Author: Feya Shah

Living life one day at a time and on the side, telling you about it!

Never Have I Ever Got Myself A Library Card

The “why”

Well, sadly, this post does not have a very interesting why story. In fact, it was sad. I had signed up for an event on the meetup app and that event was going to be held in a library. I would have said library near me but this library was very far far away. It took me about an hour, had to change two buses to reach there and guess what, the event got canceled. There were three other people who were also there for the same event and just to do something since we were there, all four of us went for a walk for around 15-20 minutes.

Well, it was a nice walk. One of the guys there was going to give a workshop for Microsoft about Stable Diffusion. This is the first time I was hearing about it but it is a way of generating art from text. He also showed me his web portal where he had examples of text as input and it would create images as output. Read some more about it here. Enough about the walk. But then, I decided to check out the library since I was already there and the library looked beautiful. Also, I have to mention I have always wanted to read in a library and get into reading.

Getting into it

Firstly, look at how beautiful the library looks. It is one of the best libraries I have ever been to. Very peaceful and cute filled with almost any book that you could want.

https://dolifewithme.online/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/8F0C7CA1-05B1-401E-8533-DABF7EACC03C.mp4

Seattle Public Library

I was just checking on the books and had no intention of getting a card, but then there were people taking a bunch of books and just scanning their card and I was thinking here I am spending so much money in buying books.

(Recently I have been working on developing the habit of reading. And since then, actually, I am obsessed with having all the books that I read with me. I don’t know it just makes me feel that what I learn from the book is going to stay with me forever. But I guess, at some point, you need to understand that you don’t make that much money :p ). Then the bright idea of getting a library card occurred to me.

Here are the books I got!

I went all out and checked out 5 books which are issued to me for 3 weeks. That is me. Always overdoing everything. But the good news is, the library card does not have an application fee. You can reissue a book before the three week time period ends (if there is no request for that book). You are not fined for not returning the books on time (apart from getting suspended). And the best part, you can return and pick up books from any of their locations (I could not have come here to return books after every 3 weeks obviously). Check them out : https://www.spl.org/

Here are the pictures :

The books I bought
My pretty library card
(They have some really good options)

These books were just the ones that caught my eye. It is weird how majority of the books are related to business. Maybe a side effect of binging on Shark Tank. If you live under a rock and have not seen this show, you definitely should. Check it out here.

Finally! If you are still here..

So overall, this was a really fun day. I am super excited for reading these books. Is it just me or everyone feels this rush when you buy new books? I remember being so excited about buying the next standard books at the end of every school year. I love the idea (and the smell) of new books. Will post updates here about how the reading went!

Well, this was a fun post. Thank you for reading through. If you are living in a city where you have access to a library, I would really encourage you to check it out. Reading is a fun way to move away from your regular mundane problems and thinking big and beyond. Leave a comment here or an email (dolifewithme1@gmail.com) if you do actually sign up for a library card or try reading once more after reading this blog (Well, you already read this blog. You can do more :p)

Read more about what I am up to most recently here. Also, read a bit more about me if you would like.

Never Have I Ever Baked Red Velvet Cupcakes

The “why”

So, firstly, I am just super excited that I am doing this. I am sure this would be fun! I wanted to start off with something sweet and basic. As I started thinking about desserts, after cakes (which I have baked a couple of times), I landed on the idea of baking cupcakes. Specifically, red velvet cupcakes.

Thanks to youtube for giving me the right recommendations! It is amazing how you can find almost anything on youtube. From solutions to leetcode questions (which is supremely helpful) to recipes for every god damn thing you can think of. It is definitely a blessing when you have been provided with food on your table for your whole life and then, one day, you take a flight and you have to do all of this by yourself.

Okay, so now about how this went, well that is a different story. First of all, everyone who knows me, knows that I hate cooking. Okay, maybe hate is a strong word. But I definitely don’t enjoy it. So, taking up baking, even though it is as simple and basic as cupcakes, it could be challenging for me. Something that takes effort for me to do.

So, it was an extremely chill Sunday afternoon when I decided to do this. I did not have most of the materials needed and so I needed to take a short trip to a nearby grocery store. The recipe I followed : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sseKno2_zw

Just a disclaimer, there were several epic fails in the process and this story does not have a good ending.

Let’s prepare the batter!

So firstly, you make the batter right? It was really good. The right thickness, the right consistency, everything cool, but just not really any close to the color that I wanted. I guess I put in a lot of the cocoa powder, and then no amount of red food coloring gel helped. I also stopped putting that in after a point, considering it might be really unhealthy.

Now that I think of it, let me see how unhealthy it is. Oh my god. I could have never imagined. I am never letting my future kids have these. There is a ted talk on this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQzOHAwCfXs

Okay, but well, I did decide to make it. So, apart from the color being horribly wrong, the quantity was also absurd. Imagine how the picture to the left would have been a little better (yeah I know it is a horrible picture, but that’s the best I could do amidst the messiness of baking) if it had like one more cupcake.

Once the cupcakes were in the oven, it was time to figure out the frosting. But the frosting was a total disaster. It did not seem anything like the video for sure.

What about the frosting?

Firstly, I got this frosting mix from the grocery store, and owing to my supreme intelligence, I never read the description and how to actually make the frosting. I assumed it would be easy.

But it needed butter, which I did not have at home. It also needed the electric beater (probably something like this) thing, for the frosting texture, which (obvious at this point) I also do not have at my home. Turns out I do not have a lot of things at my phone. I also got a whipped frosting mix, but too sweet I guess. I ended up just eating the cupcakes standalone.

But for a silver lining, the cupcakes were pretty good. Tasty and fun to eat. I kept two of the cupcakes in the refrigerator to avoid gaining 1 kg in a single day (it would not be nice). I might try to do the frosting again, when I eventually do eat them. I’ll post a picture here if I do. Hoping the frosting is better the second time around.

Phew!

So yeah, that was my first post here. Yay! If it was not for this post, I would have never tried baking cupcakes. Sunday afternoon would have been just about lazing around scrolling through instagram stories. But thanks to this blog, it was not. It was a bit unhealthy but I mean, I have bigger gains here. Also, while writing this post, I got to know about the effects of artificial food dyes, which I had no idea about. So that is pretty cool.

I guess that’s all about the new experience I had for the week. I hope to continue on this journey. If you did like reading this post, send me an email dolifewithme1@gmail.com. You might me the first one sending me an email. You cannot even imagine how big a smile that email would put on my face. Also, mention your cool ideas and you never know, I might try them?

If you are not sure what I am doing here, well read about it here. Also, if you would like to know a little more about me, read about it here (I am fun, I promise).

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