(no subject)

[unicornduke]

My week, hmm, I got back from PA monday night. And like, didn't do anything Tuesday maybe.

But Wednesday was my last skating lesson and we learned Mohawk turns, which is the hockey transition I've been trying to teach myself anyway. I'm so bad at it that I've been practicing it around the apartment with no skates so I can start getting that muscle memory. She also taught us a bunch of conditioning exercises and boy am I still sore. It was good. I also can now pretty much do backwards crossovers although I do some flailing occasionally.

I am sad that the lessons are over. The rink runs learn to skate sessions all summer but they don't have any public skate and my schedule is now so irregular that I won't be able to make saturday or wednesday lessons consistently.

One of the things I disliked about the skating sessions is that it was broken into two groups, with one group doing a 30 minute practice session on their own and one group getting a 30 minute lesson from instructors broken down by skill level. But the practice was just one third of the rink and the kids were allowed to run free basically and so it was absolute yelling chaos and really hard to practice in. Especially because some of them would race each other or skate as fast as they could and then fall to their knees and slide because they had knee guards. It was not great for practicing things like skating backwards.

So I'm done with those. My plans for the summer are to skate at the public skates when I can, which are at the local rink here and then a rink near my parents who I think are open year round. My coworker suggested getting rollarblades but I don't know if I want to really. Other than that, I'm planning to save up for gear and snag some used stuff when I can. One issue is that I have no idea on sizing. The other is that I think I need better skates. The instructor said I fall in a lot when doing single foot work and yeah it might be ankle strength but it could also be an arch issue. They were only 65 dollars so shrugs.

After the lesson, I stopped by this new ice cream place I'd driven past every week and it is rolled ice cream! I got nutella banana and it was so so so good. They have these large freezer plates and they mush the banana on it, then put a big blob of nutella and then pour the ice cream base over it. Then they scrape it up, chop chop chop and repeat until it's smooth. Then they spread it out to a thin layer and then scrape it into rolls.

 

So good, it was the perfect texture.

Then yesterday I baked a cake. It turned out fine.



I stuck some cherries in it. I keep making this muffin recipe and then putting it in a cake tin, which doesn't work super well. I'm not very smart apparently.

My boss let me leave early today, he said just to go home which is nice. I'm sitting on the balcony typing this up. I did some spinning earlier and the flax I bought at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival is not very good quality, it might be tow flax to be honest. Six inches or shorter.

My plans for this weekend are to bake: sweet potato pie, zucchini bread with some modified spices, this cookie recipe and make some ice cream. I need to clean and vacuum but overall, I'm hoping it will be a little bit relaxing.

Comments

[graydon]

Have you got any inside stairs? (you want the sturdy handrail as a balance input, rather than just standing on a box or something.)

If you do, one of the useful ankle exercises is to stand on the stair in bare or non-slippy sock feet with just your toes on the stair and lower your ankles so your toes are well above the level of your ankles. Then slowly transition up to tip-toes, pause, slowly transition down to ankles-below-toes, pause, slowly transition up, etc., repeat until your anatomy suggests desisting.

I suspect gear sizing is nigh-totally random and you not only need to try stuff on, you need to bring someone who knows how it ought to fit.

(That certainly looks like cake. Won't come out of the cake tin? I'm pretty sure there are cake-tin-sized muffin papers out there...)

[unicornduke]

we do have stairs with a hand rail! I'll have to do some of those now that I'm going to do more stretching.

The cake looks fine but it's both dry on the outside and underbaked in the middle because I dumped cherries in and it just doesn't bake right. This is probably the third time I've done this and it tastes good with vanilla ice cream but it's not right. I probably should just do a standard pound cake and call it good. Or make muffins or small loaves. It's also a blueberry muffin recipe so slightly different on the moisture levels.

[graydon]

And if it's gluten-free it's probably messing with the heat transfer somehow, too.

Cherries are often just too big; have to chop them to keep them from being a big damp no-cooking zone.

[unicornduke]

oh yeah, it's also just that it's a muffin recipe and doesn't translate well to larger sizes which I think is the main issue. And then I add wet fruit. I know better, I'm just being lazy.