Special Quarantine Edition Pt. 3

I hope everyone is not going too insane! I know I am. Luckily, my area had a few nice weather days in the past week, so I was able to do my homework outside! My family has been having “Zoom happy hours” with family friends just to keep up with them. Essentially, it is the boomer version of just facetiming with your friends but there is alcohol and technology involved so no one really knows what to do.

I have still been keeping myself occupied with baking, of course. On Saturday I made my favorite thing to bake: chocolate babka. For those of you who do not know what babka is, it is essentially a more bread-y coffeecake with origins in central/eastern European Jewish cuisine. And it is DELICIOUS. It takes a pretty long time to make, as it rises for a total of 2.5 hours and dough can be tricky to work with, but it is definitely worth it to give it a try. If you are interested in making it, set aside an afternoon to do so. Here’s the recipe!: https://tasty.co/recipe/chocolate-braided-swirl-bread-babkaAnother suggestion I have to keep yourself busy: get a job! I have held a job at one of my local bakeries for almost four years now, but I did not want to work during a pandemic. However, I still wanted to earn money. I suggest that if you are looking to earn some extra money, see if your neighborhood is connected on an app called “NextDoor”. This app is essentially a Facebook for your city/town/neighborhood, and is a great place to find low commitment jobs with under-the-table payment. For example, last summer I found a really profitable regular babysitting job, and last week I picked up a dog-walking job for someone a few blocks away! It is a great way to force myself to get out of the house and go for a walk while earning some extra cash at the same time.

Something else that I have been doing that is actually really interesting is scanning old family photos. A couple of months ago, my grandma moved into assisted living so my mom and her siblings went to go clean out my grandma’s house so they could sell it. As a result, we now have a few boxes absolutely packed with old documents and photographs, so I decided to scan them and upload them online so everyone in the family can seem them. It takes a little bit of time, as I also have to crop them and edit them if they are faded or discolored, but it is definitely worth it and I get to learn some family history. If you guys decide to copy this idea, I suggest using Google Photos as your online sharing platform because they have free high-quality unlimited storage and others do not need an account to access them.

Anyway, that is all I have for today! I hope that you are all staying in and washing your hands, and I cannot wait to see everyone around campus in the fall!