The big chill, three day weekends, and pc gaming

It’s a three-day weekend for me since I’m off tomorrow for Memorial Day. I’d planned on doing a lot of yard work. However, that didn’t come to fruition since the past two days it’s been raining. It’s also been cold. It’s been in the 50’s F the past two days. Tomorrow it’s supposed to reach 70F. I truly hope that happens since I would love to use my Ooni Pro. I did get a lot accomplished inside. I finally had a chance to start rearranging my room. I’d ordered a few more shelves to hold my books and crafting items. I’m waiting on one more shelf to arrive. It should be here this coming Tuesday.

Plague’s Tale: Innocence (Chapter 2 – The Strangers)

PC Gaming: Plague’s Tale: Innocence (Chapter 2 – The Strangers)

I finally had the opportunity to play Plague’s Tale: Innocence again. I haven’t played the game since I purchased it about a month ago, and then I might have played it for about fifteen minutes? It’s been busy and I don’t have too much free time to play computer games. When I do have “me time” it’s usually spent knitting or doing meal prep. Anyway, I finished chapter 2. Although the game is a few years old, the graphics still look fantastic, and I’m enjoying the story. It’s set in France in the year 1348, during the beginning of the outbreak of the plague known as the Black Death. I enjoy history and do remember reading about this particular time. I do think it’s a creative twist to experience the time through gaming elements. The story focuses on Amicia and her brother Hugo. Their parents were recently killed, and Amicia will look for help for her little brother Hugo. He has a mysterious illness. I purposely haven’t watched or read too much about the game. I only watched a walk-through on enough to know that I would like the game.

Since I’m off tomorrow, I’ll probably try to take some time to play the game for a little bit. Of course, it’s also inspired me to do some more research about Black Death during that time period. It’s been a while since I’ve read anything about that.

 

 

She’s 18…

My goodness, where has the time gone? It seems like just the other day that I was bringing her home from the birthing center. Yes, I had natural childbirth, and now she’s 18. Sighs this fall, she’ll be in college.

I took the day off of work, and I left my job early yesterday to spend more time with my lovely daughter.

Twelve birthday balloons!

This morning, I purchased 12 balloons for her. Why only twelve? I wanted to get 18 today; however, 12 balloons in my little Toyota Prius were already hogging valuable viewing space. I have not bought her balloons since she was a child going to Chuck E Cheese; however, judging by the smile of delight that spread over her face when she saw the balloons. I know she was happy. Tomorrow, I’ll add six more balloons to make it 18. My daughter is low-key and rarely asks for anything. As she became older, I typically gave her money for her birthday (and she saves most of that) and some little trinkets.

 

Second pizza made in my 16″ Ooni Pro

What did I make for her? I made another pizza in my Ooni Pro.

I am still chuckling at the pizza shape. At least it does not look like a bicycle seat this time.

She enjoyed the pizza and had a few slices.

Tomorrow, I’ll be making Mexican food. About an hour ago, I asked her what type of dish she’d like; she said, “Something good!”

Today, I bought her a cake; we added birthday candles. Her grandparents were present, and her uncle (my brother) called, and we sang Happy Birthday. She protested that she did not want us to sing for her; however, she seemed pleased.

 

Happy birthday pretty princess. I love you!

First Pizza in My 16″ Ooni Pro

Earlier today, I finally had the opportunity to unbox my Ooni Pro and bake a pizza!

I received it last Saturday; however, since it was raining outside, I did not want my first time with my pizza oven done in the rain, and although I was disappointed, I decided to hold off baking in my Ooni Pro until this weekend. I was praying that we’d have appropriate outdoor pizza oven baking weather, and we did!

I must say that the pizza oven was well packed. There was an exterior box that had the company logo, and upon opening that,

it was in another box with a lovely photo of the oven on one side and delicious pictures of pizza (on the other side) gracing the box.

 

 

The pizza dough was made last Sunday when I made a pizza in the conventional oven. The leftover dough was rolled into a pizza dough ball, wrapped, and had been resting in the refrigerator since that time. This morning, I pulled out the dough to be at room temperature by the time I made the pizza. Although it’s a multi-fuel oven, I’ll mainly use wood in my 16″ Ooni Pro. We have a wood-burning stove used when the weather is cool, so there was plenty of wood on hand.

It took about thirty minutes to heat the oven to the appropriate temperature. Although they recommend using a digital thermometer to check the temperature within the oven, I just looked at the thermometer on the exterior door of the Ooni Pro. I placed my hastily prepared pizza within the oven.

How long did it take for the pizza to cook? About 90 seconds. After about 30 seconds, I used my pizza peel to slightly pull it out of the oven, turn a few degrees clockwise, and place it back into the oven. I did this two more times (perhaps 15 seconds apart) and finished it.

My bicycle seat-shaped pizza!

I did have to chuckle at the pizza shape. It looks like a bicycle seat. But how did it taste? Amazing. My daughter loved it, and so did I.

I made this pizza fast. I tossed the ingredients on in the pizza in about three minutes. The ingredients were simple but flavorful. I’ve made fantastic pizza in our conventional oven; however, I must say that this is the best pizza I’ve made thus far, and that has everything to do with how quickly the oven cooks the pizza. Perhaps it being wood-fired has something to do with it also?

I do plan on using my outdoor wood-fired oven tomorrow if it doesn’t rain.

Short video of my Ooni Pro. In the video Regina, the cat makes a cameo.

Homemade Pizza and chocolate chip cookies

I made a homemade pizza today. My daughter said it was excellent; however, I didn’t use my Ooni pizza outdoor oven. As mentioned, yesterday I finally received my Ooni Pro. It rained yesterday, and we received rain throughout the day today. Since I did not want my first experience with my outdoor pizza oven to be spent getting rained upon while I tested out the oven, I decided to postpone using the outdoor pizza oven a bit longer.  I’m hoping next weekend the weather will be much better.

I just used our regular oven to make the pizza. I used my baking steel for the crisp crust that my daughter and I love.

And since the pizza peel that I’d specifically ordered arrived this morning, I used that when sliding the pizza into the oven. You might see part of the handle in the above picture. I must say that the pizza dough wasn’t as flavorful since I made and used the dough the same day. I typically wait a few days before making the pizza since the dough is much more flavorful.

 

Yesterday I made my daughter homemade chocolate chip cookies.

I made enough to make four dozen. However, I only baked one dozen last evening.

The rest of the cookie dough will be baked at a later time. Chilling the cookie dough allows it to become more hydrated, and the flavor is enhanced. As the flour breaks down into sugar, the dough becomes sweeter. As with the pizza dough, I used my Ankarsrum 6230 stand mixer. I love that mixer. I’ve had it for a little over a year, and it’s worth the amount of money ($699) that I paid. It blasts through anything I place into it without any issues. It should outlast me. Thus far, the most I’ve mixed in this mixer was about 12 cups of bread dough.

Tomorrow, after work, I’m hoping to make sushi. I’ll make a vegan and meat version. Last evening I purchased a Sushi Bazooka maker from Amazon. It arrived this morning. The device should make rolling the sushi even easier than using the bamboo mat.

 

The above video is what made me decide to make the purchase.

My 16″ Ooni Pro Multi Fuel Outdoor Pizza Oven is here

This afternoon, I was surprised when I saw that I had a delivery. The UPS delivered a large box to our home.

At first, I was puzzled trying to figure out what it could be, and then I saw the words on the box! It’s my 16″ Ooni Pro Multi-Fuel Outdoor Pizza Oven. Over the past week, I’ve been checking the website every few days to see when shipping would begin for the oven. I ordered the 16″ Multi-fuel Ooni Pro on January 6, 2021. Initially, I was supposed to receive my pizza oven in April; however, with the government shut down, and some businesses still not performing at 100%, it was moved to this month. I understood the delay in shipment when Ooni reached out to me. Was I disappointed? Of course, I was looking forward to making my own restaurant-style pizza at home. However, I understood.

I will say that receiving the oven today was a surprise. Ooni has done an excellent job with customer service and they’ve reached out to me several times, since I placed my order, to send me updates along with delicious pizza recipes to try out when I received my outdoor oven. They also informed me that they would let me know when my item had shipped. I never received a confirmation that my order was being shipped.

In fact, when I log onto the website, it’s still showing my order as unfulfilled. I’ll reach out to them tomorrow to let them know that I received my oven. I’m so glad that I was home. Of course, as soon as I brought the oven into our home, it started pouring down rain! Here’s hoping that I have a chance to make some pizza tomorrow. However, it’s still raining, I’ll just hold off until next weekend.

Credit Card Lock: Locking My Daughter’s Walmart Credit Card

I recently decided to apply for a Walmart credit card  because of the additional benefits I’d receive as a cardmember. As an afterthought, I decided to add my daughter as an authorized user. She doesn’t overspend, and I know she would ask me before making a purchase, and so she was an added user. The thing is when I asked her about the card about an hour ago. She did not know where she put the card. Sighs, until she finds the card, I’ve locked the card.

What’s a credit card lock? A credit card lock pauses any activity on the card so that no one (not even the user) can usually make purchases. I say usually because from my understanding, some users might be able to make some purchases with the locked card if it’s in their digital wallet. I find that a bit odd; you’d think a lock would cover that also. That’s a non-issue since she does not even have a digital wallet.

I believe my daughter when she says that the card is “somewhere in her room.” Last month, when I handed the letter to her containing the card, I told her to put it in a safe place. I imagine she placed it down, intending to do that later. Of course, later never happened. Was I annoyed? Of course, however, I did the responsible thing (even though I was optimistic that the card was in her room somewhere) and locked the card. It was also a teachable moment on the importance of placing important information away immediately. Since at times, we can become distracted by various things, set things down absentmindedly, and later have a time figuring out where the item was placed. It’s why I put things away immediately. I don’t want to deal with the unnecessary frustration of figuring out where the item might be.

Updated to add:

Shortly before midnight, my daughter found her Walmart card. That was about an hour after I wrote this post, and it’s now in a secure place. I made sure of that.

Another update:

I’ve unlocked her card. I had her activate it and return it to its safe place.