Election Day Cake

I found out about Election Day Cake to actually make one for today. It's history is really interesting; it comes from a 1796 book called American Cookery. Making one takes 2 days because you need to make the sourdough-type preferment the day before you actually bake the cake. May be next election ...

I got a late start today; I have still been feeling tired, likely from the fibromyalgia fatigue. I got out of bed around 9 this morning. Since the protein smoothie (i.e., proothie) is a large part of this 1 year long health & fitness program that I have signed up for, I spent a bunch of time online on Amazon looking at what is available and how much each serving costs. I also checked on the brand that Lisa recommends; but it is not an option for me due to the shipping costs, making it $2.16 per serving. The 3 most cost effective brands are pea protein at 43 to 72 cents per serving; that's not an option for me either, I can't handle the taste. I think I might be ending up with a product that costs a little $1.06 per serving. The current whey protein I am using is 95 cents per serving but also has an artificial sweetener which I am trying to avoid. Here's the information on the 17 most cost-effective of the 24 options I looked at.

Speaking of proothies; I had a beet green proothie this morning. The stems and leaves I used this time had a lot more anthocyanins than the last batch of beets. My usually green proothie was sort of brownigh red this morning.

Sorry, didn't think to take a photo of after I blended it.

As I was wrapping up my research on the protein supplements, I got an IM from Kai. He was picking up his ballot from Mary Ellen; they did not have his address so they were unable to forward it to him.

Yes, he does not know what his address is.

About a half hour later I got a text from Mary Ellen; it was a photo of Kai watching Chloe as she showed off what she was doing on her computer for school.

Kai & Chloe. (Photo by Mary Ellen)

This is Day 23 of the Unicorn Challenge (Week 4 Day2); a Regular Calorie, AMRAP day. I was able to do the Beginners Session #4, before election results started coming in; watching returns took precedence over exercising since knowing what's happening is part of my self-care.

For dinner I sauteed a smoked chicken & apple sausage with kale & parsley. I also had a salad with bacon bits and beet vinaigrette spirals.

While I was watching the early election returns I heard some strange sounds coming from the living room. The Roommates were playing Christmas songs while they reorganized things in order to put up the Christmas tree! I am of the camp that the tree should not go up before Thanksgiving. Or, in my case, be uncovered. We kept our artificial tree covered up & stuck in the corner until after Thanksgiving. Why an artificial tree? When Kai was 3 we cut a tree at a tree farm; he was sad that it died & had to be thrown out. The next year, when he was 4, he wanted a live tree that we could then plant out after Christmas; but he did not realize you should only keep a live tree indoors for only a week if you want to give it the best chance to survive & thrive when you do plant it out. We also didn't have enough space in our yard to keep planting live trees out; we donated it to a friend with several acres. So when he was 5 he asked if we could get an artificial tree so we would not have to kill any more trees. And thatʻs what we've had ever since.

Keala apparently slept through a lot of the set up work.

It looks like it was sunny for a couple hours this morning in Kapaʻau, then it clouded up and may have even rained in the late afternoon.

We are an all mail-in voting state but there are also 2 in-person polling places for people who need an accessible polling place or need to register in order to vote (which they can do on the same day they vote). For the mail-in ballots, they must be received by 7 pm tonight or you can turn them in at a ballot drop box by 7 pm tonight. If you didn't plan well enough to get your ballot in the mail in time you need to put it in a drop box. Or if you have just plain procrastinated you can also vote in person. The in-person polls here close at 7 pm; anyone in line by that time is allowed to vote. The last person in line at the Honolulu Hale polling place was signed in to cast their ballot just before 9:30 pm; so she waited 2&1/2 hours to vote. At Kapolei Hale, the last person there got in around 11, so about 4 hours. As a courtesy, election officials here do not release any numbers or projections until the last person has cast their ballot. By the time I went to bed around midnight we knew who the next Honolulu mayor will be (Blangiardi) as well as the Hawaiʻi Island mayor (Roth) and Biden was ahead 238 to Trump's 213; 270 electoral votes are needed to win the presidency. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

There were 89 new COVID-19 cases today, for a total of 15,318 known cases. There were no deaths reported, keeping our death toll at 219. The 7-day average for Oʻahu was 59 with a positivity rate of 2.4%; we need to stay under 50 for the period beginning this coming Thursday through November 18th in order to move to Tier 3 so we need to get the 7-day average back down again if we want to be able to have larger gatherings at Thanksgiving. There were 1177 active cases with a recovery rate of 79%.

 

They have adjusted the banner on the dashboard; it is much easier to see all the data under a particular heading at one time. But there is now no information at all on contact tracing; so they have eliminated one of the few leading indicators they had.

Hauʻoli lā Hoʻomanaʻo Makahiki kanahā kumamāhiku e Marcie & Paul!