June went by so slowly but July was over in a heartbeat. July was a hot month here in Portugal and unfortunately with a lot of devastating fires.

I slept badly because it was so hot and, honestly? I’ve yet to recover. It shouldn’t make a different but the truth is that I love to sleep with a blanket and it’s become impossible to do so.

But this weather also calls for plans with friends and family. I went to the book fair in Maia, I swam in pools and ate way too much often. I don’t have vacations planned for now, but some days, the post-work plans make me feel like I’m on vacation as they have that awesome energizing power instead of being a tiring work day. In one of my days off, I also went to the beach by myself and it was magical, I love to plan dates with myself, my introvert self loves gatherings but needs her alone time to not get grumpy.

After spending much of June a bit depressed by my inability to use my wrist with my wrist immobilizer and still having plenty of pain, I finally stopped using it. The doctor said there’s nothing else he can do medically and told me to stretch every hour while I’m working. I have been doing that and it’s helping, but sometimes I still think it’ll never get better. I do however need to start wrist strengthening exercises as well, it’s one of my goals for August – in fact, it’s my only goal.

Hoping that it’d make my wrist better, I also switched desks with my boyfriend since his has a sliding keyboard drawer. It has been now a few weeks and I think that it’s helping. Although I have yet to find a good way to organize this new-to-me-desk.

I played football (soccer?) for the first time tin years and it was so so fun (100% spent a whole week with my legs sore)! I never knew how to play but I always found it fun to run after the ball. I’ve been meaning to join a collective sport of some sort for years, I’d love to play volleyball but doesn’t seem to be a good option for my wrist at this moment. After the game, I was told there is something called “Football Fitness” which I’m going to figure out if it’s right for me even if I’m not a good player.

I have a good news: the short story anthology that includes a short story written by me will be published in September! And it’s currently on pre-sale. Seeing the cover was such a joy and I can’t wait to have a copy in my hands. There will also be a presentation in Porto and Lisbon.

Lisbon book fair – 3rd September – 18h

Porto book fair – 11th September – 16h

I got slowly back to my hobbies that needed my hand and in the last couple of weeks I have been focused in making an activity cube for the first birthday of a baby. It was a lot of work, but I’m super satisfied with it. It’s probably going to be a while until I write a blog post about it – but I talk about it on the 41st episode of my podcast, in case you understand Portuguese. The pattern is from Crafting cheerfully. Her mom loved the toy, she’s a huge fan of Harry Potter and the reason why I went with this gift.

It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these. I could say that I intend to write one every month starting now but it wouldn’t be true. I feel like my mind is consuming me to an extent that I’m no longer able to spend any time doing anything.

I don’t think today’s society and my way of being are compatible. Today’s society is all about quick shares, about showing you all the amazing things that you can make and me, I’m the person who wants to do it all – that’s why I need to evolve because I’m the one that’s not well. And when I talk about projects, I don’t necessarily mean amazing things, I’m talking things as small as craft projects, my to-dos are ever growing yet my time hasn’t. I keep getting ideas plus I feel overstimulated by the amount of things I want to try out that I didn’t think about. Does that make sense? For me it totally does!

I think I’m much better at this now than just a few months ago, it’s not easy and I still feel overwhelmed often but I’m learning to let it go and accept that I can’t do it all. My idealist and positive self doesn’t want to believe it but feeling like my time is running out it’s not helpful for me. So yeah, I need to take responsibility on creating these barriers because it started to feel like I didn’t like anything – everything became a chore, everything became a to-do, something I was excited about would automatically turn into a “should”. It is and it was so bad that on the weekends it was 2pm and I was like, well the day is almost over, I should do that project but there isn’t enough time now.

Well, there are too many shoulds in my life that I cannot control and I shouldn’t bring those to my personal life right? It’s funny how practical and cut all the bullsh*t at work but fail to do so with my personal projects. Oh well, no one is perfect.

I think about this for hours but it’s always hard to write it down, even on my own journal I don’t always know how to write these feelings and I’m only able to do so after so much time has passed.

Yeah, that’s what’s been on my mind, but I have been feeling so much better lately, I spent DAYS sewing and it was exciting, I was not “shoulding” myself. I spent DAYS in bed reading and I didn’t beat myself up for it (yes I tend to tell myself I’m lazy if I’m not doing something – I know how bad this makes me look…). I’m writing this post because I want to, not because I “should” write a post. I have scraped all my to-do projects and decided that I’m not going to do them anytime soon. I have over 10 videos to edit for my Youtube channel and decided that maybe one day I’ll edit them – meanwhile, every time that I finish one I upload it to Youtube and don’t publish it because I don’t feel like doing the thumbnails, YAY for ignoring my overachieving self, also I have a bunch of posts that I started writing that I never finished, maybe one day. It’s funny because the only thing that I didn’t “should” myself into doing is the one thing that I’ve been somewhat consistent with – my Portuguese crafts podcast – I just record whenever I feel like it and I chat for about 30-40 minutes, excited to share my projects, making huums all the time and being very far from eloquent.

Now that’s off my chest, we can now move on to less philosophical and reflective things!

May started with a wedding and it was on slightly chiller day than the other weddings I attended. I always brought the same dress whenever I attended a wedding – it’s this red dress which I bought in Zara in 2016. I love it and I look good on it but this year, I couldn’t just wear it without something to warm me. I decided on a blazer that my mom borrowed me – I was not thrilled but I’m stubborn and didn’t want to get another dress for the wedding. In my contemplations whilst I try to fall asleep, I remembered that I had this scarf that my mom got me a while back and how well it matched a small purse from the swap market at @letswap.pt. I was so excited and confident with this outfit! Sometimes we really have all we need, we don’t need to buy something new. It’s hard to remember that when we are constantly being told to buy something new. The wedding was so much fun and it was weird to be there where it felt covid didn’t happen, no masks whatsover! But it was so freeing, it was great to dance in the dance floor like nothing happened, I wish it was on a Saturday instead of a Sunday, I never left a wedding so early, it was like 1am when we left.

I finally finished cleaning up my sunroom – which I’ve been “shoulding” myself to do since November and it has been great to have lunch and dinner there. We don’t always do it but it’s nice and I’m so glad I spent last year making it perfect, it has truly become my favorite corner of my small apartment.

I made bimbap for the first time! It’s one of the things I wanted to try for ages but never did, since then I made it 2 more times. I have made several versions: with pork, with tuna, vegetarian, vegan, all were delicious and happily accepted when I brought it for picnics. I’m 100% going to do it more often, it’s perfect for the warmer months.

I participated in a lot of swap markets by @letswap.pt– in the last few months I’ve taken a more active role in the events and I’m part of the staff now, it has been fun!

I attended a Candlelight concert with Taylor Swift songs and it was lovely, the candles were ok but the music was so much fun, it’s great to be excited for every music on their repertoire.

And like I said, I did a bunch of sewing! I do have prettier photos but this life lately post needs phone photos!

Also this is what my desk looked like! One day I’m going to have a craft room 🙂

I completely stopped knitting this month but I did crochet a bunch of flowers for my blanket, it’s going to take a while but I’m glad to turn these unused skeins into something.

I also have been reading a lot, I always write a few words for every book that I read on goodreads, they’re not extensive reviews plus it’s 100% biased to my tastes but feel free to check out my goodreads account if you feel like it. Two books that I want to highlight are “Rock Paper Scissors” and “Beach Read” which are two books that I remember that I loved without looking at my goodreads account.

I rewatched “Ouran High School Host Club” which is based on my favorite manga in hopes I was going to be able to stop this desire to reread the manga but after watching the whole anime…all I wanted to do was reread the manga, so I’m currently reading it and it’s great, not only because it’s a great story overall but it’s just funny, it’s dumb and they make the most of the dumbness of it all and they make fun of it as well.

And on the last day of May, I did an RMA and there’s proof that something is wrong with my wrist (I have been dealing with pain while using it and especially on the computer – another reason why I’m less time in my pc), it’s nice to know there is something, it’s weird how whenever something becomes tangible it’s way less scarier right? I don’t know how to say it in English but basically I have a lesion in my lunate bone, there’s a piece of the bone missing there (it’s on another corner of my wrist but according to the doctor it doesn’t matter – isn’t our bodies just wonderful? and usually a piece of cartilage starts to grow to replace it but it didn’t – probably because of movement so I’m going to wear a brace and let’s see how it goes.

There’s no question that I enjoy buying and selling second hand items. I believe that it’s a great way to be more zero waste without spending more money.

Selling second hand items is no doubt a challenge, it takes way more time than donating it and it might also mean spending your item going to the post office or participating in a fleamarket. But I find that selling second hand items helps me to consume less, the amount of time that takes me to sell something tells me that everything that I buy has a price – not the amount of money I paid for an item, but instead the price of having something that is not necessary for other people. When I fail to sell a book or something that I own, I’m reminded of how much there’s out there, how much stuff will end up going to the trash because no one wants it. For me, this exercise of trying to sell my stuff is helpful for that reason. I’m by no means perfect, very far from it but having this reminder does help me restrict my impulses.

I thought it’d be interesting to share how much I earned selling my used items in 2021.

First of all, I’d like to say that I don’t sell clothing, first of all most of the clothes I use I wear until it’s too worn out to wear which makes it a not very good candidate for selling. Second, everything that I don’t wear, I bring to swap markets as a currency for other clothes. I wanted to preface by saying this because I believe a lot of people do earn money by selling their clothes.

So what’s my total?

35€ – Desk – I loved my desk but it was simply not working for the work at home situation and after a whole year, I decided to make a switch and sell my desk. I had already bought this second hand and although I didn’t recoup the money that I bought it for (nor did I expect to!) but receiving 35€ for it felt great!

50.47€ – Books – I tried my best to sell some of the books that I had at home, I still have plenty to sell but I’m quite happy with this amount, it’s not the amount of books that I wanted to sell but it’s still something.

I used to love reading these types of posts “how I read so much”, “how to read more books”, so there’s no way I couldn’t write a post myself about it this year. Especially since it’s the first time ever that I read 88 books in a year. Don’t know if it’s something that I’ll do again, we’ll have to wait and see but nevertheless, I feel like I learned some important lessons and I want to share them with you.

So how did I read so much?

If you want to skip the post and watch the video, you can do so:

I read without judgments

Before this year, I believed that I shouldn’t x, y or z for a variety of reasons, one of them was that reading romance books was not real literature and I should read other kinds of books. So what happened when I started reading the other types of books? I didn’t feel like reading them. Sometimes I didn’t finish them, other times I would take so much time reading them which made me dread picking up another book.

This year, I read so much because I just didn’t care. I read what I wanted to read and I accepted that reading wouldn’t make me a more cultured person, it was an escape, like watching a movie or a tv show. I’m just not going to start reading only non fiction books because it’s just not me. And I accepted that this year.

I didn’t make myself finish books

Very similarly to the last point and another belief that I held that didn’t make much sense was: you need to finish a book that you start. Even if I didn’t like it or it wasn’t the right moment to read the book, I’d make myself read it.

This year, I picked up a book, read a few pages and felt it wasn’t the right time and just shelved it. I’d go to the library borrow books when I have other books to read at home. I’d even get books from the library and return them after a couple of weeks untouched. I didn’t make myself start not did I make myself continue.

One thing that always bothered me and a culprit of why I didn’t stop reading books was that I’d put on Goodreads that I started reading a book and I didn’t want to remove it. Honestly, I know that deep down no one cares but it was a huge issue for me, so what I started doing was to update Goodreads only when I finish the book or when I know I’m going to continue reading it (meaning, I’m already enjoying it so much).

I prioritized reading

This seems pretty basic but there’s no way around this. Without prioritizing reading, I wouldn’t have read as much as I did. Last year, on 2020, I spent at least 20h every week working on RandomCath, writing posts, editing Youtube videos – I know they’re not very good but that doesn’t mean I didn’t spend a lot of time making them – overall trying to grow this project. This year, a mix of being sick of being on my computer and mentally tired from lockdown, plus not seeing my effort translate to anything, I worked very little in RandomCath this year. That means that there were more hours to read.

I gave this project as an example but in general, I picked up a book instead of watching a new tv show. I’d finish a book and start a new one. I didn’t feel like doing anything, I’d read. I think that you get my point.

I started listening to audiobooks

I had already listened to audiobooks in college, in fact, I think I read The Hunger Games through an audiobook but the format didn’t conquer me. Now, more than 10 years later, I can say that I’m a fan and audiobooks was one of the big highlights of this year (or, I guess last year?). I loved reading audiobooks, especially because I was lucky to read ones that had amazing narrators, who would pull me into the story.

Since I liked this format so much, it meant that I spend a lot of time listening to audiobooks while I was knitting, cross stitching and cooking. I wasn’t always listening to audiobooks whilst doing these things, otherwise my total would be so much higher but I can say that audiobooks played a huge part on why I read so much.

I’m in love with this format, I just wish it was more common in Portuguese from Portugal. Currently only listening in English, which is fine but I’d love to make people understand how great this format is!

I used books as an escape mechanism

Nothing really bad happened this year, I can’t complain, my family and friends are okay, my relationships are okay, but mentally it was a very hard year for me. And books were a way for me to escape reality, entering a fiction world, fall in love with the characters, live like them, and for that brief moment, I actually lived in that world.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, so I can’t recommend it to everyone, but for me, this was good, connecting with these characters allowed me to be stronger in real life.

I really wanted to write about this because it’s easy to feel intimidated by someone who read 88 books in a year. In other years, I was the one admiring them for reading so much, I never read so much in one year before 2021. But after this year, I realized how many judgment I had towards reading, reading can just be good for us. When I was younger and read a lot, I didn’t think about what I was reading, if it was a “productive use of my time” or not, if I was more cultured after reading or not, what people thought about what I was reading. I read Sarah Waters, which was definitely romance and I didn’t judge myself, I didn’t think “I’m reading too many romance novels”.

All to say, that reading 88 books it’s nothing as big as I thought it would be, not that I’m not proud anyway but I felt it was so much bigger than it actually is.

If you want to read more, prioritize reading and experiment with different formats, those are my biggest takeaways for you. But for me, reading was a way to have a little bit more control of my life, especially when I tried to pick up mostly books with happy endings and that’s okay. Everyone has their own mechanisms to deal with life, and that’s what I worked out this year.

So don’t feel bad for reading more or less, read if you want to read and read what you want to read. Your spare time belongs to you and it’s meant to make you feel good.

Extra tip: don’t put a big reading goal for yourself! My reading goal is always 20 books and I start to increase it in small increments instead of saying “I’m going to read 100 books” and make me feel anxious about not accomplishing that goal.

I took the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine!

Although ever since my parents got fully vaccinated calmed my spirits, I was worried with them because of the stats, I’m also happy to have the first dose. Second dose will be next week! Here in Portugal, people are talking about young people not taking the vaccine and I don’t buy it, we want the vaccine (can I still call myself young?).

In my tiny urban garden, basically my container garden in my sunroom, I already got my first tomatoes – they’re super sweet, I love them! Other than that, things are not going great in my garden. I can’t get rid of aphids and they already killed many of my plants, I tried to spray some of them with water but they are always coming back! It’s part of the whole thing I know. Honestly I’ve also been ignoring this because I can’t fix it which doesn’t help.

I finished reading most of the books that I had from the library, only remaining “Normal People” by Sally Rooney. Since I have such a big expectation for this book, I’m feeling a huge pressure to like it. I read “One Last Stop” this month and it disappointed me, I guess because my expectations were too high, I’d probably enjoy it more if I didn’t have any.

I made the “Traybake Ragú” from the book Flavor by Chef Yotam Ottolenghi – ok I didn’t follow the recipe 100% I didn’t buy the rose harissa (where am I going to use the rest?) and other small modifications but it was very yummy! It gave a ton of work – it’s a shame because I’d definitely do this more often if it didn’t. My boyfriend which likes but doesn’t love vegetarian food really liked it as well. It gave a ton of food – we ate leftovers for lunch everyday for a week but it was so good we didn’t mind. Next time, I’ll just make less pasta and freeze portions of the sauce, that way I can have a quick meal in no time. I came to know about this book through
Charlotte from girl next door fashion and I borrowed it from the library right away, it took a few months for my turn, it’s really a hot cookbook.

I started reading manga again. I was super addicted in college but somehow I stopped doing it. I read “Spy Family” – really funny, I highly recommend it. Although I prefer to avoid reading mangas that are still being published, I couldn’t resist and I’m glad I didn’t – it’s the perfect way to get back to reading manga. I also read a bunch of manga that I never finished reading, mostly shoujo and one shots. It has been nice to rediscover this interest and how much I still have fun with it.

I also made a big purchase! I bought a sony a6400. It’s an upgrade from the one that I had, I have been thinking about buying one for more than 2 years but I couldn’t justify the purchase. Some things happened that it made sense for me to buy it.

Normally, I’d buy this used, my older one was bought used, but after some time I decided to buy it new even though I’m such a huge fan of buying used (there were a bunch of possible buys but for multiple reasons never closed). There’s still a lot to learn with it, I’m pretty excited! It doesn’t have the same problems as the other one did – the two main ones being my camera would turn off in the middle of taking a video and since there was no flip screen there was no way for me to know.

Last Friday, I went to Mercado Poirot and bought some stickers, I didn’t need anything but I wanted to support these artists in some way. It’s always a good excuse to buy useless stuff.

Artists:
nes.lopes
bunzorg
skadi.nysno
wishysawakura

Crafts

My ceramic pieces were painted and went to the kiln! Honestly I was a bit sad about the final result – I was expecting something much better and it looks like they were painted by children. I know that it’s the first time that I’m doing this but the Internet world with its pretty ceramics didn’t prepare me for this. Ana from Oficina Azul Colbato (where I went to class) said they were pretty good for the first try but I can’t look past how bad it looks ahaha.
Still, after a while, I started to like them more, I’m pretty proud of the work. It was so much fun to see the difference between the colors before and after the kiln.
My favorite piece is the plate. I still need to get some plants for the vases, haven’t done that yet.

I wanted to sew the other day so I did. I wanted to sew in a more paused way and remind myself that things take time. Since I have a small place to do it I did the following: one day I cut everything and on the other days I sew, trying to do similar stitches or same colors to avoid stopping multiple times. I also did it just half an hour or one hour after dinner instead of trying to do it all.

And honestly, it doesn’t take me that much time to set up the whole thing – which is always something that makes me procrastinate on sewing.

I only finished one thing: a dress for a girl that was born at the end of the month. It’s not perfect but I’m super proud of how it looks like! I also made a matching scrunchie for the mother (and had to do one for myself too).

I finished the first sock of my socks with the fair isle flower, they’re pretty but I don’t think they’ll fit. I should have done the colorwork with a larger needle. I’m stil going to wash it to see if it’s going to turn out ok but I don’t think it will.

The other day, I decided to completely frog my Butterfly Heart Top, I basically was frogging just bits at a time and it didn’t work out and honestly frogging the whole thing and starting over was much easier mentally. I’m almost at the point where I was before and I don’t regret it.

Books read

☆☆☆☆ Without Merit – Colleen Hoover
☆☆☆☆ Instant Karma – Marissa Meyer
☆☆☆ A clean kill in Tokyo – Barry Eisler
☆☆☆ One Last Stop – Casey McQuiston
☆☆☆☆ Confess – Colleen Hoover
☆☆☆☆☆ Room – Emma Donoghue
☆☆☆☆☆ It ends with us – Colleen Hoover
☆☆☆ The Jane Austen Society – Natalie Jenner
☆☆☆☆ Signor Ridini – Hélène White

Interesting on the Internet

(I have been trying to save interesting articles and videos that I consume online but I still don’t have that habit)

The 2021 Early-Retirement Update
I Thought Impro Was Bullsh*t
Developing a Permanent Treatment for Lactose Intolerance Using Gene Therapy – omg I had this video on my queue for a long time and it didn’t disappoint! Such an interesting video and watched a bunch of his videos after that too – my brother recommended me watching the video about growing silk out of yeast but I still haven’t
Quarantined to Room 903
Os mundos e fundos do RSI (I): Ódios de estimação
100 Demon Dialogues – I already read this last year but reread it
Nobody Cares
How much of your Spotify subscription goes to the artists
So the climate crisis scares you. Now what?
Want to do something? Do It.
This channel

You have made your homemade yogurt, but how long will it last in your fridge?

The quick easy answer is: your homemade yogurt will last about 2 weeks, assuming that you’re using fresh ingredients when making your yogurt.

You can stop reading if you want to, if not, I’ll talk about a few things that I think it might be good for you to know, what has been my experience following my homemade yogurt recipe for years.

Usually, I eat my yogurt pretty quickly, it rarely lasts for more than one week. I make a batch usually on Sunday and then I finish it around Friday or Saturday.

However, I already ate homemade yogurt that was 3 weeks old and it was fine. Not that I’m telling you to do it, but I just want to put this out there anyway. This confidence definitely comes from my own experience of making yogurt which in time you’ll have and learn to trust your instincts in this matter.

Changes in flavor as time passes

As time passes, your yogurt will taste sourer however it doesn’t necessarily mean it has gone bad.

When you’re first fermenting your milk to make homemade yogurt in your yogurt maker or whatever incubator that you use to make it, you’re creating the perfect environment for lactic acid fermentation, lactic acid forms and that is what causes that yogurt flavor, more sour and less sweet than milk.

Once you put your yogurt in the fridge, it’s no longer the ideal environment for fermentation to occur, but it doesn’t kill any of the good bacteria, so fermentation still occurs but at a slower pace.

Can you understand now why it tastes sourer after a week in the fridge? Lactic acid continues to increase which in turn makes your yogurt sourer.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do to avoid this, if you don’t like your yogurt so sour, my suggestion would be to use it in salad dressings, pancakes, overnight oats with yogurt with plenty of sweet stuff on it, or any other type of recipe that uses yogurt.

Yogurt is an excellent replacement for buttermilk in baking goods as well.

If you have never made yogurt before and are scared reading this, don’t worry right away. I’d advise you to try it out before deciding that your yogurt is too sour to eat after one week.

I’d also want to add that regardless of what I write here, be aware of any different colors in your yogurt or weird taste or smell. Even if a small amount of time has passed but any of this seems true, don’t eat it. Let’s not turn reducing food waste into a way to make your stomach sick.

With this out of the way, there are a few factors that might decrease the expiration date of your homemade yogurt.

In fact, a lot of them can contribute to your homemade yogurt going bad as well so you’ll see that I repeat some of those ideas here as well.

Storage

Storing your yogurt correctly will definitely help in making last those 2 weeks – or even more.
I store my yogurt on the highest shelf of my fridge – that’s where it’s the coldest in every fridge and it’s usually recommended to keep yogurts there.

Both commercial and homemade yogurt.

Since I have a smaller fridge and my larger container doesn’t fit in the highest shelf, whenever I use my Easiyo yogurt maker to make a big batch, I just put it on the second shelf below the highest shelf.

I try to avoid putting it on the door of the fridge as it’s usually a place where the temperature changes more often.

I also don’t leave my yogurt laying around on the countertop, I take it out, scoop out my yogurt, and put it back in the fridge.

Speaking of scooping my yogurt…

Scooping homemade yogurt

If you make a big batch of yogurt instead of separate individual jars, use a clean spoon and don’t eat it straight from the jar.
If you do that, you’ll just be introducing bacteria to the yogurt and it’ll last less time.
I generally use the same spoon to eat the yogurt in the bowl so doing something like this doesn’t always mean that you have more dishes to wash.

OK – I’m lying here because the bowl needs to be washed as well! You got me – I still think that the pros outweigh the cons.

Fruit

Adding any type of fruit or fresh ingredient to your yogurt will rapidly increase the likelihood of it lasting less time plus it usually messes up the fermentation process.

My general advice is to add your fruit when you’re ready to eat and not before that.

If you do add cooked fruit and some kind of jam, generally it’s okay and it’ll last those 2 weeks but be more cautious in general and experiment with different jams, they have different kinds of ingredients that might react differently to the yogurt as well.

How long does homemade yogurt last?

To summarize, 2 weeks is usually good although expect your yogurt to be slightly sourer as time progresses. Be sure to store your yogurt in the highest shelf of your fridge if possible as this will keep the yogurt nice and cool and keep your yogurt fresher for a longer time.

Furthermore, don’t add any other ingredients like fruit if you want to make it last longer, add your fruit when consuming your yogurt, that way you won’t be messing up a batch.

I have been making yogurt for 15+ years and I can tell you right now and homemade yogurt doesn’t usually go bad. So I wouldn’t worry about it on a regular basis.

Of course, this yogurt doesn’t last forever either, as with everything, there’s a limit on how much time homemade yogurt will last in your fridge and if you do something wrong when following a homemade yogurt recipe, it might go bad because of it.

Can homemade yogurt make you sick?

Overall, homemade yogurt is pretty much the same as regular yogurt, the one that you buy at the supermarket. If you do everything properly, there’s no reason for you to believe that homemade yogurt can make you sick. Be sure to use fresh ingredients, clean the utensils that you use when making your homemade yogurt. 

And of course don’t eat anything that has a weird smell, taste, or color – for example, if your yogurt is black definitely something bad happened.

In terms of storage, my general rule for you is to avoid doing things much differently than you would with regular yogurt.

This brings me to my first point.

Homemade Yogurt and Fridge Temperature 

I have seen people talk online about being scared of taking their yogurt to consume and storing it back in their fridge multiple times.

I have taken out my yogurt multiple times from the fridge and that has never been an issue. My homemade yogurt has never gone bad because of it. 

Here’s what I usually do: take the container from the fridge, scoop a few tablespoons to a different container, and store it again. As simple as that.

I store my yogurt on the higher shelf in my fridge – that’s where it’s the coldest in every fridge and it’s usually recommended to keep yogurts there. 

I did this with commercial yogurt and do the same for my homemade yogurt.

Since I have a smaller fridge and my larger container (the one from my Easiyo) doesn’t fit in there, whenever I use a larger container, I just put it on the second shelf below the highest shelf. I make it work. 

I try to avoid putting it on the door of the fridge as it’s usually a place where the temperature changes more often.

Taking yogurt from the fridge

If you use a big container to make your yogurt – for example, if you have an Easiyo yogurt maker, and instead of making several small individual jars, just make one big jar of yogurt, I’d recommend you to use a clean spoon to scoop out your yogurt. 

You might be tempted to eat it straight from the container but you’d be putting your germs into the yogurt.

This is not a huge problem but if you want to make it last longer, I’d try to avoid inserting bacteria as much as possible. If you’re eating 1L of yogurt in just a couple of days then I believe it’d be fine. 

I usually remove my yogurt with a clean spoon and then use that spoon to eat the yogurt once it’s in a separate container. That way I can ensure that the yogurt doesn’t have my bacteria on it. 

I actually do these with all the sauces and preserves that I have in my fridge.

And yes, sometimes I end up cleaning a lot of spoons at once. That’s why I really want to have space for a dishwasher someday ahah.

If you choose a yogurt machine that uses individual jars of yogurt, this will be even less of a problem.

I think this pretty much covers general care to avoid making your yogurt going bad. But I also want to talk about what kind of things might ruin your yogurt if you’re not careful during your yogurt-making process.

Things to keep in mind when making homemade yogurt

Use clean utensils

When I first started making homemade yogurt, I sterilized all the jars and tools that I used for my yogurt making.

Since then, I have become more relaxed with the topic and no longer sterilize everything. And no, I haven’t once got food poisoning. So I must be doing something right.

Although I don’t sterilize anything, I ensure that everything is well cleaned before starting – jars, lids, and any specific tools that I use as my kitchen thermometer.

I think that’s the first step to ensure that your yogurt doesn’t go bad quickly. Dirty utensils might also be the cause for your yogurt not to set.

Use fresh ingredients

This might seem pretty obvious but I’m going to say it anyway.

Don’t use milk that’s about to go bad in your homemade yogurt. If you want to make your yogurt last and are afraid that it might go bad because of it, use fresh ingredients.

Since the yogurt will ferment and you’re going to eat it for a few days, the milk that’s about to go bad might be better used in something else that will be eaten right away – not why make bechamel sauce out of it and pour it over a pasta dish?

Just to clarify – I’m not telling you to use bad milk but if you’re using something that might go bad soon, it’s better to eat it in a dish that you’ll eat almost right away.

Lastly but most importantly,

Use your senses

I have said all of the above but please use your senses when determining if your yogurt has gone bad.

If it has a weird color that wasn’t there before.

If it smells weird.

If it has a bad taste.

Don’t eat it. 

I hate to waste food, believe me, I do, that’s why I talk about reducing food waste all the time. But don’t jeopardize your health for the sake of saving yogurt. If you feel like your homemade yogurt has gone bad, don’t eat it. 

Usually, color and smell are enough indicators to let you know that you shouldn’t be eating it.

Can homemade yogurt go bad?

To summarize, homemade yogurt doesn’t usually go bad, store it like you’d regular yogurt bought in the supermarket and use clean utensils and fresh ingredients when you’re following a yogurt recipe. Having said that, always use your instincts to determine if your homemade yogurt is okay to eat – taste, color and smell should confirm any doubts that you have.

The month started and me and my bf were spending a couple of days in Ferreira do Zêzere, making the most out of the public holidays and taking some time off. It was great to be able to travel for a few days and also spend time at home without doing much.

We kayaked across the dam, we’ve kayaked before but I think this was one of the most magical places that we’ve kayaked, we were in the middle of the dam, just us, sorrounded by water and silence. That really pushes you to stop and enjoy nature, I know how cliché that sounds but that’s how I felt the entire time. Unfortunately the weather was not great, not sunny enough to go swim, that would be the icing on cake, but it was still fun.

I also read a lot on this holiday, books that I already had on my ereader for a few years, comfort books for me – a mystery and a resolution, similar to the CSI episodes that I’d love to watch when I was younger (and I still see them when it’s on TV). I had forgotten how much I enjoy these books. They’re not AMAZING books but the comfort that they give me it’s incredible. I also knitted a lot while reading – one big advantage of having an ereader is that it stays on my lap without falling, that never happens with a physical book.

Before we returned, we visited the Museu Industrial e Artesanal do Têxtil – actually, we went to Mira D’Aire to visit the caves but there was a huge line and we’re not very patient people – especially when we know that it’s close enough to visit one day. But I’m glad that we didn’t go to the caves, otherwise we might have missed this! As a knitter, I couldn’t help but love the museum and see the different machines and how wool is turned into yarn and the different types of Portuguese wool. I recommend it to everyone, even for those who don’t knit. It’s a good place to visit and the guide was nice.

We also visited the Leiria castle, it reopened to the public after 2 years of renovations – I hope that they’re still making changes because there were still a lot of spaces with nothing on them and I missed more history explanations. I really like the castle of Leiria, as someone who lived there so many years I always found it beautiful but my expectations were not met.

Porto city is now picking up organic waste in my area, I’m super excited! I signed up right away but the bucket only arrived in June. Reducing food waste it’s so important and seeing these initiatives that help avoid food waste from going to the landfill make me jump (literally) of excitement!

Crafts

I went to Knit Night organized by Knit with Friends, it was fun and I was able to knit a huge portion of my sock that I recently started, pattern: Skew. The construction is very interesting, completely different from anything that I have done before. I’m having fun. Ravelry project.

I’ve been trying to use up the yarn that I already have, although I don’t have a huge stash compared to others, I feel like I already have too much and I don’t want to hoard yarn just for the sake of it. So I’ve been trying to find the perfect pattern to use up some yarn that I had here and I found the “Butterfly Heart Top”, I like it, just want to do some thinner straps. I already frogged once and it’s at this moment sitting untouched because I need to frog it again. It’s one of the disadvantages of trying to change patterns! But I think it’ll be worth it so I’m just waiting for some courage to move forward. Frogging is a part of knitting right?

I went to my third class of ceramics, on this class I was sanding my pieces and doing touch up on the details, I’m having a great time on these classes. I’m having classes on Oficina Azul Cobalto in Porto.

I finally finished remodeling my sunroom! I don’t think I ever mentioned it on the blog, but it’s something that I have been doing for a while (I’m even writing this sitting on my sunroom). It’s incredible how much a space can have a positive impact on my mental health, I’m really happy that I’ve done this, having my small corner of nature in the city. I’m going to publish other posts about it so I’m not going to say too much just yet. In the last few days I spent 13h editing videos about my remodel so I’m hoping to publish the first one this week!

I also published an episode of my podcast “Artesanato Sem Tema”. (In Portuguese, thought I’d mention it anyway – if you speak Portuguese, you can switch the language on the top of the page.

More vacations!

At the end of the month, I went again on vacation, this time with a few friends, we went to Algarve, it was good place to relax. We were really close to the beach, couldn’t have asked for a better location. I was able to use my new-to-me swimsuits that I bought second hand and also try out 2 more eco-friendly sunscreens. As someone with a very fair skin, I’m really cautious about my sun exposure and suncreens – I’m the person who wears a hat at all times and stays in the shade when the sun is too strong.

I also started some new socks, I wanted to make some socks while I was on vacation but I didn’t want to think too much about them – the Skew was not a good project to bring, I wanted something mindless.

Books

I bought ” A Lã e a Neve” by Ferreira de Castro in the Museum referred above, it’s not something that I want to read right away but I wanted to support the project somehow and there wasn’t anything else that I needed from their store. I decided to buy this book because it has a lot of components about yarn making and raising sheep so got curious.

I bought “Deste silêncio em mim” by Rui Conceição Silva” – it’s a new publisher called “Visgarolho” and I also wanted to support it! It’s one of the things that entices me the most to buy something – support people and projects, I have yet to read this.

For the same reason, I bought “A Filha do Barão” by Célia Correia Loureiro, I already read the book a few years ago and loved it, she is one of my favorite Portuguese authors. Usually, I’m very rational with my purchases and I avoid buying something that I already read but I wanted a copy of the book, she was selling it autographed as well, so didn’t resist! I’m hoping I can lend it to my friends so they can discover this amazing author, I already have 4 of her books, plus she recently launched a podcast “Entre Escritores” that I’m enjoying a lot.

“One Last Stop” by Casey McQuinston, arrived, I pre-ordered it a while back and I was happy when it arrived. Although I only started reading this on July.

Books read in June:
Requiem – Celina Grace
Before He Kills – Blake Pierce
Irreparable Harm – Melissa F. Miller
Any Means Necessary – Jack Mars
Thread of Hope – Jeff Shelby
Thread of Suspicion – Jeff Shelby
Thread of Betrayal – Jeff Shelby
Thread of Innocence – Jeff Shelby
O Pecado de Porto Negro – Norberto Morais
The Gravity of Us – Phil Stamper

I really enjoy reading “Life lately” posts, where people talk a little bit about themselves, what happened, what they’ve been reading, what they felt. A few years ago, posts like that were common, but now the same content has gone over to Facebook or Instagram.

I have been spending less time on social media and that means that sometimes I don’t know what’s going on and I also don’t end up sharing what’s going on with me.

I’m not an extremist on anything in life, I talk a lot about being more sustainable, but I still consume a lot of things that are not sustainable. For that reason, I don’t think I’ll be that person what completely stops using Instagram or Facebook. I’ll spend a lot of time away BUT for all the bad things that social media can be, I can’t help but think about the good that they provide.

However, one of the main disadvantages of social media is that it demands our attention every single minute, there’s not that asynchronous connection that there was before social media. A blogger might only announce on social media a workshop that that person is going to make. But what if, for some reason, I’m not on social media for a few days? I might miss the opportunity to go to a workshop that I’d love to go to. This is just one small example but I think that it gets my point across.

That’s one of the reasons why I continue to read blogs through RSS – a simple way to keep myself updated on my favorite websites without waiting for social media to show it to me – with RSS I control what I see and when I see it. That’s also something that happens with social media – following someone but their publications are not shown on your feed.

This is all to say that I love to read recap posts, for example, I always read the recap posts from Charlotte – Girl Next Door Fashion and from Inês – Bobby Pins (in Portuguese).

And I have been almost writing this type of post several times these past few months but something always stops me: who cares? Sometimes I hear again things from conversations with other people: “people that only want attention”, “no one cares about what that person says, don’t know why he/she/they write about it” – I push back on those comments saying things like “what do you care about what someone else does?”, “it’s their life”. HOWEVER, these conversations stay with me, poisoning me, keeping me from writing,I can’t help but wonder: what will people think? Just because I decided to publish this?

I’m not going to not care about what other people think about me overnight, but damn it, if I feel like writing these posts, why don’t I? No one needs to read them if they don’t want to.

I always I had a blog, I wrote about what happened in my day and how school went, I used to update the design of my blog often and change all the images and icons, it was so much fun.

This blog will never get back to being a journal, my journal contains words that are just my own, but that doesn’t mean I won’t write posts about me. I like reading “Life lately” posts, I love to know what people are doing and what they’re eating – you can call me noisy but that has always fascinated me.

And obviously that I’m going to keep writing about sustainability, food and making, because those are all things that I’m passionate about and make me feel alive. There’s still plenty of things that I want to write about those topics. Unfortunately, I’m too censoring myself on those posts and afraid of hitting publish, as I said, I’m trying to be better at that.

So yes to “Life lately” posts, I’m not sure how long I’ll be writing them for, as long as I’m enjoying writing them I guess.

The other day I sewed my first bralette!

It was something that made me jump with joy, very similar to how I felt when I made my first pair of undies with the pattern “Acacia”.

I spent a lot of time THINKING about making a bralette but I felt super intimidated on how to do it. I’m far from being more than a beginner sewist but I need to make stuff that I’ll use. That’s why, even while I was intimidated by the whole process of making abralette I also REALLY wanted to make one, and perhaps some day a bras with underwire. It’s for that reason that I made underwear before but didn’t make simpler sewing projects. If I want to make things that are useful for me, why would I make projects that I don’t really care about just for practice? If I’m doing an interesting project for me, I have more motivation to do it.

Having said that, there is a big problem: I’m a person that strives very much to be sustainable and I’m also a saver, hence why I was super scared of ruining a beautiful kit that I bought from StudioCosturaShop to make a bralette and some underwear. This made me postpone and procrastinate on this for a long time. “What if I ruin the fabric?”, “What if I cut this the wrong way?”, all these questions were constantly nagging me and I couldn’t let them go.

Until one day I thought: today is the day. Today I’m going to do this. But I’m going to use old t-shirts to practice and I’ll then use a fancier fabric.

And that’s exactly what I did. When I finished I immediately got more confident in my sewing because there’s nothing better to prove yourself that you can do this. And it’s a super comfortable bralette!

Have I said already that I made this?

Choosing a pattern and Barrett Bralette review from a beginner

I decided to use the pattern “Barrett Bralette” by “Madalynne Intimates”, I really like her style and I wanted something without underwire and without many notions, to avoid complicating this too much and this pattern fits all the boxes in terms of that.

The pattern is free and it’s great for people with smaller chests like me, I don’t think that people with bigger chests will like this as the bralette is not very supportive, the elastic is the only thing supporting your boobs.

I want to start by saying that I’m a beginner sewist and maybe people with more experience won’t feel the same way about the pattern.

Honestly, I didn’t think that the pattern instructions were clear enough to make the bralette without any help.

I eventually decided to sign up for CreativeBug and watch Madalynne’s class teaching how to make this bralette.

Small Bobbins‘s videos also helped, it was actually one of the reasons why I chose this model but I still had a few doubts and the class helped a lot to move forward with this project.

I advise you to read the pattern and see if it’s clear to you or not – again I don’t have much experience and that might be the reason why it was hard for me to understand.

The final result is far from perfect but I’m super super satisfied with it, even with all the wonky lines.

Materials used for the Barrett Bralette

As I said, I used a lot of materials that I already had at home and that was very satisfying for my lower waste self.

Como disse, usei muitos materiais que já tinha em casa o que me deixou bastante satisfeita.

I used two t-shirts, one for each color because I thought it might be fun to do, having two different colors on the cups. One of the t-shirts belonged to my boyfriend and it was getting too worn out but it has a special meaning in my heart because he used it a lot when we first started dating.

I didn’t buy the glue spray (Odif’s spray) that is recommended but still optional, it could have helped in a few things but I try to avoid buying stuff that I won’t use often. Reduce.

For the straps, I decided to retire a old bra that really needed to be retired but stayed in the drawer for some reason. The straps are obviously more worn out and a little bit yellowy from their age but for this experiment nothing more was needed!

Depois para as alças, decidi reformar um soutien que já precisava mas que continuava na minha gaveta por alguma razão. As alças claro que estão mais gastas e um bocadinho com uma cor amarelada devido à sua idade mas para esta experiência não precisava de mais nada!

I spent money on the rings: the rings that were on the previous bra were a bit small for the amount of fabric that I had to pass through there so I ended up buying two larger rings. 30 cents each.

I had to buy the elastics, both the band elastic and the picot elastic, there was some leftover but the total amounted to 4,29€.

This means that I made this bralette for: 4,89€.

I know that some brands sell similar bralettes at almost this price, but I try to avoid buying things from fast fashion stores, usually I buy second hand. However, making this is something that makes me happy. I know the solution is not for everyone to make their own clothes – even myself can’t fathom it – I wouldn’t have the mental capacity or time to do it, but it’s nice to know that we have the power to make.

Final result

What do I think about the final result? I LOVE IT! I love how the bralette has two colors, in the beginning I was just trying to make something different but I think that it took the bralette to the next level.

It’s a little bit tight, I don’t notice it right away only after a few hours of wearing it – but here I believe it’s my fault because I cut the elastic a little bit smaller than the pattern suggests because I as afraid it was going to fall off. I think that it’ll be okay after washes and wear.

There is something in the cups that bothers me, there are some bumps in the cups, I don’t know if it’s the fabric that I chose or because I sewed something wrong, but truthfully it doesn’t look too good. Or maybe I just need to cut the cups flatter so they fit my chest better.

Other than the fact that it’s a bit tight, it’s SUPER comfortable, my boobs like right away to be held by the soft fabric of the cotton t-shirts (they were also pretty worn out so that might have helped as well), I really like how it feels in the skin.

I never thought of sharing a picture of me in my bra online but it’s one of the things that I want to see the most when researching if a pattern is right for me. Seeing fotos without it being worn it’s not the same thing, and I searched on the Internet and on Instagram people that made this bralette and posted pictures wearing it.

I hope posting this helps you in some way.

I started writing this thinking I didn’t have much to say but of course I did! Not only I loved the final result but it’s also the reason why I’ve been sewing more lately.

After all said and done, I still think that this is a good project for beginners mainly because it doesn’t have a lot of notions, just elastics. I’d highly recommend signing up for “CreativeBug” to see the class.

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