Good, healthy yogurt

Interesting experience today with my yogurt making. Opted to try using the oven as an incubator -- turned it to a point where it didn't feel too hot. I don't have an oven thermometer, and for some reason my instant-read was not reading the oven air temp at a number that seemed right. It normally reads air temp just fine, but I felt it was too cool, so I used my hand as a judge. The oven was turned off, of course, but it holds its temp for a fair while after being turned off, so I thought it'd be ok.

Fast forward, a friend arrived for a visit so it was a couple of hours before I got back to check the yogurt. Put the instant-read into the mixture in the jar, to get an accurate reading, and it showed around 124, which is way too hot (supposedly). The max is supposed to be 115, and that's what it was when I put it into the jars. I panicked, took it out, brought it downstairs and into the un-preheated cooler, quite certain that I'd killed all the culture bacteria. Tried it in a bit, and it was down to 116. At that point I stuck a thick sweatshirt that was just out of the dryer into the cooler, atop the jars, sealed it back up.

After a little over 3 hours, curiosity led me to test it again, and lo and behold it had gone successfully from liquid to thick, creamy yogurt! I was stunned, and it's a good thing to learn, so I don't have to be so darned worried about that 115 max. I keep learning, and that's what makes it fun. Not to mention the good, healthy yogurt that goes into my fridge.

Only 4 hours sleep last night. Slept like the proverbial log from 10pm-2am, then my roomie walked around in the kitchen just long enough to get the old anxiety going, and I couldn't go back to sleep. Tired, too, from a good hour-long hilly hike yesterday. Sure wish I knew what to do about this -- I try to just accept, not get mad or anything, and I'm fine with all that. But I can't control the anxiety, and that's what's doing the damage.

Ah, well.