Mar. 2- The Banana Cake and The Pansy Mandala

I prepared one banana, half a carrot, 200ml of soy milk, two tablespoons of raisins, and a pack of hotcake mix to bake a cake in the rice cooker this morning.  It's my 50th birthday today, and I wanted to celebrate it by baking my very own original cake recipe.

I was born on March 2nd 1966 and it was a Wednesday back then.  What a coincidence that 50 years later, it would be a Wednesday again.

As a middle aged woman living in the countryside, I still don't think studying English is very important.  However, I really appreciate the RareJob tutors who listen to me every day.  Talking to them about my daily life and ideas have become therapeutic.  It helps to clarify my thoughts. 

It's been tough for me these days since my 80-year-old mother passed away last July.  I also lost my 12-year-old budgerigar whom I considered as my long time friend last January.  He died of old age.  The sudden death of my 8-year-old cockatiel who acted like my real daughter until last week brought me further unhappiness.    

On the other hand, I still have one male budgerigar whose nickname is P-chan. 

P chan, the 3-year-old male budgerigar is the only bird in our house now.  

Instead of Japanese grown-ups say "Oishii" meaning "delicious", P-chan says "Oichii" just like small children. 

He gets too much sunlight in the cage, so I placed a small sheet of board paper so that he can stay in the shade. 

Budgies' body is 41 to 42 degrees Celsius, which is higher than human's.  The temperature in the room gets below 10 degrees Celsius at midnight these days, so my husband and I make sure that P-chan feels warm enough.  

Here is my recipe for the banana and carrot cake. 

I used Soy milk instead of milk because it includes isoflavone. 
 [ahy-soh-fley-vohn]

It is said to work like estrogen to help improve hormone balane in women. 
It is especially recommended to middle-aged women, like myself.

 I used only half a carrot.   I grated it. 

grate (verb)  to rub cheese, vegetables, chocolate, etc. against a grater in order to cut them into small pieces

I used one piece of banana.  

 I  mashed the banana with a knife.

mash (verb) to crush something, especially food

I put all the ingredients in the rice cooker. 
(One finely mashed banana, half a carrot grated, 2 tablespoons of raisins, 
200 grams of hot cake mix, and 200ml of soy milk.)

After I added the carrots, mix everything well.  
Set the button of rice cooker just like you cook rice.

Thirty minutes later, I heard the alarm of the rice cooker.
However, when I checked the cake, I was not sure it was done.
So, I pushed the button of the rice cooker again.

It took another 5 minutes or so, then I heard the rice cooker alarm. 

I thought it was done.

I got the cake from the rice cooker.
Then, I turned the cake upside down. 

 

After the cake became cool enough, I cut it into 8 pieces. 

 After finishing cleaning our house in the morning,

I started coloring a book in the afternoon.

I bought this book entitled "flower mandalas" at Amazon last month. 

As a start, I chose the mandala of "Pansy" because of its blooming season.  

 My husband suggested that I make the purple color stronger.

Pansy

Colors of Pansy include pink, red, yellow and white.  

I can still walk to the grocery stores which take me 10 minutes from our house.  However, I have already given up taking pictures of wild birds because I usually end up staying over 2 hours in the parks.  Staying outside for long hours would deteriorate my health this season.

After a cozy hour of coloring the book, I had a relaxing time having hot tea.

I lost my cockatiel several days ago and I cannot still get over the sad feeling.  However, I still have chances to find happiness from these activities.  

I received a present from my husband's friends. 

We found some small cakes inside the box. 

There were three milk creams and two strawberry creams. 

I haven't met them before, and they didn't know my birthday. 

I was very delighted with the unexpected present that I received on my birthday.