A productive day
Everyday, an average person wakes up with plans of achieving great and better things for the day. The rich, the poor, the young and even the old wake up each day with this mindset. Most end up achieving it most hope on tomorrow to do what they could not do today. I'm a big fan of doing it today because tomorrow never comes. Today you will say, 'let me achieve it tomorrow'. The day will come and go and another day will come, yet you will still say, 'let me do it tomorrow'. So you see, tomorrow is a day that never comes. You can even get old waiting for it. So it is better to always do it today and stop procrastinating.
I was able to achieve a lot yesterday and today, and I'm so happy about it. Just last week, a friend of mine told me about Opus Dei, a worldwide Christian organisation that is aimed at human financial and spiritual development. They offer free skill acquisition training to people who are interested and it is not limited to Christians alone. They offer lots of skill acquisition trainings for both men and women free of charge.
I have been wanting to learn bakery for a long time now but never really created the chance for myself. So when I heard about Opus Dei, I decided it was now or never. I followed my friend to the center on Saturday and guess what, they were so welcoming. Those in attendance would just decide among themselves as a group what they would like to learn and then task themselves on amounts to contribute for buying the needed ingredients for their bakery. What the Opus Dei center then does I'd to provide the learning environment as well as the non paid professionals that would take on the teaching.
I joined a group and we decided to learn how to make cake, buns and soya(soy) milk. We only contributed a paltry sum each to make up the money for the needed ingredients. The learning took place yesterday and we learnt to make buns and soya milk. Cake lesson was shifted to today. I already had an idea about buns making so it was easy to learn. Soya milk was one thing I never knew would be simple to produce. I always saw it as a hard drink to make. I also didn't know that soya was even a type of beans. Big girl like me, but learning sha never ends.
I loved the soya milk preparation so much that I would like to share. You can try the recipe at home and thank me later. So for those who do not know, soya milk is a natural milk drink made from beans called soya. Just like you have your regular milk in both powdered and watery form, you can also make your soya milk in both forms. The choice is yours.
First you must get your soya beans from the market and pick out the bad seeds. You can measure it in cups. Four cups of soya beans can give you close to five litre soya milk.
Add water to your pot and put on fire. When the water has come to a boiling point, add your soya beans and boil for twenty minutes. After twenty minutes, bring the pot down, leave the soy beans in the hot water overnight or let's just say twelve hours.
After your wait time is over, remove the beans from the water and rub with your hands to remove the outer skin of the beans, just like when you process your moi moi. Then take the beans to the grinder. Do not use electric grinders because they will not get the job well done. It is more advisable to use commercial grinders, that way your beans will be well powdered.
When you come back from the grinding machine, sieve it immediately as it will just sour if you waste time. It is better to use cloth sieve like you do your pap. If your soya milk is well grinded, only a little chaff will be extracted.
Turn your sieved soya milk very well and pour in a pot. Then start boiling. You can choose to leave the pot open or cover it. Just know that when the pot is covered, you need to pay attention to prevent the milk from pouring away when it comes to a boiling point. Do not turn while on fire. Your soya milk is ready when you begin to perceive the scent of milk. Bring down the pot and add a pinch of salt and half a cup of sugar. You can add a cup of sugar if your taste bud loves sugary stuffs. There goes your soya milk. Refrigerate and drink for as long as two weeks. It spends only a day without preservation before spoiling.
If you want your milk in powdered form, then remove the bad seeds from your beans. Boil for twenty minutes then remove the outer skin by rubbing it off with your hands, then sun dry it or dry using any other method you know. When it is dry, fry it for a few minutes then grind. Your soya milk powder is ready. This method is more healthy for babies.
Some people do not like boiling their beans when they want to make powdered soya milk. They just go straight to grind it, but such method does not go well with the digestive systems of babies as well as sick and old people.
I will be sharing other recipes to you as soon as I learn them. Let's all acquire the skill together.
Thanks for reading
`All images from google`
Love a Human
I sat on a small stone by the bush side peeking at humans as they made their way to and fro the tiny road path. I wanted to experience what it would fell like to become a human, even if it were for a day.
Stories were always told in our clan about the frog that was able to achieve the feat of turning into a human. He even married a princess. It wasn't certain how he had achieved it, all there was were speculations. But one thing was sure, a frog can turn to a human.
As I sat there lazily watching humans of different sizes going about their day, some in pairs, I felt a nudge on my back. I turned to see father's best buddy sitting behind me. His next words shattered me.
"*Your father is about to croak and he needs you by his death bed before it is too late".*
Father was the pack leader and had been sick for a while now. He got injured when he was trying to protect a froglet from being eaten by a big snake. He wasn't lucky enough to have escape unscathed. The snake had bitten him and though the froglet was saved, father had been infected by the snake bite. All efforts to get the toxic poison out of him had proved abortive.
He wasn't just my father bit also a best friend, so when I heard he was about to croak, I couldn't help but feel devastated. I hopped home to him under the root of an old tree where we had found shelter and protection for his recovery. His green slimy back had lost it's color and he lay limply on a leaf. He mustered up a smile when he saw me and my heart broke. He was a shadow of his old frog self.
"*Father, you can't croak, at least not yet. I am too young to take up to responsibility of a pack leader. Besides all I have ever had to think about was what* being a human would feel like", was what I could muster to say to him.
His voice was hoarse when he replied, "*well son, I haven't called you to talk about how you will lead the pack. It comes naturally. I only wanted to tell you a secret that you deserve to know about the males in our family"*
It was then that he dropped the news of why I thought to be a rumour.
"*All the males in our family can turn to humans but..."*
So the story of the frog that was said to have turned into a princess and married a human princess was not an unfounded rumour after all. My dreams of experiencing life as a human was not going to be a puff in the air. His next words shattered my hope.
*"...but only if they can convince a human to fall in love with them*".
Was he kidding me? That was so absurd. It was no news that we had been preys to humans for a very long time now. They would capture and torture us with sharp objects, extracting all the fluids on our backs and eyes. Only a few has survived this torturous acts, they are now the incapacitated members of our clan. So looking for a human to convince to fall in love with me would be asking for death. It was simply impossible.
Maybe it was time to drop the idea of being a human, but what can I do when my heart keeps convincing me that I can do it. Besides if another frog can, then I too can.
**This is a prompt gotten from** **www.servicescape.com** **a prompt generator.** http://www.servicescape.com
This is my first time writing from an animal's perspective. I just couldn't avoid the prompt. I do hope I tried. Tell me in the comments section what you think
`Thanks for reading`.
Wishing a unicorn to life
Mum and I moved into Farmsville two months ago. This time, she rented a two bedroom apartment which was unlike the cranky one bedroom that we usually rented at other places. Moving from town to another town and from one neighborhood to another was what I had grown up to know. We never stayed for long in a place. It was either mum would loose her job or she would come back home with a tear stricken face and tell me to pack my stuffs. When that happened, we would live in her old car for a while before finding a new apartment. I always understood that it was a lone world for me and mum and I never demanded much from her, because I knew she was struggling to get by.
I never kept friends because our constant movings did not afford me the opportunity. I didn't even know how to make friends. The few times I tried to befriend other boys my age, I couldn't even look them in the eyes and they ended up picking on and mocking me.
Even after we had moved to Farmsville, all I did was stare longingly at other boys when they played football or rode on their bikes round the neighborhood. I knew we would eventually move again, but I wanted to enjoy my time here with other nine year olds like me. I just didn't have the courage to do so.
Mum enrolled me in a school in Farmsville and I was placed in grade 4. Most of my classmates boasted and told stories about their friends but I had none to tell. I was known as the boy who never spoke in class.
One day, our teacher took us to see a fair which was said to hold yearly at Farmsville. They had lots of games for kids. My classmates did not hesitate to play in pairs. I was the only one left out. I had no friend and I was too shy to ask to play with a pair. The teacher must have noticed naive me because she paid me special attention and made sure I participated in one of the games. She enticed me with a unicorn as a price for the winner of the game. I loved unicorns so I couldn't say no. I formed a pair with her and soon we won the game. Well I did most of the job, she was just there as support. I won the wooden unicorn.
That day when I got home, I couldn't help but reminiscence about the Farmsville fair event. I wanted to witness what it was like to laugh with friends and the teacher showed me. I couldn't help but wish I had friends. Maybe then I would laugh everyday like I did at the fair. That night, I went to bed with my beautiful wooden unicorn. It didn't bully me, neither did it mock me for not having friends. I couldn't help but say to it, "my beautiful unicorn, I really wish you were alive. You would be my best friend. We will ride around Farmsville and make beautiful memories as best friends". I kept fantasizing about a beautiful life with my wooden unicorn until I drifted off to dreamland.
What woke me up the following day was the feeling of something nuzzling my leg. I thought it was mum waking me up, but when I opened my eyes, I found two curious eyes staring down at me. It was then it dawned on me, those eyes belonged to an animal with a big horn in the middle of it's head. My unicorn had come to life like I wished!
This is a fictional prompt gotten from https://www.servicescape.co https://www.servicescape.com/
Lead image from unsplash
Dad's experiment: Time machine
I had always known my Dad to be a superhero. A famous one at that. He was a scientist. I would constantly sneak into his forbidden room to watch him mix different coloured liquids in a vial. I didn't know what those colored things were but according to him, they were dangerous and I wasn't allowed near them or even near the room. As I was a little boy who liked to explore, I was too curious to adhere to his rules but not anymore.
Last year, I had snuck into the room when Dad had gone to one of his science clubs. He was their leader as he had told me. He must have been in a hurry as he had forgotten to lock the door as he always did. The coloured liquids or do I say water in their glass containers fascinated me. I decided to role play the scientist like my father. I picked some colours that I found more fascinating and went to work. It was then I learnt how dangerous they really were. The mixture I had made exploded turning me into a frightened cat. The last thing I remembered was being flung a far distance from my experiment table. I was bedridden for a month. That was the last I ever entered Dad's experiment room. All I do now is stand by the door and watch him mix his dangerous liquids. I would sneakily do it because he had already banned me from even coming close to the door.
For a long while now, as I had noticed, he had been working on a project. A machine of a sort. He spent days and nights in the lab room. Sometimes, I wouldn't see him for a week. Mum would say he travelled, but I was sure he never left the room. Unless he did so at night while I was asleep. Sometimes, some of his science friends would visit him in his lab room and they would spend weeks there. Mum also said that they travelled with Dad. I began to wonder if Dad had built an airport inside his lab. I was curious but too afraid of another explosion to attempt entering the room. I had to wait patiently for him to come back so i could ask him about this mystery, but when I did get the chance to ask him, he said it was a surprise that he would soon unravel to me. Big men in suits, whom mum later identified to me as government people kept coming and going from Dad's lab room.
It was later that I learnt Dad had developed a time machine. When I asked him what a time machine was, Dad said, "it is a machine that can transport you to the future or even to the past".
I asked him if the machine can go to when dinosaurs lived and he said yes. I loved dinosaurs so much and dad knew it. Almost all of my clothes had the dinosaur image. So you see I really wanted to see a real life dinosaur and when I asked Dad to make his time machine make my dream come true, he agreed. I was so happy.
Mum packed a backpack for me and off I went with Dad into the time machine. He did what he knew best and when he opened the door of the machine, we were in a desert filled with live dinosaurs roaming around. They looked so huge that I thought their footprint would be the size of my bed. I wanted to approach them but dad didn't let me. He said it was dangerous.
I was only able to negotiate my way into walking a little around the place. That was not without Dad trailing every movement I made. Soon, I spotted a baby dinosaur. It must have just hatched or the motor lost it. It stared at me and I found its eyes too cute to be left in the desert. I knew Dad would kick against the idea of bringing it home so I had to sneak it into my backpack. I just got a pet dinosaur, how wonderful.
After our dinosaur sightseeing, we got back in the time machine and made a trip back home. I didn't let mum touch my backpack as I knew that would be trouble for me. That night, I slept with my cute baby dinosaur in my arms only to wake up in the morning and not find it. I turned my room upside down but still no sign of it. It was when I got out of the room that I found my Dad glaring at me with something that looked like my dinosaur sitting on the dinning table beside him. I stared back at them with my mouth wide open. Dad wasn't supposed to know about the baby dinosaur.
This is a fiction prompt gotten from servicescape.com a prompt generator website. You can check it out. https://www.servicescape.com
Thanks for coming by💖
Lead image from Google
Birthday summer surprise
I always pestered mum to take out on my birthdays, but she never had that sort of time. She was always on the road. I've always known her to travel constantly on her animals training missions. It was her job and according to her, if she did not make those trips, there would be no food on the table, neither will there be money to pay my nannies. She always promised to make it up to me with the little times she could afford to spare. She also promised to take me on a birthday road trip during the summer. A wonderful way it was for a curious me to celebrate my eight birthday.
The long awaited trip soon arrived and I set out for my first birthday trip with mum. It wasn't just the trip that got me all giddy. It was the fact that all through the eight years of my life, it would be the first time I am spending quality time with my mum. I had spent more times with nannies than I had with her.
When we set out on our trip, I was expecting that we would go to fancy places like I had read in story books, but mum surprised me by taking me across the countryside to remote towns I had never heard of before.
The houses looked like what I usually see in drawings of ancient times, tached houses with straws as roofing. The houses looked abandoned with some of the roofs falling apart. It was intruguing as I never thought those medieval houses would exist outside of storybooks. I remembered mum telling me that the place was a sacred land from the medieval era that had remained preserved till date.
Soon, we arrived at an odd building at what seemed to be the end of the village. It was a modern building that had seen it's fair share of life with the symbol 'Hotel' written on it. Mum parked and got us a room there. It was a small room but I didn't mind. I couldn't wait to explore the old huts after I must have rested.
I must have overslept because when I woke up, it was already dark. It was the sound of the door being closed by someone that woke me. The room was illuminated by an old lantern. I opened the door to see mum walking down the hallway. She held a lamp in her hands. I couldn't help but notice her startled look when I called out to her. She told me to get back to the room, that she had to check on an animal which she was supposed to train.
I couldn't help but trail her movements after she thought she had successfully sent me back to the room. I was curious to know what kind of animals mum trained. I followed her into a mossy pine forest behind the hotel. She stopped at a clearing and made a whistling sound as if she was calling someone or something. I became excited as I hid behind a nearby rock, finally I would see one of the animals mum trained. To my utmost surprise, a huge black animal with fiery red eyes emerged in front of her. If my eyes were not playing tricks on me, that was the exact depiction of a dragon in the drawing book mum had gifted me for my seventh birthday. It was then it dawned on me, mum was a dragon trainer and dragons were not mythical after all.
Mum must have heard me gasp because she turned towards the place I was hiding and asked, "who is there?" I couldn't help but turn and run, not like I knew my way around the forest. Something flashed in front of me and there it was, two fiery red eyes staring into my frightened eyes. I couldn't even make out mum's words for me to calm down.
This is a fictional prompt generated from servicescape prompt generator. https://www.servicescape.com/writing-prompt-generator
Little black Chick: Kookoo
Hello read.cashers. Hope you all had a nice day. Well mine wasn't all fun because I lost Kookoo today. Kookoo is a little black chick that I keep. She became an orphan when she was barely two weeks old. Her mother went out seeking for food but never came back. Kookoo became a strong chick that had a strong will for survival. I make sure to care for her in the little ways I can.
She does not like to wander into the bush, perhaps to avoid other fowls that may pick on her. She would just wander around the house for a few moment and then retire to the little house I made for me. I would say that her most lovely moments would be when I feed her. She would quack around and refuse to leave the place.
I almost lost kookoo last two weeks. I came back from work and looked around the kitchen side but didn't see her. It was her favorite place to roam about so it was surprising not to see her there. It was after I had changed my clothes and gone back to the kitchen that I found her. Fear overtook me. She was inside a bowl filled with cold water. She was already freezing from the cold, she could barely breath.
When I got her out, I wrapped her in a warm towel in hopes that it would keep her warm while I light a fire. It had rained heavily that day, and the temperature was very low. Kookoo was just a chick, so I never thought she would survive. But she proved me wrong. All it took her was three hours to move her tiny legs again. She spent the rest of the day at the fireplace.
The following day was a weekend. Before I could finish my chores, Kookoo was up and already roaming around the compound. I was happy toß see her in good health. That was the moment I realized that Kookoo meant so much to me. I began to take daily precautions to ensure that her drowning accident would not repeat itself again.
Ever since that incident, Kookoo never stays away from the fireplace. Each time she notices that the fire is burning, she would come to warm herself. I guess it is because the weather has been a bit cold recently. When the fire is not burning,she makes sure to stick around, just in case.
It wasn't until yesterday that I realized that Kookoo has been sick. When I feed her in the morning, she didn't eat much and she acted all tired with her droopy eyes. That got me worried. She stayed at the fireplace all through yesterday. I had to occasionally keep food for her there, but she still didn't eat much. So I bought some medicine which I added to her water but she wasn't willing to drink much.
This morning when I got up, I waited for her to come out so I could feed her, but she never came out. I went to her little house and discovered that my little Kookoo has left the world. She had decided to join her mother. I was heartbroken. I liked Kookoo too much and I wish she didn't have to go, but she is gone. I do not think I will ever have another chick like Kookoo again. I'll greatly miss her.
`Thanks for reading 💖`
`Fiction`
All images from Google
New to read.cash land
Hello wonderful people. My name is Sorom, a student who is trying to find her way through life. I heard about this platform from a friend @Gianna-B and so decided to give it a try. It is not going to be a bad thing if I'm able to boast of being a BCH holder. So yes I want to be able to hold at least 1BCH but I know that it won't be able to come to fruition if I do not work for it.
I've taken a day to look through the platform and see how things happen here and I must say I feel elated to learn that I can write about anything on the earth surface as long as it is not against the rules which are not hard to adhere to. Keeping to rules is a second name for me and giving contents is my specialty.
I intend to make my stay here worth the while so I'll try my best to bring in a variety of articles to make my reader's time worth it and not be a wasted effort.
I love storytelling, not just storytelling but folktales. So I intend to pump this platform that is filled with all nationalities with beautiful African folklores mostly from the animal kingdom. Turtle is my best animal folklore character. My little character would always put a beautiful smile on your faces. So do not hesitate to join me in various joirneys through the animal kingdom
Apart from stories, I love art. I specialize in pencil arts. Just a little thing I do to pass time in my leisure. I'm more into pencil art. My painting skills is pretty bad and I'm in the learning process. So I hope you wouldn't mind if I say that I would like to take you on a journey through my artworks.
I'm also a struggling Law student who doesn't know much but likes to share the little she has learnt. I promise not to be boring. Your time will be worth it .
I believe that my time here is going to change a lot of things for me as I'll be open to learn new things. Everywhere is a learning environment and I believe that learning in a place of diversity is the best. It is like a connecting point to all parts of the world. Information there is none like ever seen before. And as my mummy would say, "please suffocate me with knowledge and information".
Thanks for dropping by💖
Lead image from unsplash
@Sylv_Sylv
