A short story

This kid loves trees. And fresh air. If anything is ever ailing him - I can just send him outside and he comes back happier than a pig in shit. True story.

This afternoon, after a lazy morning of waffles, books, puzzles, and screens - we decided to go for a walk on the campus near our house. There are rarely people there because of our quasi-lockdown status.

We found a cool tree for Bennett to climb and while he was exploring being an arborist, Brian and I noticed some very large, very cool birds flying above a nearby building. While we were admiring their flight, a campus police car drove up. I nodded at him as he rolled his window down and stopped nearby.

He said, 'Can you ask them to come down?'

I replied without thinking, 'The birds?'

The officer was not amused. 'No. The kid that you have with you.' When I gave him a puzzled look, he replied, 'They might fall out.'

Okay. Fine. I appreciate the fact that this officer used gender neutral language when speaking of my long haired fella. But he was really high up in that tree. Even if he did fall - he would have been tangled in branches and wouldn't have fallen far.

To reward our adventurous son for following the campus police officer's orders, we went for a very muddy walk through the creek that runs along the edge of campus. It was a very messy day full of smiles and laughter.

April Fools'

Not.

I woke up today hoping that this was a big joke. Not really. But after reflecting on how things are going/have been going in our house the last few weeks, I am starting to re-prioritize. And I think the focus is going to be on just making it through this with my sanity in place.

Fun with post it notes earlier this week.
I was supposed to be working.

Want to know how it's going? Let's review the goals I set for myself a week or two ago . . .

1. Two hours of dedicated work time every day so that I can stay on top of my teaching. That's reasonable, right? The College is paying me for 12 contact hours per week. Two hours per day, six days a week is manageable while I run the household and "teach" my kid, right? Um - I have lost count of how many times I've been interrupted during those two hours I blocked out for myself. Either by another person or by the freaking internet crapping out on me. And also - my students don't seem to have chosen the same two hours as me to work each day - and neither have my colleagues. How wacky that they want to work on their own schedules?? Lesson learned - the work will get done. Maybe it's in a six hour block on a Saturday. That's why there are seven days in a week.

Follow the rules, folks. Back up.

2. Healthy meals planned out in advance, using the ingredients that we have on hand because I was a good girl and waited in line for an hour at the grocery store right before the bottom fell out of this ride. I went to the grocery store yesterday to pick up a rotisserie chicken (because I don't own a rotisserie, and the chicken I had was frozen and wouldn't thaw in time for me to cook it for dinner, but chicken was on the menu so I couldn't deviate) and some lettuce (because we always have a salad with the rotisserie chicken and that's what I needed to feel "normal" yesterday). I ended up spending $230 on other things that we will definitely eat, but really didn't need. My stockpile is FINE now - stop buying groceries. Dinner was delicious though. Everyone except the kid thought so. He ate the peas out of sugar snap peas, a carrot stick, and three pieces of bread. He is not a toddler. He just doesn't feel well. Lesson learned - we will not starve. It doesn't matter if we eat nachos for dinner a couple times a week. How fortunate are we that we can eat nachos twice a week if we want/need to.

He made it to the top. And back down.

3. I'm a teacher - so "homeschooling" will be a breeze! I don't even know where to start with this one. And I think I need to quit comparing myself to others over this topic. I can't get mine to create a to do list and stick to it. I can't get mine to sit still. I can't teach mine. BUT - he will sit and read a book from start to finish in one sitting (is it the one the school require? No. But he's reading.). He can talk logic puzzles with my husband for hours. He does math conversions for recipes in his head quickly. He gets jokes in movies that many adults labor over. He thinks the fitness challenges set forth by the school are dumb. But he'll go for a walk with me for an hour without complaint. He'll climb trees for as many hours as we'll let him. Lesson learned - it's okay if he doesn't learn the periodic table this year. He's only in grade 5 . . . his future is plenty bright. It. Will. All. Be. Okay. Chill the F out about his schoolwork. He wants to be a police officer, not a chemist, so he doesn't even need to know the periodic table, honestly.

This was the line at the grocery store when I did my
curbside pickup last week. At 4 pm.

4. We will wake up and be ready for the day by 8 and have reasonable bedtimes after following my "structure" for the day which is two hour blocks for work or play with an hour for lunch. Ha! I mean, we're generally following that structure, but the oldest one is still asleep and the youngest one just got up. I've been up since 7:30 with my face in a screen. The carcass from last night's chicken is still in the crock pot (I had to heat it up because I went to the grocery store at 9am - which is a genius plan by the way because there was no line snaked around the building and everyone working was pleasant. I highly recommend the early grocery trip if you must go. If you don't need to go - please stay home.) Lesson learned - be okay with mediocre. You're not a hoarder, your house is generally clean. It's okay if you left a carcass out overnight. It can go in the garbage today. After your coffee.

Read this last week.
It's true - the sun came out today.

5. We will follow the rules about staying home and keep ourselves and everyone else healthy. We have done just that. Other than my solo trips out to the grocery store, we are generally staying inside. We go for long family walks, sometimes two, each day. But we still got touched by sickness. The youngest one has had a cough for the last two weeks and a headache for three. We're assuming it's the virus and treating it as such, on the recommendation of our family doc. I don't want to use up a test that could be used on someone else, and we don't want to take up the time of our health care workers who were stressed out before this all started. Lesson learned - everyone is at risk and it's not your fault. No one is perfect and your kid isn't likely to die. So let go of the little things that are niggling at your brain. Take advantage of the time you have to read and do a puzzle and really talk with your husband. Let your kid snuggle a little longer than is comfortable (he has VERY pointy joints!) because he's ten already and there is an end to this soon. There will come a time when he doesn't lean in for a hug fifty gagillion times a day.

Enjoy the morning coffee, kiss your husband (on the cheek, and then wash your face), and practice relaxing. Your neck and shoulders will appreciate it. And that's no joke.

Meal Prep during Social Distancing

First off - I think it's important to note the difference between quarantine, self-isolation, and social distancing (or physical distancing, as I'd prefer to call it). We're not in quarantine or self-isolation yet, I thought. After more reflection, though, unrealized that we are totally self-isolating.

We don't randomly go out into public places. We keep close to home. We're working from home - which is likely harder for Brian than for me since I've taught entire terms using online delivery before. And we're eating at home way more frequently than usual. (Every meal since lunch last Thursday(?) has been cooked or pulled out of the fridge by me.)

Sidebar: A few years ago, when Brian and I started getting really serious about eliminating our consumer debt (we know we'll carry a mortgage for a long while), we took a hard look at where our money was going. For us - it was mostly to food that we consumed away from home. Eating out was our entertainment. We don't have cable, we don't subscribe to movie channels, we don't have season tickets to anything, we don't go to the movies, we don't buy more clothes than we can wear . . . but we LIKE eating out.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to cook. But when I started going to school (again!) and then was working, eating out was more convenient. Still is. Especially because we like such a wide variety of cuisines and I can't afford to keep all of those ingredients fresh in my kitchen all the time. Also, I don't yet know how to make sushi.

Anyway . . . I'm familiar with how to meal plan, but I got way better at it when we started reading about how to eliminate our debt. I decided to go to the grocery store once a week and only buy what we would actually eat that week. After I got good at that, I started stockpiling things that we would definitely eat, that were also on sale that week. In our old house, we had a deep freeze chest, so I could stock up on frozen veggies and meats that were a good deal.

Flash forward to March 2020. COVID-19 means that groceries are limited, restaurants are closed, and Blythe has to get back to serious meal planning and online grocery shopping for items that may not even be available. Deep breath, we can do this!

Mom and I spent some time when she was visiting taking inventory of what was in my cabinets, fridge, and freezer. Then, we figured out what I could make using those ingredients. That list was pretty comprehensive! Six cans of tuna, two pounds of ground beef, shelled frozen edamame, cayenne, and pasta noodles? I can work with that!

Four pages of 'ingredients'

I made a grocery list to round things out, and then I made a plan for dinners for a month. Lunches will be a variety of sandwiches and leftovers. I also like to have cheese and crackers or a spoon of peanut butter for lunch, so that's easy. We were already sending lunch to school with Bennett and Brian and I usually ate leftovers for lunch at work . . . it's just the planning has to be more deliberate what with the uncertainty of the stock in the grocery stores. And having to wait a full week before I can pick up said groceries!

Possible meals from. What we had in stock

A month of dinners

What's on your list of weekly meals? I'm always looking for inspiration. I prefer things that don't have hours of prep, since I'm a working mama, and meals that are easy to substitute certain ingredients (we have a couple of sensitivities over here . . .). Hit me with your favorites! I'm all ears (oooh - can't wait until corn is in season!)

Modern-day Playdates

For the last few days, Bennett has been playing Splatoon while Facetiming a buddy of his who is also playing Splatoon. They're hilarious to watch and listen to together.

I love that he's getting social time while respecting social distancing.

Splatoon/FaceTime playdate

Nailed it!

We made muffins for breakfast this morning and Bennett was getting a little twitchy about wanting to start his morning screen time while they were cooking.

I said no.

He was displeased.

Then I had a "genius" thought - distract him with homeschooling!!

So I called him over to the oven. We did some fractions (if the oven is currently 300 but it needs to be 400, how much of the temp is left to be raised? 1/4th). Then we did some estimating (if the oven has been on for six minutes, and already raised 300 degrees, how long will it take to get to the desired temp?). And then he walked laps while waiting (p.e.). It took seventeen laps around our main floor, 864 steps, and a gagillion despondent looks from my tweenager, in case you were wondering.

We also covered home ec (mixing muffin batter), forensics (arguing for more screen time), science (measuring water and learning about the meniscus), vocabulary ('meniscus'), and gastronomy (eating).

Allman House of Learning for Children Who Don't Want to Learn has closed for the day as the learning objectives were met.

The time is now 9:15 a.m. Nailed it!!

At least the muffins were tasty!

Self-isolation Day 6

Today was a pretty good day! Although I feel like I should make notes as the day progresses, because it feels like this journal is going to get pretty boring unless I start embellishing like I did when I was in junior high.

You ever go back and read your old journals? Oh no? You didn't keep every thing from your formative years? I have an entire box of just journals. Another one of calendars from college to present day . . . but I digress!

The point is that the days are starting to resemble each other very strongly.

And it's only Wednesday.

In today's adventures . . . I made chili. I tried to find chicken at the grocery stores to marinate and freeze (didn't get to do it yesterday as planned because my grocery order had no chicken in it). There was none to be found. Except for a rotisserie chicken. We bought it and will eat it for dinner tomorrow.

While Bennett was having his morning screen time (we held him off until 9am), I got to focus on some work. For my paid job. I'm teaching now at Fanshawe, in the same program that I earned a degree from four years ago. We're turning all of our courses into online courses next week, so I needed to shift some things around.

Then, I spent a little while putting the finishing touches on my spring mantel. I got into seasonal decorating when we moved into this house nearly two years ago because it has a lovely fireplace in the front room with a really nice blank wall behind the mantel. Rather than decorate for holidays, I change the look four times a year to match the season. Behold - spring (a little earlier . . .)

A little burst of spring before the actual flowers bloom

The floor is part of the mantel, too, right?

And then we ventured out to get drano, some chicken (still failed), wine and gin (success!) and pick up lunch while we still can. Mom and Bennett stayed in the car most of the time and I ran in and out of spots as quickly as possible. I kept my mouth clenched shut and wrapped my hands in my sleeves before touching anything.

These floors have NEVER been this clean!

Happy to oblige! Thanks for the lunch.

After lunch, more screen time for the boy while I filed our taxes. Then, we went on another nature hike. I'm loving these walks with my favorite kid. He's so chill and willing to chat with me! I don't even really remember what we talked about - but it was so nice. No snarling, no sass, just me and my boy in the woods. Of course, we also took the laser tag gear and had a fun time. Then, a game of follow the leader on the way home.

Lots of leaping off logs . . .

Always finding "treasures" on our walks!

And some cool nature finds for me. Slowing down makes my eyes work really well, it seems!

Mushrooms or bark?

Dragon or broken tree?

After our walk, I forced quiet reading time - mama needs a break, dude! And then we ordered dinner out from our new fave spot, Mint Leaves Indian Kitchen. I was the only person in the front of the house when I went to pick up. I know that we're supposed to be sticking close to home, but this place is only one year old and I also think it's important to support small businesses while we still can. I would hate to see this place close. So buy local, then go home!!

After dinner where we all overate, we watched the 21st and 22nd hours of the first season of 24. Bennett is loving this show. I love sharing "grown up" things with him. What old school t.v. show or movies do you think we should tackle next?

Wedding Weirdness

Another post found in the "drafts" section that I just had to post. This was originally written in August 2012. I'd almost forgotten about this event - but reading this recounting brings it all back to me. Vividly, and deliciously . . . bon appetit! Sidebar - how are so many of my old posts just set to draft? But also . . . there's a comment from my brother.  I clearly had no idea what I was doing back then. But don't worry - I'll keep posting the gems. It just means this blog is a true reflection of my life - zero continuity!

FRenchMexI've been to several weddings - most of the really awesome. You could absolutely feel the personality of the bride and groom at a couple of them. One of the more memorable weddings was in Portland, OR, for one of my college roommates. She was married in a Japanese Garden by a friend of hers who became ordained online and if memory serves, she wore some shade of red. She glowed and her vows were perfectly representative.

Another, recent wedding, was also very memorable because, once again, the ceremony, reception and after party were exactly what I would have expected from my friend Susan. The entire affair was very organized and picture perfect, but wasn't in any way pretentious or contrived. I felt genuine love and warmth surrounding Susan and her husband while we were with them.

Last night - whole 'nother story. Brian works in a science lab at a large university. One of the PhD candidates who comes to their lab to collaborate on some projects is actually a student at McMaster University near Toronto, Ontario. We were invited to attend this fella's wedding over the weekend. We were excited about an evening without Bennett to eat good food, enjoy some good music and maybe even dance a little. The idea of an open bar wasn't so shabby either!

We weren't able to make it to the ceremony, but were right on time for the reception, which was held at the Mississauga Convention Center. (Sidebar - there were FOUR receptions happening simultaneously and you wouldn't have known it without venturing into the hall and seeing four different decor themes.) We met another student from Brian's lab and his date in the cocktail venue and commenced to chatting. About an hour and a half later, the bride and groom set up a receiving line with their parents (I'd never seen a receiving line at the beginning of a reception, I thought they occurred at the end of the ceremony as guests were leaving - but what do I know?) outside the entrance to the ballroom. We spoke pleasantly with the parents of the groom and then the parents of the bride who were so happy that we had joined them, despite the fact that they had NO idea who we were! Then it was time to shake hands with and exchange some good wishes with the happy couple.

Bride was quite honestly shooting daggers out her eyes at us. As if we were wedding crashers and how DARE we show up at her event??? Her husband introduced us and reminded her that we'd met at a lab Christmas party a year ago. Her response was a very curt, "briefly". I was totally taken aback. Seriously - what do you expect when you invite THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY people to your wedding. That's right, one, two, THREE HUNDRED EIGHTY!!!!. Holy shitballs. That is a lot of people. Don't worry - the weird part is coming.

We went in to the ballroom, but were stopped by a man in a suit who wanted to know if we knew where we were sitting. In my head, I replied, "Hopefully in a chair." But I decided to keep my mouth shut and let him check his "chart" to see where we were. I'm surprised there were no place cards since this was such a hoity toity affair. But again, what do I know? We were at Table 14 with the lab mates and some other science-y people that Brian knew vaguely. There were four other people at our table, but the music and DJ Jazzy Jazz were too loud to really speak to them. Plus, two of the ladies were fasting, so weren't able to sit at the table until sundown. See - the weird is starting . . . this bride didn't take her guests needs into consideration. But why would you and how could you with that many of said guests?

It got really weird when the food started. Let me back up a bit. We received the invitation a couple of months ago. Groom brought it to the lab when he came down to work one week. It was a lovely navy invitation, but I was immediately struck that there was no response card - just four phone numbers to call or text your RSVP too. Sure, that's very 'now' but not so formal. Also - there was no way to indicate what kind of food the guests would have chosen. I immediately figured that this meant there would be a dinner buffet. No problem with that - I've been to several weddings that fed their guests this way. It's an excellent way to satisfy many different palates. Also, I had no idea how many people would be attending. I was wrong.

When we sat down - we saw an oppulently set table: three forks, two knives, three spoons (two above, one to the right of the plate), three glasses (water, wine and champagne), a bread plate and three other plates stacked one on top of the other. Plus - there was a coffee cup and saucer for each setting. It was quite a squeeze to seat ten people and I'm terribly surprised that the tables didn't collapse under the weight! Anyway - clearly, this was not a buffet dinner.

Shortly before we were seated for dinner, the groom made an announcement: "Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for joining us. We just wanted to alert you to the fact that at 11:00pm there will be a seafood buffet and a Sweets Bar. So don't worry, this isn't the only food." What the? Were they only teasing us with all these plates and cutlery? I was so confused, I asked Brian to get me a drink. He was more than happy to oblige once he learned the bar was making Caesars!

First course: seafood bisque served over a puff pastry. A dinner sized portion for me. I ate two-thirds of this delicious treat! The server asked if we wanted seconds and I politely declined, figuring there would be at least one more course.
Second course: cream of asparagus soup. A BOWL, not a cup. Again - ate most of it because a) it was very yummy and 2) asparagus is my favorite vegetable. I could have eaten the second bowl I was offered, but again, declined with my manners still in tact.
Third course: fried fish (about 8 oz), dirty rice with olives and capers and a large salad for the table to share. I ate every bite thinking that this was the meat and I should fill up. Really? You're offering me seconds?? No thanks. I'm saving room for that delicious looking wedding cake I see over there. And also, someone mentioned a seafood buffet and sweets bar - I'm saving room in my appendix.
Fourth course: I thought maybe a palate cleanser to prep for the cake. Nopes! Filet Mignon (6oz?) AND Chicken a la something or other. Holy Mother of Gluttony! I didn't even know how to decline the course at all, even though I only ate one tiny little sliver of chicken trying to be polite. I was about to bust out of my dress but was still holding out for wedding cake. There's always room for wedding cake.

After this course, all the plates and most of the cutlery were gone. Thank the heavens above. I thought we'd get a little dancing in before enjoying the CAKE. And sweets bar. And seafood buffet - yum! Wrong.

Fifth course: (you've got to be kidding me) was DESSERT! I don't know for sure, but it tasted like Tiramisu flavored mousse on top of a very dense cookie cake. At least the size of my fist. I ate every last bit of it. Don't ask me why or how, but I did.

Fifteen minutes and six lousy toasts later, the bride and groom danced their first dance (horrible) and we high tailed it outta there. I didn't get cake or sweets bar. But honestly, I was going to fall asleep at the table if we didn't leave. I haven't felt a food coma like that coming on in I don't even know how long.

(Also - there were more weird parts, but the food was by far the weirdest.)

Note to future brides - don't try to one-up your girlfriends when it comes to food. No one person needs to eat that much.

** The lab mate's date declined the filet for course four and the server tried to replace it with a SECOND chicken breast. Also - I thought for a brief minute that maybe the bride and groom were trying to honor their cultures and that was why they didn't provide a menu - they would surprise us with yummy Polish and Vietnamese treasures. Wouldn't that have been fun and tasty? Yes. But no - they did not and that disappointed me.