30 days, day 5 & 6

a.k.a, the weekend hit so I'm amalgamating posts.

Back to the focus question-type goals, with day 5 being identifying the WHEN and today the WHERE. These are a little nebulous for me. Since the goal requires research, it's something I can do just about any time. As to where, it's sort of the same.

That said, I can pinpoint times and places where my work will be most efficient. My mind likes to go happily skipping away sometimes, especially when faced with reading dry and/or confusing material. So, I will make sure to focus time each morning when I'm most mentally sharp to read up on the dreary, dry, regulatory things. The parts that interest me (side note: bees are, simply, fascinating. The more I'm reading about them, the more amazed I am.) become my evening reading, in the after-supper lull. After lunch? Forget it. The physical work is fine then, not so much the mental.

Where? Come spring, it will all be outside, gloriously outside.  The coop, the field, the garden, the land. This image is, to me, especially appealing on a day following a night of freezing rain and with the temperature plummeting downward to a flash freeze. 

Where for now? The research part will be in two main places: the computer upstairs, and the kitchen table. The table's a must when I'm studying from books. I am a sprawler. Always have been. That person in the university library who took up the whole table as if there was a study group, but it was just one person? That was me (sorry).

And by way of follow-up, yesterday's class at Le Cordon Bleu was amazing. I do love going there to learn. Two hours flew by watching the chef make macarons and fillings, asking questions, and getting to try the divine concoctions. I've got a first practice batch on the go right now. It's likely going to be messed up as the technique was one I found challenging - but the batter tasted good! 

I'm learning through these classes to focus differently on what I'm making, learning to identify things by texture, sound and sight rather than just by timing. And the privilege of being able to see both ends of the food production scale is gratifying, too. I can see potatoes and chard grow out of the soil I turned, raised the chickens from chicks, then make a galette and a gratin to go with the coq au vin. It's nice.