Soledad's Journal

It was still warm, but the sky was overcast and we even had a tiny bit of rain - barely enough to make the air murky, but still...

Cousin's eldest dropped by for about fifteen minutes and helped me download the Pinterest and YouTube app to the new iPad. Unfortunately, he couldn't refresh the mini; I might have to look for an Apple service to get it done, if it is possible at all. I love the mini very much and would be happy to be able to use it just a little bit longer.

I've finished Card #16. It was an experimental design I've cobble together from two different templates to use one dark grey card I found otherwise rather ugly. The design turned out well enough but my fingers weren't dry enough to leave the card unblemished; but I camouflaged the fingerprints with some sparkly gold(like) powder that I fixed over them with the help of some glue stick. It doesn't look too bad like that. Photos coming up later.

No cooking was necessary today as we had leftovers. Leftovers are a life-saver. We had a nice, long nap in the early afternoon, after having watched too much telly; Olympics, mostly, then The Repair Shop, Money for Nothing and Richterin Barbara Salesh - what can I say? we have pedestrian tastes.

After that, I went online a bit earlier than usual because I wanted to type up the two pages I had written yesterday to EMV's Chapter 23. Now I'm done, and we are watching the Olympics again, as long as the athletics are still going on. We - as Hungary - still have hopes for some rowing disciplines like kayak and canoe... we'll see what comes out of it.

... turned out better than the first one quite some time ago. Partly because I've found a shortbread recipe that didn't came out of the oven hard like shoesoles (not to mention it tastes great) and partly because I had found ready-made caramel cream at Aldi half a year or so ago. It is still a bit too liquid for my taste, but at least I didn't have to bother with making it from scratch (which has proved hopeless several times). I did kill the chocolate ganache, though, because I forgot that I shouldn't add cold butter to melted chocolate, and the whole thing ended up terribly grainy and matte. But it still tastes good, so I consider it a lesson learned and all that.

Other than baking, I've finished Card #12 and pre-prickled the next two pieces. Tomorrow I'll be out of the house a lot, so it's good to do things in advance.

Tomorrow, there were lots of athletics on the telly, which we both enjoyed a lot. So, we've watched TV for a couple of hours, both in the morning and the afternoon. The weather was also only moderately warm (29°C), so it was bearable.

I wasn't made for this weather. Not even when I was still young, and now, having reached official hag age even less. I hate being this exhausted all the time, just because it's hot!

That said, I made the grocery shopping in the morning, then finished another embroidered card and started the 10th one - and then dropped dead and slept for an hour and a half.

Thank God I didn't have to cook today, we had leftovers and a Radler for lunch, after which we dropped dead again; not sleeping this time, just reading and playing Solitary on Methuselah-the-laptop who's still soldiering on faithfully. *fingers crossed*

Later, I had a phone chat with my friend Evie, and now it's evening again. We've watched two episodes of Richterin Barbara Salesh today, The Repair Shop and This Day in History, and are waiting for the GBBO's Masterclass to come later. Tried to watch the Olympics, but aside from the gymnasts there was nothing that we'd like. A shame, they've promised athletics for today. I haven't been so disappointed with the Olympic Games ever before.

Edit: I want to moderate that last sentence. We've just won our first gold medal: Hubert Kós in men's 200m backstroke. Yay!

Finally, we've won our first gold medal! I don't care if we won't get another one, I'm just ridiculously happy that we won't finish the Olympics without one. That would have been the first time in the history of modern Olympics (the ones on which we started anyway), and thus a serious blow for our national pride... such as it is in these days.

In other news, we survived the latest national holidays without any atrocities for a change. It was August 20, the 1008th anniversary of Hungary's existence as a country. Perhaps the hooligans were distracted by the Olympics, or by the particularly spectacular fireworks (Gandalf would have paled with envy). Apparently, the good old Ancient Roman tactic of panem et circenses is still working.

First step of domestic disasters has been managed. The supporting rooms like kitchen, etc., are now beautiful white and clean. Next week the wall-to-wall carpets will be washed in the living room and the bedrooms, which means that the whole packing will start again, this time in the opposite direction, so that the cupboards can be moved out of the way more easily. *le sigh*

Also, school starts next Monday again - assuming I still have my job. These things will always be revealed in the last possible moment. Wish me luck, folks, I'm gonna need it, big time.

As you probably already know, I'm utterly uninterested in sports. In any kind of sports. But the Olympic Games are a different matter. They're a matter of national pride, after all.

Unfortunately, we still don't have a gold medal to support that pride, so far. Have four silvers, though, which is not bad for such a small nation, in these days when money plays an increasingly strong role in who can get the best training circumstances, so that they can bring out the best of themselves. Our former Olympic champion in shooting is the best example for that. She didn't even have a shooting range of her own during the last year - small wonder she didn't manage to even get into the finale. So much depends on money... too much, actually.

We've got an excellent young swimmer, László Cseh, who had the exceedingly bad luck to have to swim against the nuclear-powered Michael Phelps in practically all of his numbers. He's earned three silver medals, of which we are mightily proud. After their second encounter, one of the American PR people apparently has warned Phelps the Great how rude it is not to shake hands with the silver medal bearer, because at the second time he actually lowered his standards enough to do it. [/sarcasm] Well, Phelps might be the best swimmer ever hitting the water of this planet, but that was very poor behaviour.

We won the fourth silver in wrestling - poor Fodor was in a leading position until the last 15 seconds! It's still great, nobody had expected from him to even get a medal at all, but it's frustrating nonetheless. He stood there with one laughing and one weeping eye, I guess. Oh, well, he's young. Hopefully, he'll get another chance yet.

We have some hopes still in the rowing department, and our hammer thrower champion got into the finale in the first place. We hope...