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Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

social distancing

April showered us with a busy schedule … here’s what filled our month

May 3, 2021

I thought April would fly by because the first months of this year seemed to drag. But these last 30 days were looooong. Maybe they all will be from now until summer? I don’t know. Anyway, April is over, which means I’ve got another monthly round-up for you. Here’s a summary of What We Did, What We Ate, What We Watched, and What We Read.

What We Did

Welcomed family for a visit. My parents made the trip out here for Easter, and it was so lovely to be together for the first time in seven months.

Why is taking group pictures so hard???

Because they were in town, we celebrated our daughter’s birthday (again). We had a small cake after dinner one night, and she opened presents from her visiting grandparents.

Which meant that the next day, we shopped because the girl had birthday money to spend. I remember when I started to want gift cards for my birthday and Christmas so I could pick out my own stuff, and that is the phase of life we are in now. (Side note: This was my first time out on a true shopping excursion since the pandemic. I didn’t love this kind of thing pre-pandemic and I don’t love it now. I have been training my whole life for avoiding people in public, but some people do not seem to understand the rules of avoidance. We all got through the shopping trip, though. May it not need to happen again soon.)

On Easter morning, we hiked at Shenk’s Ferry Wildflower Preserve. If you’ve been following this space for a long time, you might remember the time we drove our van to this preserve and got stuck on the way out because we took a road we shouldn’t have with the kind of vehicle we had. I was nervous to go back, but my parents were in town and they have an SUV. In preparation for the trip, we learned that the Lancaster Conservancy has since closed that questionable road and made a different parking area. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and we were just on the cusp of peak wildflower blooming. A redeeming experience for Easter morning, as it should be. 🙂

We had to look closely to find the wildflowers but once we saw them, we couldn’t un-see them.

Speaking of flowers, Phil bought some for our flowerbeds, so one afternoon my parents helped me planted flowers around the house. (We also reclaimed a spare tire as a planter.)

If I can offer the world a tiny bit of beauty, I will do it.

Track meets and lacrosse matches have taken over our lives. We went from a full schedule of practices in March to an even fuller schedule of practices, games and meets in April. It’s a bit of a whirlwind right now but we love watching our kids participate in team sports.

While my parents were here, my mom asked what I wanted for my birthday. I need to update my wardrobe, especially when it comes to work clothes, so she told me about this subscription service she’d heard about. I signed up for Nadine West while they were here, and a few days later, I opened my first envelope from the company. They sent me six items: a dress, a top, a pair of pants and three pieces of jewelry. I kept the top and pants (an outfit) and a necklace. I don’t love shopping, but I sort of love this service so far because (surprise, surprise) I don’t have to leave the house. I don’t have enough experience with it yet to know if I can recommend it to friends, but my next envelope should be arriving soon.

This is the outfit I kept.

Our virtual adventures this month took us to Albania and Miami. (Read more about those in the What We Ate and What We Watched sections.)

Taxes. We put it off this year. It didn’t take that long, but we still didn’t want to make it a priority. Still, they’re done.

Quarantine. Again! Womp-womp. This time our daughter had to stay home and do school from home. She took it like a champ, and we’re glad it’s over. For now.

One Sunday afternoon, I walked with some coworkers from my book club. After reading All the Bright Places, we decided to do something to raise awareness about mental health issues. We organized a week-long event at our school and have been raising money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for a couple of months so we participated in the virtual walk by getting together at a local park and walking for an hour. It was a beautiful day with fun company.

The shortest, oldest person in the group (me!) got to take the selfie, so this is as good as it gets!

Summer-like temperatures late in the month had us thinking gardening, so Phil bought some of the plants for the garden and we put them in the ground. This is the earliest we’ve ever planted the garden. Two days later, the temperature dropped and the wind chill neared freezing. We might have made a mistake. I’ve learned that plants are resilient, though, so fingers crossed.

Our baby plants.

What We Ate

Cheese quiche for breakfast Easter morning. I wanted to make something special, and I was pleased with how this turned out.

I love a good breakfast dish I can make the night before.

An Easter feast featuring goat stew, roasted fingerling potatoes, fried cabbage, and kalettes (they’re like a cross between Brussels sprouts and kale) with a cheesecake sampler for dessert. We snacked earlier in the day on cheese and crackers and the like.

Yes, we really had goat on Easter. Africa hasn’t left our hearts or our bellies.

“Forgotten” cookies. I made these meringue cookies because I have a lot of egg whites to use up. I thought it was going to be a disaster, but it actually turned out okay. They were a tasty snack for days.

After all the meringue-ing, these were super simple because you just leave them in a warmed oven.

Potato Musakka for our Albanian virtual adventure. Layers of sliced potato with a beef and onion mixture in between, baked with eggs and milk. Comfort food.

Creamy, eggy potatoes with beef. I would make this again just because.

Angel food cake. Because of the egg white situation. I followed a recipe that was very clear, and I was a little confused about the cooling process, but this cake turned out edible, even if it wasn’t perfect. I will try it again soon.

It wasn’t pretty but it was delicious.

Roburrito’s, a local burrito place, for our April takeout. I had a taco salad in a fried bowl that took me back to my college days when I ordered one of these once a week. Others in the family had nachos and burrito quesadillas.

Arby’s. Because we needed a quick dinner on a lacrosse night. This was my first fast-food drive-through experience of the pandemic, I think. Curly fries=yum.

Carrots. From our garden. That we planted last fall.  They were sweet and tender and got me in the mood for gardening. Phil “discovered” this harvest before he tilled the garden in preparation for our planting. (He knew they were there and took the time to dig them up. I probably would have ignored them or figured they wouldn’t be any good. I’m glad to be wrong!)

They slept all winter and still made a tasty side dish for us.

Mint milkshakes that we made with vanilla ice cream and creme de mint milk from a local dairy.

We aren’t actually sure how to make milkshakes but this turned out okay.

Frita (Cuban hamburger) for our virtual adventure. A mixture of meats for the burgers topped with a spicy ketchup and shoestring fries. Yes, it was tasty.

As good as it looks

Pierogies from a new stand at Central Market where my husband works. These are not your grocery-store frozen pierogies. Plump and delicious. He paired them with a kielbasa skillet for dinner one night.

What We Watched

Nailed It.  This is good for a laugh on a Friday night when the kids and I are winding down from the week. The new season has pairs of bakers–brothers and sister, partners, moms and daughters. It’s double the fun.

So I finished Cheer and I just can’t with the parents of some of these athletes. Cringe-y at best. And I cannot stomach the tosses that end in bone-crushing drops. It’s a compelling series but I didn’t love it like so many people did last year.

We also finished Space Force, which made me laugh SO loud and hard, and Men in Kilts, which made me want to book a flight to Scotland at the first available and safe moment.

Baseball. The Cubs are pretty terrible this year, but that doesn’t stop us from watching a game every now and then.

Call the Midwife. Lifts my spirit every single time. I finished season 7, which was a hard season but good.

Wild Flower, a documentary about a 77-year-old Albanian woman who lived her whole life unmarried so she could help her brother raise sheep and farm. This was part of our virtual adventure to the country. The documentary is subtitled, a new experience for our children as we watched.

Spider-Man: Far From Home. Thank you, Samuel L. Jackson for my new favorite movie line that includes a swear. All around, a fun movie that left me with a lot of question for the future of the Marvel universe. 

Footloose in Oxford and York with the Rixons. If you need a chill and sometimes cheesy travel documentary of interesting places in Europe, check out the Footloose series on Amazon Prime. The Oxford and York one is their newest and it was filmed last summer during the pandemic after some restrictions had lifted.

By far my favorite thing we watched in April was Nate Bargatze: The Tennessee Kid, a comedy special on Netflix. We had a hard week and I requested a show with some good laughs. We all needed the healing power of laughs, and this fit the bill. I laughed so hard I almost choked on my dinner. And I’m still laughing just thinking about his delivery of jokes.

WandaVision. I know. We’re behind. We were catching up on Marvel movies. This Marvel-meets-Bewitched series is oddly compelling. We’ve only seen two episodes so far, but more to come.

Poldark. I still don’t love season five, but it’s only been two episodes. Maybe it will grow on me?

For our virtual adventure to Miami, we watched a couple of travel documentaries about the city. I honestly never thought I’d want to visit Miami in person but now I do.

History of Swear Words, also on Netflix. I needed some “low-brow” comedy one night when my brain couldn’t handle anything else. This delivered. I now know more than I ever wanted to about the f-word and the s-word. I can’t wait to learn more about swears!

What We Read

Truman. Will. I. Ever. Finish. This. Book? (Yes, if I read no other books, but that is not how I operate.) I have a couple hundred pages left, which in McCullough translation is probably closer to 400 regular pages.

A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny. The Gamaches on vacation? In the woods of Canada? What could go wrong? Thoroughly enjoyable to see some of my favorite Three Pines characters in a different setting.

How Not to Be Afraid by Gareth Higgins. I finished this one in time for its release on April 13, and I so loved its gentle invitation to transform fear through the telling of better (truer) stories. Transforming fear doesn’t ignore that bad things happen but it asks us to look for other things happening in the world, to pause and be grateful, and to face our fears with curiosity, at times.

Breathing Under Water by Richard Rohr. I finally finished it, long after the Lenten season ended. It’s a small book that packs a spiritual punch in all the best ways, and I’m grateful for its lessons.

Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick. One of the classes I help in is listening to this as a read-aloud, mostly for fun. I haven’t ever read it, and I am constantly impressed with middle-grade fiction’s ability to keep readers interested and turning the pages. I’m hooked and eager to find out what happens.

Evicted by Matthew Desmond. This is our next book club pick. A second time reading for me. Still as moving and shocking as the first time.

Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night by James Runcie. Short stories about the vicar-who-solves-crimes. Enjoyable.

The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann. It’s described as Harry Potter meets The Hunger Games, and it is another YA book that hooked me. There are more in this series that I want to check out. Maybe this summer.

To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn. Bridgerton series number five, and they just keep getting better. If you’re sad that Regé-Jean Page won’t be returning to the Netflix series, please let me assure you that there is plenty of good Bridgerton material left for the showrunners to work with.

The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny. I started it just as the month was ending. Back to Three Pines for me. I can never get enough Inspector Gamache.

Our son read Slacker by Gordon Korman and is working his way through more Theodore Boone books as well as Stick Dog Takes Out Sushi.

Our daughter is on a Percy Jackson kick along with the Warriors series by Erin Hunter.

Husband started Wild Seed by Octavia Butler but had to return it to the library when it was due.

I’m sure May will be another full month for us. Check back here in June for a full round-up of our activities. In the meantime, you can see some of what we’re up to and what I’m reading on my Instagram feed.

 

Filed Under: food, gardening, home, social distancing Tagged With: books, Easter, family visit, food, hiking, life in a pandemic, monthly round up, virtual adventures

How we spent our Christmas vacation

January 3, 2021

Last year, I occasionally blogged about how we were spending our socially distant pandemic days as a way to remember the time and how we spent it. I decided to do the same thing for our Christmas vacation because Phil took the week off of work and for the first time since moving to Pennsylvania, we didn’t go home at all for Christmas or New Year’s.

I’ve broken it down into categories to make it easier for you to follow along, and I didn’t record everything (because no one needs to know how long the kids played video games or how many times I washed dishes).

Movies we watched

On Christmas Eve, we kicked off our break with a family tradition, White Christmas, and to make it more interesting for our son who claimed he would be bored, we tracked all the instances of smoking in the movie (because the movie’s rating mentions smoking). Spoiler alert: it’s not a few times.

Egg nog and “White Christmas” is a tradition

Earlier that same day, I watched While You Were Sleeping, which I consider another must-watch of the holiday season.

On Christmas Day, after presents and video calls, we watched Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Phil and Corban had seen this in theaters last Christmas (was it ONLY last year??) but Isabelle and I hadn’t seen it yet. Our work here is done.

In keeping with our Saturday night tradition, we watched another Marvel movie: The Avengers: Age of Ultron. We are slowly working our way through the Marvel universe in order, and man, did I forget how weird this one is.

Tuesday night, we watched Soul, the new Disney/Pixar movie, and friends, this is the movie we needed for 2020.

New Year’s Eve was our movie marathon day. Each member of the family got to pick a movie to watch. Isabelle chose Hamilton, which took up our entire morning and for that we are not sorry. Phil chose Eddie the Eagle about a British ski jumper in 1988 Calgary Olympics. It’s a feel-good story (and yes we are enjoying our Disney Plus membership gifted to us by a family member). I chose Jurassic Park (the original classic one) and Corban chose Home Alone 2. (We watched Home Alone the weekend before our break started.) That took us until 11 p.m.

During the week, Phil and I finished Series 11 of Doctor Who, which we had checked out of the library.

Food We Ate

If you know us, you know that food is a big deal, and we were not leaving our week-at-home eating to chance. We carefully planned out our dinner meals and extra treats so that we could stock up at the store and not have to think about what we were having every day. (We use a Google doc to keep ourselves organized. Nerd alert!)

For Christmas Eve, we wanted something that felt like comfort food, so we made chicken pot pie (or chicken pie as it’s known in Lancaster; the kind that’s made with a pie crust, not with pasta in a pot; food names are weird). We ate cookies our neighbor dropped off and drank eggnog with the movie, which is part of the White Christmas watching tradition.

Breakfast on Christmas morning was cinnamon rolls from a can (we have not tried homemade yet because of time but think we may have to), tropical fruit, sausages and hot drinks.

Chef Phil breaking down the meat

We grazed on a variety of meats, cheeses, olives and crackers for lunch while dinner cooked in the oven. For years, Phil has wanted to make porchetta, a recipe he saw in a Michael Symon cookbook. It requires a fresh ham, which he ordered from a local butcher, and it was bigger than we expected. Still, we pressed on with the prep and cooking, and it was delicious! With the porchetta we had cornbread stuffing (a new recipe we tried from Bon Appetit magazine) and a shaved Brussels sprouts salad (another Chef Symon recipe) and sourdough bread (not homemade) with Irish butter. I drank a beer. Phil had whisky. Our dessert was Jello poke cake.

The full meal, minus dessert

On Saturdays, our son chooses the menu from a rotation of meals he has approved. This week it was a mac and cheese casserole that usually contains hot dogs, but we convinced him to include some of the leftover porchetta meat. Mixed frozen vegetables on the side.

Sunday was our hike day (more on that later) and one of the culinary adventures we wanted to have during our Christmas break was MREs. Phil ordered a random bundle of them online and we took them on our hike. The promise of a hot meal sustained us as we hiked in the sub-30-degree temps, but the air temperature may have been too cold for the heating chemical to work properly. Still, we had a picnic at an outcropping next to a lake in December–a fun memory! Some of the MRE contents included: teriyaki beef sticks (which come from nearby Lebanon, PA), bread with cheese sauce, trail mix, crackers with chocolate peanut butter sauce, a chocolate toaster pastry, chocolate pudding, southwestern chicken burrito bowl, beef ravioli, tortellini with tomato sauce, southwestern beef and beans.

For dinner, we had pierogis (from frozen), chicken tenders (from frozen) and raw broccoli (must have a vegetable!).

On Monday for lunch, Phil made grilled cheese sandwiches out of the sourdough and leftover porchetta, and this was my first grilled cheese that used mayonnaise instead of butter on the outside of the sandwich. It was not a mistake!

Dinner was an assortment of canned soups of the Campbell’s and Progresso varieties. (Part of our intention for food was to do things we don’t normally do, and canned soups is not a regular part of our diet.)

Tuesday and Wednesday featured a lot of local takeout.

Fruit, granola, coconut, peanut butter, frozen açaí puree–a refreshing combination

For lunch on Tuesday, we had açaí bowls from Oola Bowls, a stand at Central Market. We followed that up with salad. Tuesday was like a cleanse day for us except there were still a lot of cookies and other leftovers in the house.

On Wednesday, the boys wanted to get McRibs from McDonald’s and I avoid the golden arches as much as possible, so the girls ordered crepes from Rachel’s Creperie. (Son and I had crepes the week of Thanksgiving and daughter did not get to participate, so this was a double win for me.)

I’m pretty sure I could eat one of these every day.

After watching a taste-testing episode of Mexican food a few weeks ago, we were hungry for authentic Mexican food. We ordered from Cocina Mexicana (enchiladas verdes for me-yum! There were also tamales, and chile rellanos and nachos and chorizo fries.)

Can’t go wrong with tamales

New Year’s Eve was another feasting sort of day. We started with monkey bread for breakfast. Leftovers for lunch. For dinner, we had sweet and sour meatballs, crab rangoon dip, other chips and dips, veggies, Christmas cookies, more meat and cheese. I drank a beer long before midnight. The kids toasted with sparkling grape juice. Phil had Scotch. I was on to water by then.

Activities We Did

Besides watching movies and eating food, we did some other things during our break.

I put together a puzzle, with some help.

I did not finish the puzzle before Santa arrived.

We video called with family, multiple times.

Hi, family!

On Saturday, we spent most of the day cleaning and organizing the kitchen, the mud room and the mud room closet. I cannot tell you how amazing it feels to have these rooms functional and uncluttered. I even got rid of some coffee mugs and some pans we don’t use.

We caught a Pokemon on the trail.

Sunday was our hiking day. We went to Muddy Run Park in southern Lancaster County and took the Lakeside Trail, which was adverted as “rugged walking.” The sign was not wrong. When we started, the ground was still a bit frozen but as the day went on, it loosened up a bit. All of us were on the ground at one point or another during the hike. We were cold and tired and bruised a little by the time we got home, but the fresh air did us good.

We hike in winter so you don’t have to. Enjoy!

We returned to cleaning on Monday, this time an area of the living room where the kids keep their legos and various other toys and projects. This, too, took up a large part of our day, but it, too, is satisfying. We’re still waiting on a shelving unit we ordered to complete the project, but cleaning was a big checkmark on the to-do list.

Before cleaning I went to the library.

The backyard is the most impressive part of the display, but I did not get a picture of that.

That night, we drove around looking at Christmas lights. This house on Longfellow Drive in Lancaster is an annual favorite. They raise money for Make-A-Wish and this picture does not even do justice to the amount of lights and holiday cheer that are on and around this house.

Tuesday was Christmas cookie day. Isabelle and I made the sugar cookie dough for Grandma’s cookies and then tried our hands at twisty candy cane cookies. Both required a lot of time and effort but it was worth it in the end.

Fun and educational!

We played a game of Icons: Women Who Play to Win. Highly recommend this card game. We did some online shopping so the kids could spend their Christmas money/gift cards.

On Wednesday, I had to run to Target because we were nearly out of toilet paper and I needed some mailing supplies. I bought myself a 2021 planner because I’m feeling optimistic.

After lunch I helped Phil put his new seat cover in the truck. Isabelle and I frosted the sugar cookies. And I attended a webinar on social media use. I prepped cookies and packages for mailing.

No kittens were harmed in the playing of this game

Our post-dinner entertainment was two rounds of the Exploding Kittens card game, another Christmas gift. Another recommendation.

I walked into the Post Office like freaking Santa Claus

Isabelle and I braved the post office on the morning of New Year’s Eve and it actually went better than expected. We were in and out in less than 10 minutes. I talked to one of my grandmas on the phone. In the afternoon, I went to visit a friend who is recovering from surgery. (We wore masks the whole time and stayed six feet apart.)

Books We Read

And what would a vacation be without reading? No vacation at all for our little family unit.

Corban and I finished The Tale of Despereaux on Christmas Eve Eve. I loved every bit of it. I finished the eighth Phryne Fisher mystery, Urn Burial, a few days after Christmas and started reading Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other. Phil got two books for Christmas and he’s alternating between them: Birding at the Bridge, which talks about birds at the Brooklyn Bridge, two of his favorite things; and The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food, a cookbook. He reads some cookbooks like actual books and I admire him for that. Isabelle plowed through a bunch of books in the I,Q series.

Additionally, there was the usual bits of housework, some resting and napping, some fighting and irritation between people, dishes and laundry and lots of video game playing because the boy child got a new gaming system for birthday/Christmas from everyone.

As with Thanksgiving, it may not have been the holiday we wanted, but it turned out just fine.

And now back to our regularly scheduled schedules. Happy New Year!

Filed Under: family, holidays, social distancing Tagged With: board games, christmas vacation, home for christmas, local takeout, pandemic holiday, winter hiking

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Hi. I’m Lisa, and I’m glad you’re here. If we were meeting in real life, I’d offer you something to eat or drink while we sat on the porch letting the conversation wander as it does. That’s a little bit what this space is like. We talk about books and family and travel and food and running, whatever I might encounter in world. I’m looking for the beauty in the midst of it all, even the tough stuff. (You’ll find a lot of that here, too.) Thanks for stopping by. Stay as long as you like.

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