn't have breakfast until after noon (I had a couple of snacks and a lot of coffee to get me going), and by the time I cleaned up my kitchen it felt like the day was shot. I spent some time catching up on correspondence, and then I took a bath, and then I took a nap. I had planned to cook tonight, but I was definitely not in the mood - so I ordered thai food (which was exactly what I was craving) and read half of THE CITY WE BECAME by N.K. Jemisin. So far it's great, but I managed to pull myself away at the midpoint so that I can go to bed at a reasonable hour.

And now that reasonable hour is upon me - it's definitely time for bed. Happy Diwali to all my Diwali-celebrating friends - goodnight!