Soooo my wonderfully progressive kanji studying got totally derailed by needing to pay attention to the cats nearly all the time during their acclimation to the Cat Genie (because I do not want them going anywhere else, you see) which isn’t even quite over. I haven’t really felt like I could just sit and study and lose track of time because I had to keep checking to see if they’d used it, and if they had, I needed to run it, and if I’m running it I close the door because I don’t want Mika to get spooked (and she will, because she’s rather skittish) so I have to pay attention to when it finishes so I can open the door again so they can use it XD which results in me staying on the main floor a lot since if I’m upstairs I can’t really hear it very well. And on the main floor is the TV, which is always on because the other person living in this house likes it on whenever he’s awake, basically, even though he barely watches it since he’s using his computer. And I do know the value of background noise but I can’t study with English in the background so, you know.
Anyway what I’ve ended up doing instead is flipping through cookbooks trying to plan meals, which has worked out not entirely horribly, except for the fact that doing so much involved cooking results in a lot of dirty dishes and the sink is still acting up (I know, I know) which makes the cleaning process longer and more difficult than it would be otherwise. Let’s see, things I’ve made recently include Shoyuu Ramen (with pork), Beef Rolls (which is just thin slices of beef wrapped around scallions. well, and cooked, with sauce obviously), Chicken Stew (uh, not from a recipe, because I couldn’t find one that didn’t require chicken broth or tomatoes so it was kind of random but okay) with Drop Biscuits, Tacos (not exactly elaborate but good anyway XD), Feta Cheese & Bacon Stuffed Chicken Breasts (very good) with Penne Pasta, a Flourless Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Sauce, aaaaaand I can’t remember farther back than that XD I meant to make Quiche Lorraine but I haven’t gotten around to it yet, because I’m unsure about making the dough/crust – cutting in shortening is not something I’m familiar with and I’m worried I’ll end up with big pockets of fat XD but the biscuits did okay (it called for cutting in the butter in a similar way) so maybe it won’t suck… haha XD but that would be a good breakfasty food :9
On a possibly 180° note, I’m trying to keep track of my calories. (And exercise and things but I’m not going into that atm) Previously I tried to do this, and every time I start I go “okay, this isn’t too bad…” until I have something that doesn’t really have a convenient Nutrition Facts label or that I can’t really find a good estimate for the recipe I used. I don’t know how to estimate it myself and I’m not sure you can, unless you take into account the NF for each individual ingredient for the exact amount you added but then you have to take into account how much, if any, was lost during the cooking process and do foods increase in calories if you add them together? (@__@) I just… I have no idea! I don’t really like menus people put together for dieting stuff because there’s always something I want to remove XD and I don’t know how it affects things and I feel better if I just eat what I want XD I’d count calories if I had the calorie information. But I don’t. So I suppose I will just have to get along without it.
On that note, time for breakfast.

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