The Corona Diaries Week 45 - The Horse Latitudes

Becalmed seas. No wind. Dead sails. Dry air.

That's what it feels like these days.

I hear bars and restaurants are open again (outdoor only) in LA. That sounds nice.

We are not changing our habits now. We have treated this covid lifestyle mostly the same since last March. We did do a lot more park action with Harper's friends from school last summer and into the fall, but then we pulled back as numbers started going up again. We were probably fine at the park, but why take a chance.

As mentioned last week, we bought plane tickets to Maui in July. That made me feel really good. Something really positive to look forward to and plan for. And so I made a big long list of things to do (lei making lessons, surf lessons, art camp, etc). And now we wait.

Six months of dead sails.

At Seabury Hall, my high school which I loved, I would get third quarter blues. Sometime in February when it was more than halfway through the school year, but not close enough to summer to get excited about school being done, I would get the third quarter blues. It was just a slog. Every day felt 48 hours long.

This is a slog. We have it very comfortable and it is a slog.

I'm tired of this house, of my roommates, of this neighborhood, this city. I want to rearrange all the furniture. Change all the rooms out - make the dining room the office, make the office the living room. Make the living room the bedrooms. Make the bedrooms the dining room. SOMETHING. SOMETHING TO MAKE IT DIFFERENT.

sigh.

It was a quiet week of the normal routine.

Harper finished a clay project from last week's lesson.

Found this tiny apple on my walk.

One out of the ordinary thing was going to the foam store to buy a sofa cushion for our old saggy couch. Wild times! Crazy adventures!

It was pretty chilly one day so we all snuggled in bed after school.

Then Harper and I got up and made some basic blueberry muffins.

Do you want to know how they tasted? BASIC. Thank god for butter.

It rained on Thursday night and Friday morning. That was interesting. Then it stopped and got sunny again.

Yesterday I forced everyone out of the house for a small hike at Will Rogers State Park.

It was lovely to see so far all over LA with the post rain clear skies.

Then I got to chill with cats in the afternoon.

That was the week.

So many more weeks to go.

 

 

 

The Corona Diaries Week 44 - Our Long National Nightmare Is Over*

*There is much work to do to clear a path forward from the wreckage of the last president, but damn if it isn't a great start just to have rational, responsible, smart people in charge.

Here I am, inauguration morning, under Kurt's cozy slanket, beaming about our brighter future. First it was Michelle Obama KILLING IT in her Inaug-Day outfit. Wow. Then Amanda Gorman stopping time with her poem "The Hill We Climb". Triple Wow. Oh and a woman Vice President. Oh and human beings with hearts and souls running the place now and getting right to work.

Not pictured - me weeping and clapping with joy.

Last week I got to work on helping my indoor plants. I had too many that were outgrowing their pots. I only had a little bit of dirt and I just barely made it to propagate a bunch of plants. They've been out there for a week and now I hope they are not dying from the shock of replanting...Also it was cold (in the 40s) these last few nights so that might not be good for them....!!! I'll have to move some inside.

Harper and I did some geocaching as well (with new bike helmet). It was a hot day so a water break was needed.

Then we rode past the apartment I lived in for a few years before I bought this house. (23 years ago!!!!!) This was my first really grown up place in that it was a one bedroom apartment and I lived alone. I loved this little four unit courtyard building.

We finished our Marvel Movie Marathon this week. We watched Infinity War one night and poor Harper was crying so hard! (I mean, so was I. Peter Parker turning to dust kills me every time.) Then Endgame made it mostly all better. We had the list on the fridge and some extra healthy snacks.

Cats.

I got a delayed Bday gift from my mom - this amazing coffee cake (To go with the monthly coffee subscription she also sent!). I swear the coffee cake is 150% butter. Oy! We had some and then I put half of it in the freezer.

Then another box of treats that were a xmas gift from friends in NYC. Monthly treats from various countries! This was from The Netherlands. Tasty.

My little newsgirl drew a picture for friends who just had a baby.

I love this! Cracks me up. "6 inchs"

There was avocado toast (with coffee cake chaser) for breakfast one day and a lentil soup I made for lunch yesterday. It looks kinda dull, but tastes yummy.

Then it rained a bit yesterday. Yay! As the clouds became more scattered and less rainy, we went to the beach for a lovely long walk.

Someone wrote this!

My little pot of gold.

We ended the cold day with a lovely hot bowl of pho. Perfect.

 

Here's to better things to come! I felt optimistic enough about the next six months that I bought tickets to Maui for July...fingers crossed so hard we get vaccinated by then. Harper won't be (kids won't get it for a long while) so we'll take all the precautions when we fly. I hope it works out!

 

The Corona Diaries Week 43 - Happy Birthday To Me

All of us will get a covid birthday - last week was mine. It was not crazy different than what a normal birthday might have been like. I'm pretty low key about these things. Biggest difference is we would have gone out for dinner not stayed in, of course. There might have been lunches or coffees with friends scattered throughout the week. It was a lovely day no matter what, filled with flowers and gifts and treats and sushi!

Harper and I made mini victoria sponge cakes. 

Then we got an afternoon delivery from Jacquie of an extra fancy cupcake! And in the evening another cupcake delivery from Tom! We were swimming in cake.

I got an impeachment for my birthday. That was nice.

I got other lovely gifts of coffee and comfy pajamas and a Ted Lasso t-shirt! Love that Ted Lasso...have I mentioned? Ha.

The Sunday before my bday I was feeling like a trapped tiger. So sick of being here and nothing changing. So with inspiration from Grace, I bought (read: picked up curbside) some temporary hair dye from Target and Harper and I did some fun hair coloring. Pink for me, purple for her. She wanted it only on the bottom half. Hers came out kind cool. Mine came out kinda bleh.

Oh well. It will all be gone in a few weeks. 

made some yummy food this week - homemade veggie cream cheese for the store bought bagels. It's soooo tasty! 

I made green pasta and it was super yummy! I need to up my food photography game because this image doesn't do it justice.

Savory green pancakes were a delicious and pretty damn healthy lunch! Both "green" recipes came from Jamie Oliver. I love his cooking and especially the five ingredient cookbook. 

The aforementioned popcorn for movie watching. We have continued our Marvel film festival and are almost done! I'm going to miss our movie times.

After school online classes started again and Harper wanted to take the clay class again. Can't say no to that. Who doesn't love a Uni-Bunny?

This she drew one night after we had said goodnight. Not 100% sure what the story is, but cats in high-heeled boots? I'm in.

There was also a run of wacky outfits this past week. 

Plus a classic "wear mom's clothes" moment.

After picking up our hair dye last Sunday, we stopped in a park do find a geocache and do some scooting/scootering. 

We pulled out the car seat pieces and Willoughby enjoyed that for an afternoon.

Our little Free Library is SO FULL.

Had to replace the undersink water filter - an annual event. It's not hard, just SO AWKWARD. Mundane life.

I can already feel the difference on these stairs - it's getting a little easier! I'm encouraged to keep going for more! Soon it will be multiple ups and downs, then RUNNING! 

Lastly--we had our typical LA Mid-January heat wave. So we chanced it and went to the beach. 

It was busy, but there was lots of space between beach goers and we mostly all had masks on. 

Harper making socially distanced friends. I am a chicken and hate the COLD WATER! So she had to swim on her own save for the occasional grown up she would talk to.

Harper is an excellent beach bunny. 

Onward to the inauguration week. Onward toward making tentative summer plans in anticipation of vaccines being available to us in the late spring. Harper won't be vaccinated, not sure when the kid version will be available, but I hope the country will be getting closer to herd immunity by then. Fingers crossed.

The Corona Diaries Week 42 - Feels Like 2020

The turning of a new year is symbolic, I know that. But maybe 2021 doesn't really get started until after January 20th. 

Last week was BONKERS. Attack on the US Capital by a huge trump crowd, five people died. That was crazy weird and surreal and added even more of an unbalanced feeling to the world as we know it. I think I haven't really processed all that happened because it was so unexpected and cuckoo. Like how 9/11 was mind-boggling. You couldn't wrap your head around the things you saw. Well, I couldn't quite do it last week. Idiots just streaming into the capital building? Still can't. So many failures all over the place. I hope there are some kind of consequences for the "president" and the other trumpsters in congress for inciting and encouraging what happened. 

The good news before the madness was that both senate seats in Georgia went to the democrats. The senate is now split, tie goes to VP Kamala Harris. That person, Mitch, is no longer Senate majority leader. YAY. But it will still be a challenge, but a much better challenge. So there is that to look forward to. But we have ten more days until things can really change for the better. 

Last week here in Freyland, we had a pretty chill week. I though I would be back to work, but it turned out, no. So this coming week will be busy. Last week was instead was a nice week of getting some stuff done, cleaning up/cleaning out more and then having afternoons of watching Marvel movies. Harper is now working her way through Marvel Cinematic Universe. We would close the curtains and make popcorn and watch movies. It was so lovely and relaxing. I'm going to miss it. Her school starts again on Tuesday. 

We have continued the geocaching fun, riding bikes around and searching. We found one near Harper's elementary school. Not sure why Kurt is throwing gang signs. 

Kurt and Harper also had a bike ride and found a nice tree to climb.

I worked on expanding my cooking this week. Chose things out of cookbooks instead of just online sites or food newsletters. Browsing through my cookbooks was very relaxing and inspiring. I started with the new cookbook I got as a gift from a local Maui friend. Makes my mouth drool just reading through it!

I started with pickled onions. OMG they are soooo tasty.

Then I started making local style Mac Salad and had a minor disaster. Mayo all over. Good times!

But it worked out very well in the end with shoyu chicken, mac salad and rice. Basically Plate Lunch for Dinner! Yum! (There were actual vegetables on the side.)

I made a big pot of minestrone using up lots of veggies that seem to pile up on their own in the veggie drawers.

Still loving the cafeteria trays for Harper's lunches. 

Made a chicken pot pie. Tasty, but not thick enough gravy.

Popcorn in the making - tin foil with steam vents so the popcorn doesn't get "damp". Kurt likes it classic: melted butter and salt. I like how I learned from Grace: Olive oil, nutritional yeast, and a variety of flavors in the spice rack. I like salt, onion salt and something from TJs. SO good. 

Willoughby has been coming up on my desk lately. 

And Mr. Biscuit helped count votes in Georgia.

I stood by with my new Ted Lasso themed sweatshirt. It seemed to work, but we weren't sure until the next morning. 

Mr. Biscuit also had a delayed one year doctor's visit. He did very well with all his shots and is in good health. Good Boy Biscuit!

I have a new challenge in my exercise routines. It's super challenging now to even walk up without losing my breath, but I'm inspired by RCL who tells me he runs to a set of steps and does the steps then runs home. So my goal is to do similar. So far, so good in that I am working my way up to both the running and the stair climbing. Currently they are separate work outs, but I plan on combing it next month.

Kurt used his power tools to break up the Christmas tree. 

Harper got one last gift from Christmas, a box of CANDY! Jesus. She's going to have some serious withdrawals when it's empty. 

She drew this fab picture of a cat in our window. (Tornadoes were a separate exercise.)

On Saturday Harper and drove to Ojai to visit a friend. We hung out and chatted and played Harper's favorite: Mad Libs. There was a story about "interviewing" pizza that turned out to be "suspicious." It was a jolly time.

I asked Harper to take pictures of Orange things. Here is a sample:

Then we ate pizza for lunch! (with lots of leftovers)

Of course we went geocaching to walk off lunch and also have an adventure around Ojai. We walked through a cool garden near our friend's house to find our first cache.

Harper and I found one more near the old Ojai Jail as we drove out of town. 

But the most exciting thing we found this week is that Harper is such a big girl she no longer needs her booster chair in the car! FINALLY! HOORAY! 

Her booster seats (one in each car) were from child seats that then turned into boosters. So now we can take the other booster out of our stored car as well as the rest of the chairs taking up space in our garage! Always nice to pass them along and make more space.  Another family milestone! 

Now holding my breath to see what this coming week brings...

 

TECHNICAL NOTE: Typepad has been having issues with images not loading so if you see gaps, that's not my fault...it's been frustrating.

The Corona Diaries Week 41 - Welcome 2021--PLEASE BE BETTER

In April of 2020 I was on a zoom hangout and someone asked everybody when we thought we'd be through this pandemic situation. People gave answers like "Summer" or "October." I said "2022." I'm not normally a pessimist, but even in April it seemed clear it would be a LONG time before we got back to anything like normal. Well. I mean for those of us who actually believe there is a pandemic and who stay home and wear masks. Also, the specter of the presidential election left so much up in the air at that point. 

And now? I had been thinking - I could be happily wrong and we'll get back to a kind of normal by the end of 2021. I have been so hopeful that I started thinking about where to have a winter break holiday next year. (Italy? England?). But then, with the terrible numbers in California and elsewhere, and the equally terrible news that the vaccine roll out has been SO MUCH slower than predicted or planned, it still could really be 2022. 

Sigh.

Dare I hope that with a new president in office, one who believes in science and who has a serious covid task force already working, dare I hope that vaccines will roll out quicker? All I can do is hope. 

Of course there is also the Georgia elections coming up in two days. I'm not counting any chickens. I'm barely even counting the eggs at this point. If that goes our way, then things might be a little bit easier. But we'll see. And don't you worry, I'll be texting and moderating like a mad woman tomorrow and Tuesday! Fingers crossed so hard.

This past week was extra relaxing. I promised myself I would take two hours each afternoon and just watch tv. Something I never do during the day. We only have one tv so claiming it and the couch at the same time was so nice. I did time for when Harper was in her online camp, so that helped me not to be disturbed. I watched The Durrells in Corfu. It was just what I needed - a period piece in a fabulous location, humor, drama and British accents. 

It actually rained on Monday (12/28) - full on proper storm with thunder and lightning! You might know how rare that is in LA. It was HEAVEN. Such a treat and refreshing change. Harper got to try out her new raincoat (thanks Gammo!).

Then we had cozy time on the big bed, watching it rain while listening to music and reading. Also HEAVEN.

The weather reports had shown it was supposed to rain more again this coming week. I check it just now and: 

COME ON! So disappointed. One night and one day of thunderstorms wasn't even enough to wash off the flower from April. Shaking my head.

Though our rainboots got filled. 

Moving on from my weather disappointment...

We finally put up the Christmas Banner that Harper made all the letters for! Yes, I do realize it was post Christmas. But it did make the room look even more fun and festive. 

Aaaaand yesterday we took it all down. Except the banner. Kurt and I joked it would stay up all year. Or were we joking?

There were a few late Christmas gifts - always fun to get more after the actual day!

I bought this for Kurt - it's the AFC Richmond team logo from the show (and my current obsession) Ted Lasso. 

Mr. Biscuit communed with the post Christmas day tree. 

I made no-knead olive bread last week. It was quite tasty! Also very very easy except for the WAITING 8 HOURS for it to rise and be ready to cook.

Then I made olive bread egg in a hole. YUM. 10/10 would bake this bread again.

Eating apples one day, harper noticed this one looked unusual. "It's like a cylinder." Good vocab, Harper. Well done.

Harper and I went out for our first Geocaching adventure! We found two within easy walking distance of our house. Harper was into it! 

Next time we'll bring trinkets to trade. Found a micro sized one next!

We are n00bs so we needed the hints. But as we get better, I think we'll stop needing them as much.

We went with Kurt again a few days later, this time on bikes. We had three of them in our sights but only found two. Handy to have the tall guy along!

Heading home from the treasure hunt, donuts purchased on the way as our reward.

I did some tidying and found this stationery relic:

Biscuit in a basket.

I asked Harper to help with with a birthday card for a friend who is turning ten. The front of the card had an image of a slice of rainbow cake which clearly inspired her. She said, "what does he like?" I said, "Lego and soccer." And then she remembered they have two black cats. Boom! A+ This just makes me so happy.

New Years Eve came and with very kind gifts from Tom (Shout Out!) we celebrated well with disco ball cups, party favors. Then a sushi feast! 

I started planning some dinners from cookbooks for the coming week and came across this almond orange cake recipe that sounded really easy. Starts with boiling two oranges for two hours. The boiling removes the bitterness from the peel and pith because then you puree it all. 

Then you bake it. Now. The instructions said "about an hour" which to me means, "Start checking it at an hour." But I should have started checking at 45 minutes...Oh well. It's a bit dark on the outside, but lovely on the inside. It's almost really good. But I think the oranges needed another 1/2 hour of boiling as you can still taste just a touch of bitterness. The recipe also says "Serve with whipped cream." Well. Whipped cream makes just about everything better, doesn't it?

Harper got her next Crate Expectations box and the theme was penguins. Part of the box had fake snow! So we did that yesterday.

I'm writing this on Sunday (Jan 3) as I usually do. I might have blown it off till tomorrow, but with the election texting and work (did I mention I had two weeks of work before Christmas?) starting up again, there will be no time. We are going to go geocaching again this morning, then do housecleaning. Specifically Harper's room as it is a crazy messy place after birthday and Christmas. 

Two things about Harper getting older. She still comes to our bedroom early in the mornings from time to time to climb into bed on my side. I love it and hope she never stops. Also, in the last couple of months I stopped checking on her in her room before I go to bed. Nine years of looking in on her sleeping face has kind of come to an end. If I'm going to bed pretty late, I'll peek in. But mostly not. 

Lastly, my seven plan/goals for the end of 2020 didn't end on as high note as I hoped. I did have work/income, so that's actually a very good thing. I did write about 15,000 words on my next manuscript, so that's not nothing. I finished proofing the manuscript I wrote this year and actually sent it to the kind volunteer readers. That's a good thing. I did get some good exercise in, but the lazy holiday week hasn't helped. Though I don't mind as it was a lovely week of relaxing and fun.

I have new goals for the new year and will take some time today mapping them out realistically. I need to create a plan that doesn't get derailed when/if I get paying work. Will I share it all here? Maybe. Mainly I'm doing very small, very specific goals (Lose 5 pounds in January.) and will take my time starting some of them. No need to start them all TOMORROW. That's a recipe for failure. 

2021 is going to be a lot like 2020 in many ways, but this year, there is a beacon of hope. Patience is critical, as are small steps. I paraphrase the movie Contact: "Small moves, Julia, small moves."

The Corona Diaries Week 40 - Merry Christmas

Christmas week. Often melancholy as you get older. Having young kids makes it magical again. 

This year was a combo of both, what with a raging pandemic but also with a nine year old who we think might have still believed in Santa...maybe? No matter what, she loved the magic of all the Christmas fun. She hardly mentioned the big man at all in the run up to Christmas day, but then let on that he would be filling our stockings. She did want to leave him snacks. But that was about it.

I remember being nine or ten and at Christmas I was pretty sure Santa wasn't real, but I remember feeling weird about just saying it or owning up to it. I kind of just played along and then the next year it wasn't a thing. So maybe next year it won't be a thing with Harper.

Kurt and I never really played up the Santa thing all these years. We just went along with whatever Harper said about it. I think we only ever did one photo with Santa and that was when Harper was one or two. I happened to be walking her through the mall in December and Santa and his elves were all just hanging out at their photo set up, no one else around. We popped in, did a photo and left.

My melancholy this year is, of course, pandemic lock down related. We normally do something extra or go somewhere extra - like take the train north or visit Maui. Harper has three weeks off for winter break every year, which is good and bad. Hard to just be STUCK IN THIS HOUSE. Winter break 2021/2022 is going to be EPIC.

I hope.

Damn we better be much freer by then. I doubt we'll get the vaccine until late summer at the very earliest, if not later in the fall.

Ugh. Today is Tuesday 12/29 as I write all this. I'm just in no mood for upbeat happy thoughts. I'm not trying to be fake, but I'm also not trying to be such a downer.

Let's get to the pictures. That's easy to do.

For a full day last week, Harper wore my red high heels. At one point she mentioned "My toes get squeezed in these." And I said something like "Welcome to the world of uncomfortable shoes." Honestly though, I can't remember when I last wore those!

A late birthday present arrived!

Thank you note to her teacher to go along with our digital gift.

She helped me wrap gifts for Kurt.

Kurt had a nice morning with his pride.

Mr. Biscuit is getting much more adventurous. (Click to see him on the roof!)

We did a drive around our neighborhood to look at lights. Something that is a tradition for us! I feel like we have so few.

On Christmas eve I did some socially distanced gift deliveries and stood chatting outside one friend's house. 

Kurt had his own wrapping fun.

After MONTHS of home bound life, Kurt decided to get super old school and make egg nog from scratch as well as pasta from scratch.

The egg nog tasted sort of like egg nog, but more like really rich melted ice cream. I had a couple sips and that was plenty. Glad Kurt only made a half batch. 

Harper learned about the hard work to make pasta!

It's tiring.

While we let the dough rest, we had some lovely pu-pus. (Along with Harper's dolls, wrapped in washcloth blankets.)

Then we rolled the dough and used the pasta machine to make it thin, then cut into pappardelle. 

Once cooked we realized we didn't roll it enough times (even on the thinnest setting) and we cut them too wide. But it still tasted great with a little tomato/garlic/basil sauce I whipped up. 

Harper went to bed kind of early...funny that. Leaving cheese and crackers for Santa and egg nog (TJ's, not home made). We He enjoyed it. Biscuit looked on.

The cats didn't do much to the tree itself, but damn, they could not get enough of the tree water. Constantly drinking it, then stepping over the presents.

The day itself started early with stockings on the big bed. I forced Harper to look out at the beautiful sky to the east. 

Then she got to work.

Yes the cats got gifts too.

The aftermath.

Then on to the living room for more gifst. 

One of my all time favorite gifts from 2020.

Kurt got a slanket from the cats for all his cold winter gaming nights.

Later he turned into Palpatine. Not sure what that was about. 

Harper's big gift was not a phone, but an iPod Touch. So she can listen to music. Before wrapping it, I opened it and took off a TON of stuff and disabled a ton more. Left the music app, plus garage band, and a few more. But she LOVES the weather app. It's all based on my phone (joint apple account) so she happily reads off very detailed reports from Los Angeles, Seattle, Maui, St. Albans and Lucca. It's a treat. 

Harper also got a radio from Gammo! An honest to goodness radio (with usb ports and bluetooth of course) that Harper played around with for a while. That was cool. 

More aftermath. Tennis bag also from Gammo with lots of other fun prezzies in it. 

We had cinnamon rolls and bacon and eggs after.

Then started watching Wonder Woman 1984. (meh.) Biscuit got super cute and snuggly.

From Harper's new device. And also my BEST new sweater. 

Dinner table prep.

Merry Christmas! Shout out to Sarah for the Christmas Crackers!

The menu was the exact same as Thanksgiving, down to the strawberry shortcake. I added some frozen cherries to mine. 

We were very lucky to have all we did on Christmas.

On Saturday / Boxing Day, I took Harper for a long beach walk. TONS of surfers were out. 

Can't keep a girl out of the water.

Willoughby enjoyed the slanket on Sunday, not letting Willoughby have a turn. 

It was a long busy week-I'm briefly employed-and I was so happy to be done with work on Wednesday and finally finish everything up and relax. 

What will 2021 bring? Better news, I hope. Well. We'll see how it looks after next week's run off election in Georgia. Yes of course I'm texting like a madwoman for that!

The Corona Diaries Week 40 - Busy Days

Busy busy week. I have a paying gig which was very nice in terms of money around the holidays, but then it kept me so busy that I had to pile a ton of stuff into the weekend, so the weekend was not about relaxing at all. Not complaining, just tired. And it's Monday and I'm up early to blog and meal plan two weeks of food plus holiday meals. I'm doing the shopping today (double masking and going as quick as I can - glad I know our TJ's as well as I do) so we don't need to go again for two or three weeks. The numbers are not great here in LA. (Understatement of the pandemic.)

Today I need to do more work on the paying gig, but hopefully not a ton. I'm waiting on feedback, etc. I have last minute packages I need to send via the Post Office. I know it will be busy there, but I'll try to time it for mid-morning when it tends to be not as jammed and if it is, maybe I'll go to the postal store near Whole Foods and pay a little extra. There are library books to return and one order at See's Candy waiting for pick up. Holidays are still busy no matter what, even with curbside pick ups and direct shipping.

Harper had her last week of school. It started with art class. I had the kids made half-face self portraits. Here are the ones Harper and I did. I have a couple ideas for the new year, but need to plan a bit better. It's hard to think of things you can do over zoom, that doesn't make a huge mess in the kid's homes and also doesn't require buying a lot of stuff.

Harper also had her nine year check up at the doctor's office. BONUS: No shots! BUMMER: still had to do a blood test (finger prick). We love our pediatrician - turns out he's a major Star Wars fan so every year we talk about the latest SW movie or The Mandalorian.

(Amazing to think 9 years ago she fit into that tiny scale on the window sill!)

She was rewarded with a traditional lollipop and then an evening of DRIVE THROUGH CHRISTMAS WONDERLAND!

Polar Bears

And Mr and Mrs. Claus were there to wave us out.

Harper was hoping/expecting a lot of candy, a la the Halloween thing. Alas, she had to content herself with a mini stocking and a bag of mini toys and candy. But she had a good time nonetheless! And driving while looking at lights is always a favorite activity in our house.

Friday was her last day of clay class for the year. They made winter themed things. Igloo. Polar bear. Icebergs (the blue things) and a santa hat...

...and a tiny heart with the tiniest of little santa hats.

Saturday was a busy day as expected. After being on the job all week, I had a lot to catch up on.

Harper will ask for a fried egg for breakfast sometimes and I'm happy to make it for her. But Saturday morning she was watching tv and she yelled:

MAMA! CAN YOU MAKE ME A FRIED EGG ON TOAST??

It made me laugh. So I made her a fried egg on toast and some apples and a drink and served the princess. (I love these cafeteria trays I bought earlier this year!)

Then she drew a card for our hair stylist and it's kind of hard to see, but there are scissors, a blow dryer and I think a drink with a straw and something else...the stylist came over to do more hair work for me on Saturday and we gave her a holiday gift.

But first, Harper and I made candied nuts as xmas presents. (Oh and a big pot of squash soup in the FG).

Hair time.

Harper was having a zoom with a friend so she hung out in the "waiting area" while zooming.

In process.

Finished! Nice and light for the winter.

After that, I chilled for a few minutes to watch The Mandalorian finale again. We had watched it as a family the night before, but I wanted to watch again. Such a good show!

After the relaxing, I got to work in Santa's workshop and wrapped gifts. The boxes had been piling up in the closet for a while! Most were for Kurt and Harper, a few to mail off. It always surprises me how much work it is. But it will all be worth it on Friday morning.

We received a gift that came with dry ice so off we went to see how that works in a bowl of water! (When I opened the package, I grabbed up the ice bags to take to the sink, not realizing it was dry ice. As I carried it I thought, "Wow, this is really cold-ow ow OW OW OW!" I didn't get burned but a couple spots on my fingers hurt for an hour.)

Mussels were part of what was in the dry ice box so we had them for dinner! YUM

Another package arrived earlier than expected - our big gift to ourselves. Merry Christmas to us!

And Biscuit. Sweet Biscuit having a long winters nap.


Random: Have you watched Ted Lasso on Apple TV+? I love it. I just love love love it. It's hilarious and smart and is about an optimist who does good and succeeds. Refreshing! I'm going to watch it again next week.

 

The Corona Diaries Week 39 - Christmas is coming

I'm having pandemic fatigue. More so than usual. There is good news on the horizon, but it will be what? 6 - 8 - 10 more months like this? Hard to say...I'm hoping for the best, but. But. The holidays usually are usually something to look forward, not just of themselves, but because we usually have plans to go somewhere. So we'll have as jolly a holiday as we can. If it were just me, I probably would have gotten the lights on the tree and stopped there. Decorating just doesn't feel so exciting this year at all. But as you'll see below, I made a valiant effort with Harper today. We are lucky to have all that we do.

Interestingly, Harper hasn't been talking much about Santa. Not sure if she's on the cusp of knowing or if she's been distracted by birthday. We do Stocking presents from Santa but mostly all the presents under the tree are from us or other family members. We'll see what happens on Christmas Eve, if she wants to leave milk / cookies out.

Harper got a very special gift for her Birthday that arrived the day after her actual birthday. Shout out to Courtney!!

She also got a gift card and used it to buy something she's been wanting for a while - an RC car! The car is SO DIRTY now because she's had so much fun with it outside!

I keep forgetting (I think) that I'm teaching art for Harper's class. Every Monday at 9:30 I'm in charge. I get SO STRESSED OUT. But the kids seems to enjoy our projects and I have had two moms contact me to say thanks and one even said her son was SO PROUD of the drawing he'd done. That makes me feel sooooo good! Thank god for Pinterest!

Last week we did pictures of catching snowflakes on your tongue with a different perspective of your face. PLUS a scarf and a crazy/ugly sweater. This was Harper's:

The Biscuit is very photogenic.

It's rare that I have bread, mayo, tomatoes, bacon and lettuce in the house all at the same time. But when I do. YUM.

On Tuesday we got our Christmas tree. Harper hugged a lot of trees while we were there.

And pretended to be a reindeer.

Then we found OUR tree...

And got it home.

And welcomed it inside.

Where it kept our other decorations company.

And Biscuit liked to sit near it and bond.

We let the tree rest then put lights on it a few days later, plus a few ornaments to start.

Friday was clay art and Harper made Mr. Biscuit, food and water bowl, bed and blanket and a wee mouse toy.

We think Willoughby is part dog.

We got our trees trimmed on Friday and Saturday. I didn't do proper before and afters...just this wacky one of the back area/driveway covered in branches. The office is much brighter during the day.

And it occurred to me that it hasn't really rained or stormed here since April or May. I know Harper and I drew pictures on the chimney in April, then it rained, then I asked Kurt to draw something. This picture is from this week. So that's six months at least since it's rained for REAL. UGH. I'm seriously so done with LA and it's lack of rain.

And today? Today (Sunday) Harper asked for a SPA day. So we did face masks, drank tea, painted fingernails and watched tv.

Then we finished decorating the tree. Yes, the bottom is empty because, you know. Cats.

I've had these since I was little little. They make me so happy.

I bought these a few years ago and love them too. Harper bunched them all together.

 

Only a few more weeks until the end of the year. My 7 week personal goals are kind of on track. Kind of. They got majorly slowed down by actual paying work, so while that's a bummer on one hand, income is always helpful. So I adjust and continue on.

 

The Corona Diaries Week 38 - Birthday and Holiday Prep Week

Harper turned 9 on Sunday (12/6). (I'll do a separate post on that pandemic adventure.)

Here she is 8 years ago on her very first birthday and again, same wagon, same spot in the yard, turning 9.

Leading up to this big day, we had a week of just getting by, prepping for the party and the holidays to follow, but all pretty low key. I did have an emotional up and down. I was feeling soooooo good about the future! A reasonable chance at better government, vaccine within shouting distance. I got EXCITED! Then I remembered, that everything would be the same (or worse because, you know, stupid people and rising covid numbers, UGH.) for months and months and months and months. Truly, nothing will really change until summer 2021, earliest. Like a little kid, I gobbled down all that sweet sweet sugar of hope and then crashed hard. I'm making my way back from that.

The normal things of the week:

Biscuit. He roams around outside now, having learned to actually climb fences in both directions. (Into our neighbor's yard and out of our neighbor's yard.) Sometimes I'll walk out the front door and find him there, just flopping around, chillin'.

Harper wrote about Thanksgiving for school. (Please click for bigger and enjoy the read). I asked where Kurt was in this picture and she said she just couldn't fit him in. Sorry Kurt.

Also, music is a big thing in Harper's life. Her current faves are Shaed and Little Mix. Little does she know that her big christmas present this year is an iPod Touch so she can listen to music on her own. Currently, she has to borrow my phone or the iPad. Kurt and I were talking about "back in the old days" when we were kids, we had a record player and/or a radio to listen to. But now you have to buy a device that can also do a zillion other things. (okay I could have bought a more basic mp3 player, but for a hundred other reasons, we didn't, mainly ease of use for listening in our Apple account.) Before she really starts using it, I'm going to remove a few apps first. I'm sure it won't take her long to figure out how to download everything, but that's what parental passwords are for!

More art from Harper.

Holiday themed:

Speaking of Holidays - we usually don't get a tree until after Harper's birthday so we did a lot of inside decorating (as previously mentioned). Got the traditional Trader Joe's advent calendar for us and for the cats (thanks Tom!). After the third or fourth chocolate, Harper declared the chocolate "not that great. The chocolate coins are better. Can I have another one of those?"

Harper made her banner letters, but we have yet to put them up on a string and hang them over the mantle.

Added one more string around our Little Free Library.

Monthly Cratejoy box arrived from GammaJane. Harper raced through the book!

Have you changed out your air filters lately? This was five months of dust/dirt/cat hair!! Yowza.

Special surprise breakfast! #lucky

Our neighbors pulled up with this behind their Jeep and I leaped outside, mask on, to look at it. I love these little trailer campers - this one has a bathroom! It is soooo nice. As you may recall, we are not great at camping, so something like this might be way more fun. But that's a big ask from Santa, so we'll keep dreaming.

The week ended like this on Sunday night after all the pandemic birthday fun - wholesome family evening. Yes, Harper is eating pumpkin pie and finishing her cheeseburger all at the same time.

PS: I won the game of LIFE.

 

 

 

 

The Corona Diaries Week 37 - Thankful

I'm pretty sure Harper was thankful for Thanksgiving week being a week off from school. And that she got to watch a LOT of TV.

Thanksgiving week for me was busy with creative projects, cleaning out nooks and crannies, pulling out Christmas lights and going through Harper's clothes. I have put off buying new clothes for her as long as possible. It's not like she is going out with hole-y, extra worn out and ill-fitting clothes, so I left it as long as possible. She'll put something on and I have to keep from laughing as the shirt or leggings will be so snug. Same goes for shoes. And with birthday/christmas coming, we can kill two birds with one stone on the new clothes front.

I'm thankful for many things and to celebrate all that we are grateful for, we had a tiny little dinner on Thanksgiving. None of us care what we eat and Turkey is never high on the list so we had steak, mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, broccoli and brussels sprouts. I also made cranberry sauce/relish, but mostly to show Harper what cranberries actually look and taste like.

Harper decorated the table.

I got the berries going, simmering them down with water and sugar....

....and not paying enough attention! Sticky mess. Oy.

Harper peeled potatoes.

I have become quite adept at making excellent steak in the cast iron pan! Then I made gravy in the same pan. Yum.

Harper continued decorating.

And we sat down and had a feast!

Dessert was a three way compromise for Strawberry Shortcake. It was yummy!

Then we watched a bunch of Wallace and Gromit.

Friday morning I went for a mammogram. Good times! The technicians were very nice, and quick which is the best compliment to pay when having one's bosom squashed.

On Friday, we also put up lights in the tree and on the house. We don't always do it so early but this year I needed it.We went out in the chilly evening air to admire our handiwork.

We won't get a tree for another few weeks - that will always be after Harper's Birthday! Plus we get a real tree and like to keep it somewhat fresh.

Harper asked me to watch a show about Christmas decoration make-overs. She seemed obsessed. So I asked her to draw a picture of how she'd like to decorate our living room. She obliged! And it's really cool regarding perspective. The key things are to create the Merry Christmas banner and to have garland over the mantle. There will also be a tray with faux candles and other decorations on the coffee table.

Harper also like to send us messages and Post-Its are her main medium.

She also loves to decorate envelopes when sending letters to Gammo. This one was extra funny as Mr. Biscuit had chewed a corner of the card off so Harper had to explain it.

Trader Joe's has my favorite seasonal tea back in stock. Yay! (It's the little things.)

Trader Joe's also had this "decorate the cookies" kit. So Harper and I had at it. But um. Can not recommend. It all tasted kinda yucky. Oh well! Live and learn...

This was the pile of clothes that we sorted through in Harper's room. So nice to have younger twin girls who live a block away to hand-me-down to!

And ever the cats. Mr. Biscuit will not be kept from his wooden bowl, no matter where it ends up.

Still enjoying the laps.

Caught them just hanging out, no yelling, no swatting. Just chillin.

And that was the week. I kept working on my Seven Weeks projects and made some positive headway on about 60% of it. Five more weeks to go...