Pandemic Luxury

The past couple of months have brought to my attention some of the things I would like to have in place in our household for future emergencies. I feel like the pandemic and the earthquake gave us just enough of a taste for what we would need during a disaster or emergency without completely devastating us.

There have been a lot of things that have served us well - for example, some of the earthquake proofing measures we took several years ago were very effective back in March. Fortunately, the earthquake was on the smaller scale. The only damage we had were a few things falling over and our water heater going out. There are other things that could have gone awry. If our earthquake had been bigger, and our water supply had been affected, I definitely would have been kicking myself for not having our water barrels filled (we had just relocated them and had to drain them to do so. Day after day I kept thinking, "We need to fill our water barrels." But when you've needed them NEVER, it's easy to keep procrastinating). Immediately after the first earthquake and the subsequent aftershocks settled, we went outside and filled up our water barrels. We ended up not needing them, but it reminded me that we could need them someday (I confess, I hated that we might need water after an earthquake and that all of the pandemic water bottle hoarders would then be validated!)

I've been reminded of how quickly one's financial situation can change and how scarce resources can become. I had a thought early on that I should really write it all down - because there were things that kept coming to mind in terms of, "If I'm ever in a situation like this again, I would like to have this, this, and this in place." Of course, I didn't write any of it down - because why would I forget? Yeah... I forgot. The only things I can remember of dire importance are 1) a water supply and 2) a six-month financial reserve - even if I'm only able to contribute $10 a month toward it. I don't like thinking about future emergencies because, somehow, that makes me feel like I'm willing them to happen. But I think it's wise to prepare.

Even though I can't recall all of the emergency essentials I want to implement for the future, I have been very aware of some of the more frivolous things I've had available to me during the pandemic and earthquakes that I've been very grateful for! I have to admit, in all of the anxiety-ridden imaginings I've had of disasters and turmoil throughout my life, this scenario was never one of them - the one where we are hit with a world-wide pandemic, and we have to homeschool our children. If this scenario takes place again (and it might, as we know), here are some of the more luxurious things I hope I'll have on hand again:

A Bosch Mixer

I bought a Bosch on Black Friday. I'd always wanted one but couldn't quite justify the expense since I owned a working Kitchen Aid (that I got for free), and I don't bake all that often. I finally decided to just go for it! Then I had Bosch guilt because I spent lots of money on a mixer that I rarely used. That all changed in March. Baking became one of my coping mechanisms. I also have to be thankful that I bought some flour and yeast right before COVID went wild. I remember seeing big two-packs of yeast at Sam's Club and thinking, "I'll never use all that yeast before it goes bad, but it's so cheap!" as I loaded it in my cart.

A Roll of Butcher Paper

I never would have known that a roll of butcher paper was a necessity for a pandemic, but I tell you what! Our butcher paper saved us. We used it for all sorts of signs and celebrations. One of the first things we used it for was to make a happy birthday banner for our teenage neighbor. Then we had grandma's birthday and neighborhood scavenger hunts and graduations and the list goes on... We needed a lot of butcher paper.

A Whiteboard

As soon as they announced that school was closing, I bought a whiteboard. I knew that having my kids do school from home would mean being asked a thousand questions a day, and I felt like I needed to have an information center to keep things organized. Seventy-six days later, the whiteboard is just a regular fixture in our day.

Chickens

I love having chickens, but over the past couple of years, I've gotten tired of taking care of them. Pre-pandemic, we were toying with the idea of getting rid of them and being done with animals altogether. Our rabbits are gone, the parakeet finally died, and all we have left are chickens.

For a while, it was hard to get eggs from the store, and I was so grateful that we had our chickens! It renewed my love for them. Not just because they provide food, but also because there is something comforting about sitting outside while the chickens roam the yard in the evening. It feels homey and relaxing, and we really needed that feeling of, "Everything is fine because there are chickens!"

Spring Clamps

We keep a box of clamps around the house for the kids to use to build forts (we stock up regularly at Harbor Freight - they are so handy). I can't even tell you how many forts the kids have built over the past ten weeks. They build them inside and outside. They've slept in them. They've done school in them. They've taken shelter from the rain in them.

All hail the clamps! A pandemic must-have!

The Garage Recliner

(Alternatively called the "driveway recliner" depending on its location).

You all know I love my recliner. Many a pandemic day, when I've been so mentally and physically exhausted that I don't know how I'll keep going, I end up in my driveway recliner while my kids do sidewalk chalk or ride bikes. In the thick of the stay at home order for Salt Lake County, sitting out in my chair gave me the chance see humans - even if they were just in their cars waving. I was always so happy to see other people. It became one of my favorite things to do - just sit outside and watch for people.

The Garden

Other than a few cilantro leaves, we haven't harvested anything from our garden yet this season, but I've been so glad to have it in progress. The garden has served multiple purposes for me this season. For one, it gave me a sense of accomplishment. Prepping the boxes, planting the seeds, and having them grow has been really satisfying. Eventually there will be the reward of food! At the beginning of the pandemic, when so many food items were scarce, I had legit concerns that fresh produce might not be available at some point. It wouldn't take a big thing to prevent trucks from being able to make their deliveries. I knew if we got to that point, garden seeds would be the next thing people started hoarding, so I bought the seeds we needed for our own garden just so they'd be available to plant when the time came. We planted our early crops right away and then planted the rest in late April (which is still kind of early for Utah planting season, but we took our chances because the weather was especially good at the time).

I'm very glad that we've been able to maintain our food resources and that most of the things that were scarce two months ago are available now. But I'm also glad that we have the space in our yard and the know-how to grow a few things just in case.

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Some other things I've been really thankful to have are miscellaneous arts and crafts supplies, board games and puzzles, access to digital libraries (Overdrive, Audible, Deseret Bookshelf Plus, Kindle, etc), jump ropes, a fire pit, a sandbox, birdhouses, Otter Pops, grocery pick-up, and a box of chicken costumes.

The one thing I wish I had but couldn't get... a bidet. I will buy a bidet before the next emergency.

I haven't had soda in 127 days (and ten other random facts)

Fact #1: Here's a little project from last week:

I refinished this cupboard for my mother-in-law for her birthday. 

Fact #2: Putting the WILD backdrop out in my driveway last week was a success. Several people stopped by to take photos, and it was nice to have it used. On Friday afternoon, a wind storm came through and took it down. The wood sign blew into the backdrop and tore holes in it. I probably could have repaired it, but it was too windy to put it back out.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Fact #3: My brother-in-law was on his way to our house when the backdrop blew over, so we took his photos with the rubble in our garage. 

Straight outta Pinterest!

Fact #4: Last week I put on make-up for book club (we met in-person, socially distant in my backyard). I've pretty much forgotten how to do hair and make-up. I mean, I wasn't good at it to begin with, but now it's really bad. 

Fact #5: Right before COVID, I bought a box of shatter-proof glasses from Sam's Club. I break glasses ALL THE TIME. I either drop them or drop things on them while they are in the sink. I'm always throwing out broken glass. With my new purchase, I got rid of most of our glass, but I kept six little glass cups that I love. 

The other day, I bumped one of the little glasses while I was putting dishes away, and it shattered everywhere. It was the messiest break I've ever caused (and I've caused a lot of glass breaks). It exploded into tiny shards that shot everywhere. The pieces were so itty bitty that they embedded in my counter, and I had a really hard time cleaning them up. They were also under all of my appliances, and several shards went into my flip flop, cutting up my foot. 

The next day, I grabbed a paper towel, and felt something sharp. I looked down and discovered that glass shards were embedded all over in the paper towels, and one had gone into my hand. 

Fact #6: Several weeks ago, I pulled out some old ice trays and froze a bunch of my kids tiny toys (shopkins, lego minifigures, marbles, hatchimals, etc) in water and made them experiment to find the best way to thaw them. My kids were very intrigued by the ice cube trays, as they have never seen such a thing! Instead of thinking of them as an old, out-dated way to make ice, my kids thought they were an awesome new thing! Daisy has since taken up the art of making "home-made ice" (as she calls it). It cracks me up!

Fact #7: Over the weekend, Nicky got out Scotty's and my old video cameras (we each had one while Scotty was on his mission, and we would send each other videos in the mail). There was so much to explain, like how you have to have a tape to record a video. Also the concepts of rewinding and fast-forwarding. We had VHS tapes when Nicky and Daisy were little, but they don't remember them very well, so they were blown away by how long it takes to rewind a tape. 

Fact #8: We found a tape with footage from when Nicky was a toddler. I was worried it would be sad to see Little Nicky, but the video reminded me of how hard Nicky was as a toddler. I've often wondered if I was just young and stupid and have a tainted memory of what it was like to parent a young Nicky, but no! I saw it on video, and I remembered, and it was LEGIT! At age three, he was really tough. 

Fact #9: Speaking of Nicky, he's now officially taller than me! I am 5'7". We just checked a couple of weeks ago, and he was the same height as me (and had been since Christmas). Sometime in the past month, he had the growth spurt he'd been waiting for! 

Fact #10: Now that school is over and Memorial Day weekend is complete, it really is summer break.

Whatever that means. 

Bye Bye Birdies

On Saturday, our baby trash birds turned three weeks old and left their nest - right on schedule!

On Friday, one of them ended up on the ground - not sure if it was by choice - and spent the day hopping around our yard while the mama bird stood guard on our fence. On Saturday, three more came out, and by Saturday night, the fifth baby (possibly the last one that hatched) came out.

They hung around our yard on Sunday - all five babies lining the fence over their house. And today... we see an occasional starling flit by, and all we can do is wonder.

Here are the photos of their development (this is my life now - I've had nothing better to do for three weeks than document the life progression of baby trash birds).

Here's the mama nesting on her eggs:

I was obsessed with the eggs. They were so pretty. Everything from their color to their smallness intrigued me. Eggs are miraculous to me.

Here are the babies on the day they hatched. At this point, the fifth egg still hadn't hatched. The babies were squirmy but couldn't lift their heads yet. 

A couple of hours later, the fifth egg hatched. The first four babies could lift their heads to squawk for food, but the youngest one couldn't yet (which is why you can only see the four mouths in the photo).

The mama and papa spent hours and hours flying back and forth feeding the babies. It was interesting to me that both parents were involved. I don't know a lot about birds, but I just kind of thought the father wouldn't be involved. There were always two adult birds, though. Way to go nature! Way to go Papa Bird!

Here are the babies when they were two days old:

It was rare to catch them sleeping in the first few days because they were always begging for food with their creepy, little, open mouths. 

Here they are at five days old:

Here's a side by side from the day they were born and nine days old:

This is how they looked at twelve days:

By18 days, they were poking their heads out of the hole in the birdhouse to look around. 

I peeked in a few days short of three weeks and could only see four birds. I wondered if one had left, but later that day, all five were visible, so I guess he was just buried under the siblings somewhere.

This is the first escapee - day 20. 

Here are the remaining four on day 20. 

Then on the morning of day 21, everyone left except this little guy.

 And he was gone by evening.

It's actually been pretty cool to watch them grow. This isn't our first batch of baby birds, but we've never watched any of the others quite so closely. Most of the time we can't get a close-up look. A few years ago we had some robins nesting in our peach tree, and the mama was really aggressive. Any time I went out in my yard to water the garden, she would dive at my head and ruffle my hair. We pretty much kept the kids inside for two weeks until they left. The starlings were much nicer. Sometimes the mama and papa would squawk at us if we were close to the birdhouse and they were trying to get home, but they didn't ever attack us. I'd like to think we had an unspoken agreement. 

Our other birdhouse still has birds in it (or has more birds in it - possibly the third batch of the season), but we can't see them because of the way they've built their nest. We can hear them, though. 

At some point, Scotty is going to make the hole smaller on the starling birdhouse so we don't get starlings again. We also read that we should remove the perch to discourage aggressive birds from nesting in there. Even though they have a bad rap, the starlings were actually quite pleasant. It's unfortunate that they grow up to be meddlesome.

Into the Unknown

I just got done with a time-consuming project, and I'm rewarding myself with some blogging time. As I was working on said project, my mind was aflutter with all of the things I wanted to write about.

It's all long forgotten now. So I'll take the Michael Scott approach:

"Sometimes I'll start a sentence, and I don't even know where it's going. I just hope I find it along the way."

Today is the last day of school, but we've been done with school for several days already. I'm sort of lost. It's summer break, but it's not really summer break. It's pre-summer break. And normally with "real" summer break, I do that thing where I start off with all sorts of structure, and I think I'm going to do great things with my kids like read books and go hiking. Then I pitter out after two weeks. 

Okay. Two days.  

I wasted my summer break ambition on distance learning, so I'm already in "TV is your mother" mode, and we haven't officially "summer-ed" yet. 

I honestly have no idea what this summer is going to look like. All of our plans have been canceled or are up in the air. Nothing is firm. 

Sing it with me now... "Into the unknooooooooown!"

But let's not talk about that. 

Instead, let's briefly return to the last day of school topic. Last week I told you about the photo backdrops I was making and how we weren't able to use them at the school. I ended up setting up one of the backdrops in my driveway and making an open-ended Facebook invitation for people to come take some photos. I changed the signs so they no longer had the name of our school on them. There were supposed to be animals with the backdrops, but someone else was going to make those. So it is animal-less, but whatever. If you're in the area, feel free to stop by today (Friday). 

That about sums up what I can write about today. Everything left in my brain is COVID-related turmoil, and I don't want to go there. 

The Pinterest Has Spoken

I often like to play a game called "What if I did Everything the Internet Told Me to?"  In this game, I scroll on my phone for about one minute and see what kind of messages and ads are sent my way and imagine myself obeying all of them. It's both frightening and hilarious to take note of what is being paraded in front of my face when I'm online.

Obligatory blog post photo.

Has nothing to do with actual content.

Consider yourself clickbaited!

Today I did a variation of the game called, "What if I did Everything Pinterest Told Me to?"

I have a complicated love/hate relationship with Pinterest. I avoided it for years, but when Scotty and I were serving in cub scouts, I ended up getting an account to help come up with ideas for pack meeting. Since then, I've continued to use Pinterest but minimally. I find it amusing to see what ideas Pinterest pitches to me, so I scrolled Pinterest for one minute today, and here are the exciting things it wants me to do:

Make cacti out of pool noodles

Use an herb from my garden to cure my baldness

Buy a NordicTrack

Make pillows out of dead people's clothes

Adopt a puppy

Buy mayonnaise

Drink vodka and lemonade with sliced cucumbers

Make miniature purses out of paper

Build an indoor climbing wall

Watch Christian films on Netflix

Braise some cabbage

Stream Sabrina the Teenage Witch

Paint my bathtub

and last but not least...

Put VapoRub on my butt cheeks.

(I tell you no lie).

The Pinterest has spoken. If you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.

18-Year Glimpse

It was recently brought to my attention that it's been 18 years since I graduated high school. I don't know how that happened because, in my mind, I'm still young and hip. But looking around, that is clearly not the case. Other than living on the same planet, I have exactly nothing in common with the modern-day 18-year-old. And when I look in the mirror, the face staring back at me belongs to someone else. I swear I don't look like that!

My graduation in 2002

I'm the fifth from the left (unrecognizable, I know)

I often wonder what 18 year-old me (18YOM) would have thought if she'd been able to see 18 years into the future. Like most 18 year olds, I was a bit naive about... uh... well... everything. There's nothing wrong with that. It is what it is. But with that naivety, I think I might have looked at 36YOM in complete disbelief.

Let's take a look at what 18YOM was like...

At 18, I knew I was going to get married soon. Scotty was 21, and we weren't engaged yet, but we were engaged to be engaged. We were just waiting until I reached the wise, old age of 19 (because everybody knows 19 year-olds are perfectly ready to get married!) I was a student at LDS Business College, and I worked at a local dairy. I taught a Sunday School class of 12 year-olds. I drove a 1997 Saturn SL2 (manual transmission - thankyouverymuch). I didn't EVER worry about diet or exercise, and I sported my own version of the "Rachel" and weighed 125 pounds.

 According to this photo, there was a time when 

I wasn't covered in moles

Here are some of the things 18YOM might have been shocked to learn about 36YOM.

1. I live in a middle-class home with forest green carpet in the city I grew up in.

18YOM was too good for this city. She intended to move away to somewhere classier because she, of course, was going to be wealthy. She was going to have a really nice, really big house. Everything inside it was going to be clean and absolutely stellar! She never planned on having anything outdated in her home.

2. My kids always wear mis-matched clothes, they have dirty faces, and their hair is rarely done.

18YOM used to look at children at the store and think, "My children will never..." 18YOM would be appalled that my children's summer wardrobes consist primarily of their winter clothes modified with scissors. She would be disgraced at my daughters' unruly hair and my son's Hawaiian shirts and gym shorts wardrobe.  

3. My furniture has been beaten to smithereens.

There are two points to make about 18YOM on this one. First of all, she had no idea how hard it is to keep furniture nice. She never would have expected the amount of rules, work, and discipline that would have to go into maintaining those dang off-white microfiber couches she would purchase pre-kid. Secondly, she thought her kids would be super obedient and super mellow and that it would be super easy to get them to be that way. Her kids would never be the type to cause damage to furniture.

Ha!

4. I'm not stick thin.

This is the thing that I think would have scared 18YOM the most. I think if she'd seen what would become of her body, she would have ran for the hills. 18YOM never thought that she'd have to worry about weight. She always thought she'd look exactly the same as she did at 18. If she would have known what would happen to her arms, her belly, and her face, she never would have been able to cope.

Yes, 18YOM would have had a really hard time looking 18 years into the future. She probably would have been so startled by what she saw that she wouldn't have noticed that living in a modest house allowed her to stay out of debt. Or that every time she had the money to replace the forest green carpet, she'd use it to take her family on vacation instead. She wouldn't have seen the joy her children experience or the independence they develop when they dress themselves. She wouldn't have known how well-used each piece of furniture truly was - how many meals were shared at the scratched and dented table, or how many family movies were watched on the dirty, stained sectional. And most of all, she wouldn't have seen the beauty of carrying four babies or her own willingness to sacrifice some of the finer traits of her body in order to bring them into the world. 

I guess it's a good thing 18YOM didn't get that 18-year glimpse into the future. Poor thing would've been traumatized!

I'm Supposed to be in Disneyland Today (and ten other random facts)

Fact #1: Today is the last day of instruction for distance learning. Even though school isn't "officially" out yet, we're practically on summer break as of this morning. My kids had hardly any work today - in fact, Nicky had none this whole week.

Fact #2: Next week we have to go to the school to return the kids' chrome books and pick up their belongings. In the beginning, I almost didn't check out chrome books from the school because I didn't think we would need them. It seemed silly to have a laptop per child. I didn't realize in the beginning how "online" things would be. I'm not sure what I thought was going to happen.

Fact #3: I was asked to make two backdrops for the chrome book drop-off for students and teachers to take photos in front of. They needed to be big enough for social distancing, and they needed to be mobile so they could be moved in and out of the school across four days.

Yesterday Scotty and I made two 7' tall x 8' wide PVC frames to hang the backdrops from. I did a jungle theme - in homage to the "wild year" we've had. We made these signs:

Then today, the backdrops were called off. We're not allowed to get out of our cars when we go to the school next week. Our administration had different plans, and they've had to make changes under the direction of higher authorities. 

Fact #4: I'm not mad at anybody - it is what it is - but I'm sad about the circumstances. Why didn't I procrastinate the task for one more day? It's not my first labor of love that's been thwarted by the coronavirus, and it won't be the last. But it serves as a reminder that this really sucks. 

Like, really. 

Fact #5: I feel like I've been a pretty good sport throughout the pandemic. I've adapted. I've kept my cool. But now I'm shifting a little bit. Over the past few weeks, I've lost a bit of hope. In the beginning, even though things were shocking and hard to face, I felt so enveloped in God's love and protection. I saw God's presence in everything, even as things were falling apart all around us. That feeling is gone now. 

Fact #6: I'm fine, but something has left me. Something that was keeping me strong. I don't know what it is, exactly. I've been trying to figure out how to describe what I feel right now, and the best explanation I've found is that I'm in the disillusionment stage of disaster recovery - which is trademarked by impatience, anxiety, and exhaustion. 

Fact #7: I'm feeling really disheartened by the projections for the future, especially regarding school. I despair at the thought of my kids having to wear masks and of teachers having to be so hyper-focused on separation and sterilization. 

Fact #8: This may be a weird way to express it, but I miss germs. I just want to go out and lick a doorknob or something.

Fact #9: This weekend, we're going to dabble in socializing a bit. Nothing crazy. I will be hosting a backyard book club meeting tonight, and then we are having game night tomorrow. Our first since March 14.

Fact #10: Here's the latest photo of the baby birds. They're starting to get uglier. 

Sorry, babes. But you're going to grow up to be trash birds, and everyone is going to hate you. What a cruel fate!

Pandemic Palooza: Day 63

Sixty-three days. Wow. 

Here's a little update on how things are going at this point. 

We're still doing school, but barely. Nicky and Daisy are doing great keeping up on everything. I've had to help Daisy with some projects - a rocks and minerals report, a county report, and an ancestor report. I've also had to help her a lot with math. Nicky hasn't really needed any help at all. He got a great review from his English teacher on his final project, so I'm proud of him for that! I've been requiring very little from Zoe. Most of her work feels like busy work to me, so I only have her to do the assignments that I feel really help assess where she is in her learning. She loves math, though, and will spend hours on math apps. I need to work with her more on reading and writing, but there's a lot of head butting that goes on with that. Friday is the last day of instruction. Hallelujah! Home stretch! I am so excited to take the Chrome books back to the schools. I want them out of my house!

The baby starlings hatched in our birdhouse on May 2. Here's a little comparison between how they looked right after birth and how they looked on day 11. It's been fun to watch them grow. They leave the nest after about three weeks, so that will be interesting to observe. 

We watched the second Disney sing-a-long over the weekend. Everything the Houghs do is genius, even in quarantine. And then there's Katy Parry...

Frankly, I'm worried about her. 

On Mother's Day we took gifts to all our moms. We also stopped by the assisted living center and called Scotty's grandma from the sidewalk to tell her to come to her window so we could wave. She stood there and bawled. It was really sad. She's been holed up in her tiny room for two months. I can't even imagine how disheartening and lonely that would be. 

After 15 years of planning to refinish our picnic table but never getting around to it, we finally did it!

I made all of the kids take a turn sanding, and everyone helped apply the stain. 

Last week we had our traditional "Familyversary" dinner. This is a fun thing we do for our anniversary each year to celebrate becoming a family. Everyone gets to pick something for the meal.

Scotty wanted frozen burritos. Nicky wanted queso and chips. Daisy wanted Funyuns. Zoe wanted Jell-O. Eva wanted chocolate cake. I picked pina coladas. It's always a crap-food fest. 

Last Thursday I stepped foot in a store for the first time since April 1st. I was curious how long it had been since I'd been inside a store, so I looked through my debit card transactions and discovered that the last time I went to the store was on the day of our April Fool's dinner. 

My store of choice was Sam's Club. While I've been gone (I hadn't been to Sam's Club since March 9th) the milk got weird!

I took Nicky and Daisy to a store for the first time the other day. They were a little weirded out by being in public. They haven't been exposed to the outside world, COVID-style, so the masks and the barriers in front of the cashiers and the signs everywhere were new to them. We just went to a cookie store to get a gift card for my friend for her birthday, and then I took Nicky with me to Lowe's later that day. 

This week, dance classes started back up. I was totally taken aback at the announcement that they were resuming classes, and I wasn't sure if I would send my girls. After taking some time to think it through, I felt okay about it. They are having class on a tennis court behind the dance studio, and they are keeping the girls 6' apart. Everyone is wearing masks. My girls have all been happy to go. They have rejoiced in being able to see their friends. 

Having to suddenly take three different girls to dance classes made me realize that I'm not exactly ready to reenter society just yet. I don't remember how to live like that - the driving from here to there, the scheduled events throughout the week. I fear being busy. I have absolutely fallen in love with the simplicity that has resulted from having this quarantine lifestyle forced on me. Having to live a simple life and choosing to live a simple life are two very different things. If I want to live in simplicity moving forward, I have to choose it. I have to make it happen. And that's so hard to do when the messages of society are in direct contrast to simplicity. It's amazing how fast the "be busy" mentality is creeping back in. The power of FOMO is real. 

We've continued having neighborhood scavenger hunts weekly, arranged by my neighbor, Jennifer. Last week the theme was "sports," so we did golf. The week before was "things that go," so we kind of cheated and left our golf cart up for two weeks. 

Last week was the fine super moon of 2020. I'm not really a "things of the sky" enthusiast, but I happened to be outside early in the morning on Tuesday and Wednesday, and both days, the moon was bright and huge! 

My crappy cell phone picture is pretty worthless in comparison to what the moon looked like in person. 

Last week was also our school's teacher parade. Since we don't live in the boundary of our school, we went and found a place along the parade route so we could watch. We were the only ones in the area, so it felt like the parade was just for us! It was so fun to see the teachers and staff of our school. 

Zoe's teacher, Miss V, is leaving the school, and I am so sad! She has been wonderful and was the perfect teacher for Zoe. She helped us get Zoe back into speech therapy, and she worked hard to keep Zoe on track after having to miss so much school for her tonsillectomy. I feel like she was truly an advocate for my child! 

We've been eating a lot of eggs during the pandemic, so even though we have chickens, I've been buying eggs still. We have an egg farm near our house, and they sell double yolkers. I've always wanted to buy some but never have until last week. We've been making double yolker toads for breakfast, and it's been a fun, little novelty. We only get about one double yolker a year from our chickens, so it was cool to have a whole dozen in our fridge!

Daisy informed me yesterday that she's sick of toads. I guess we'll take a little break. We've been having them 2-3 times a week. I think I might be starting to get sick of them, too. 

We've had the itch to go camping, but with the coronavirus and cold mountain nights, we haven't ventured out yet. So we went fake camping last weekend at Scotty's mom's house. 

We had a campfire and roasted marshmallows. Then we made breakfast outside in the morning. It was fun to "get away"... half a mile up the road. 

Our niece, Kaedyn, graduated from the University of Utah. Since she didn't get to walk at commencement (or convocation - I always get the two mixed up... whatever), my sister-in-law sent her on a scavenger hunt in her cap and gown, one destination being our house. 

While she was there, the fighter jets did a flyover to honor healthcare workers, first responders, and other essential workers. 

Surprisingly, we have only completed ONE puzzle during quarantine. My sister-in-law gave me this one for my birthday back in January. It's 2,000 pieces - the most I've ever done. I was so happy when we finished it and didn't have any missing pieces. I thought for sure we'd lose at least one.

We've been doing a ton of yard work. Scotty got a hand-me-down ride-on lawnmower from his grandpa who passed away a couple of years ago. He spent some time fixing it up to get it running, and now it's his pride and joy! He even waxed it to make it shiny.

We planted the last of our garden on Monday. Two summer ago we started renovating our garden. Then we inherited a free shed and had to re-think the garden plan to fit the shed. We put fresh weed barrier under all our planter boxes and sifted the soil really well before we put it back in. Now we're working on moving all the gravel out of our garden. We had some curbing put in last summer, and we are moving the rocks to the curbed areas. Scotty had to dig a huge trench along the foundation of our house to repair some cement work to prevent leaking. He finished that over the weekend. We still have a lot to do in the yard, but we've gotten some stuff done that we've been procrastinating for years.

As usual, we are doing fine. We have everything we need. The kids have really been amazing. I'm feeling a little discouraged about the way people are treating each other right now, though. When I started going to stores last week, it felt like people have gotten meaner. The last time I went to the store, people were still smiling at one another and speaking politely for the most part. It wasn't like that last week. No one looked at each other, and there was this unspoken divide between the mask wearers and the non-mask wearers. The employees at Lowe's (which I had to go to three times last week) were ornery. They're probably worn out. I get that! We're all sick of this to varying degrees, but good grief, can't we be kind? And don't even get me started on the comments I've seen on news articles and on social media. People are nasty. And you know what? I am, too. I've found myself feeling pretty negative toward other people lately. I hope this isn't what we go back to. I'm really worried about our ability to socialize and treat each other well in the future.

On that note... Happy Day 63!

Ten Recipes

For the past week, I made a goal to try ten new recipes. Ten might seem like a lot for one week under normal circumstances, but... coronavirus. So ten? No problem. It helped changed things up around here and gave me something to look forward to. I decided to document the recipes for accountability, so I'll share them with you today. Just rememeber, this is not a food blog, so I'm not willing to do a lot of work to make my food pretty for blog photos. But I do believe in food photos. So I had to provide something. Nothing is more frustrating than a recipe and NO PHOTOS!

Here are the recipes I tried:

Recipe #1: 20-Minute Pesto Pasta

This sounded nice and easy, and I really like basil, so I was excited to try it. Plus, it's meat-free (I'm always excited to add something meat-free to our dinner rotation). 

My kids ate it better than I expected. Nicky and Daisy liked it. Zoe and Eva mostly just scooted it around on their plates and then begged for something else, but that's pretty normal for them (and we do not oblige).

I accidentally left out the salt, so when I started eating, it seemed a little bland. I reviewed the recipe and realized my mistake. Once I added a little salt on top, it was much better. 

The ingredients in this recipe are kind of pricey, and having to get out my food processor and then wash it afterward kind of undoes the simplicity of the dish. Overall, the the pasta was good, and I would be happy to eat it again when I'm craving something basil-y, but I'm not going to bookmark it as something "quick and easy" to make . I may find myself fixing this again in the summer if I'm overloaded with cherry tomatoes (things aren't looking so good for my cherry tomatoes right now, though - I planted from seed this year, and tomatoes are a plant I usually do from starts).  

Recipe #2: One-Hour Breadsticks

(In photo above)

I'm still trying to figure out my relationship with yeast breads. Sometimes I have great success. Other times I totally fail. I can't figure out what makes the difference!

The breadsticks turned out okay, but I had to bake them for almost 15 minutes longer than the recipe says. I keep running into this problem, and I don't know if it's my oven... or the high elevation... or a personal flaw. It makes me feel very insecure. The less I have to rely on my own judgement, the better!

Regardless, I got good reviews for the breadsticks from my family. 

Recipe #3: Chicken Cordon Bleu Rice Bake

I made this casserole with a few adaptions. First, I used short grain brown rice instead of white instant rice. I cooked the rice in chicken stock (at the recommendation of some of the commenters on the blog). Also, when I put the ingredients in the dish to bake it, I felt like it needed a topping, so I quickly crushed up some Ritz crackers with a little melted butter. I only put the topping on half in case it wasn't good (but why would it not be good?) 

In the end, the whole family was pro-Ritz topping.

We liked it, but we had tons of leftovers and, after three days, ended up throwing some out. 

Recipe #4: Dortitos Taco Salad

My reasons for wanting to try this recipe were three-fold:

1. We needed to eat a vegetable.

2. But I was craving Doritos.

3. The recipe reminded me of a salad my grandma used to make for family parties, but with a twist

Everyone in the family gave this one a thumbs up. My kids love taco salad, but they were a little wary of this one at first because it's different than our usual taco salad set-up. 

I kept the dressing separate rather than tossing it altogether because some of my kids like to eat their salads without dressing (I know, weirdos). In the end, everyone liked it. 

The only adaptions I made were to leave out the green pepper (we didn't have one, but my kids wouldn't have eaten it anyway), and I used a pinch of cayenne instead of adobo sauce in the dressing. 

We'll make this again. Especially during the summer.

Recipe #5: 30-Minute Dinner Rolls

I tried this recipe twice. The first time, the rolls were so dense, I could have thrown one at someone's head and rendered them concussed. But who wouldn't love being able to make decent dinner rolls in 30 minutes? So I had to make one more attempt.

The second time, I used less flour, and everything seemed to go well until we sat down to eat, and the rolls were completely doughy on the bottom (note the doughy blob in the upper corner of the photo). We ate the tops, and I have to say, I don't care for the flavor of these rolls. 

I give up on this one.

Recipe #6: Chicken BLT Tacos

For this one, I didn't grill the chicken as the recipe indicates. Instead, I used rotisserie chicken I had in the freezer and tossed it in a pan with some water and taco seasoning. I used Tortilla Land fresh tortillas.

These were really good, but if I ever make them again, these tacos need a good sauce. Perhaps the sauce in this recipe. Or maybe a cilantro lime dressing. I tried them with sour cream and ranch dressing (separately) strictly for research, and neither provided the right saucey goodness. Avocado or guacamole might also be a nice addition, but then we're really getting into a lot of work. So overall, maybe it would be better to just keep BLTs and tacos as separate foods. Combining them created a yummy, but not superior, dish. I might have to give them one more try with a sauce and see what happens. 

Recipe #7: Ina Garten's Lemon Bars

I love lemon, and therefore, I love lemon bars, but I don't know if I've ever made them. There might have been an attempt about twenty years ago, but knowing my baking history, they probably sucked. This week I tried Ina Garten's lemon bar recipe. 

There were good things and bad things that took place. 

The bad things: I checked the lemon bars a few minutes before the minimum baking time, and the center was still completely liquid. I checked them every 3-5 minutes for almost half an hour past the baking time. Finally the center seemed set (seriously, what is the problem here?)

I took the darn things out of the oven and let them cool. Then I gave them a thorough powdered sugar dusting and dove in for a bite. 

The good things: they ended up having a great crusted texture on top with a nice, creamy, lemon center. They were thicker than any lemon bars I've had. 

But another bad thing: they were so overly sweet that after two bites I kind of wanted to barf. But they were also incredibly tart. I usually prefer my lemon desserts to be tart, but this was a little too much. Something seemed off-balance to me. Since I had pinned this recipe, this review showed up in my Pinterest feed shortly afterward, and I agree with what she says about the recipe. It's just too sweet!

We ended up throwing out half the pan after a few days. 

Recipe #9: Hawaiian Chicken Sandwiches

I've had this recipe pinned for a long time, so it was time to give it a go. For this recipe, you cook and thicken the sauce prior to putting everything in the crock pot. I didn't realize that beforehand, and I found myself scrambling at the stove top trying to get dinner in the crock pot before Zoe started speech therapy online. 

This recipe calls for 3 lbs of chicken, and with as much sauce as it has, I'll throw in an additional 1.5 lbs of chicken if I make it again. I ended up freezing half of it, so it's definitely a meal that keeps on giving. If I add an extra 1.5 lbs of chicken, I can probably feed my family three times on this recipe (well, the chicken part of it, anyway. I sure wish I could say the same for the cole slaw). 

As for the cole slaw, I love slaw on sandwiches, but it's not a hit for the entire family, which means there ends up being a lot of waste, and I don't like that. Possible solution: buy a small container of slaw from the deli at the grocery store instead of making a big batch??? Things to consider for next time. 

Scotty and I really liked these sandwiches, but sadly, they have a tragic amount of sugar in them. I have two other Hawaiian chicken recipes that have a lot less sugar, but I've never tried them as sandwiches. I may do so just to compare. 

Recipe #10: French Bread Rolls

(In photo above)

I totally cheated on this one because I've made these rolls many times, but it's been about five years since I last made them, and the recipe blog post has been updated since then, so I decided to count it as a "new" recipe. 

We really like using these rolls for pulled pork sandwiches, so I thought they'd be great for the Hawaiian Chicken Sandwiches. After experimenting with several bread recipes lately, I was refreshed by how simple the ingredients in this roll recipe are.

Recipe #11: Asian Chicken Wraps with Peanut Sauce

What is this? An eleventh recipe? Yes! Now I don't feel so bad about cheating on the last one. 

We had this for dinner last night, and I had high hopes. I'm really hoping to find some new summer recipes to add to our rotation. One by one, my children bit into their wraps and spit them right back out. I can't say I was surprised - they've rejected peanut sauce many times in the past. 

Then I ate my wrap, and well... I won't be making these again, which is such a bummer because they came together so quickly! I realized, once I started eating my wrap, that I was really hoping it would taste like the Applebees Oriental Chicken Wrap. That's what I wanted, and this wasn't it. These wraps were a little too peanut butter-y. 

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Other new recipes I've tried during quarantine:

Overnight Breakfast Bake - too "biscuit-y"

Cake Mix Lemon Sweet Rolls - didn't like the texture of the roll but loved the glaze 

Almond Joy Cookies - yum! Loved!

The Best Cinnamon Rolls - good but not amazing (possibly due to my own failures as a baker)

Diane's No Fail French Bread - great bread, but the recipe requires a lot of attention

Small Batch Soft and Fluffy Wheat Bread - great! 

The Best White Sandwich Bread - great!

Can you tell I'm on very specialized coronavirus diet?