Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns
If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…
I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…
I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…
Was March long because it has three more days than February, or did it feel long because we passed the one-year anniversary of shutdowns due to COVID? Yes? Anyway, I felt like March was kind of blah when it comes to how we spent our days, but some important things happened and I don’t want to overlook those. So, here’s our monthly round-up of what we did, what we ate, what we watched and what we read.
Two more virtual adventures, this time to Montana and Croatia.
Got vaccinated. Phil got his second vaccine and I was able to get my one shot of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine as part of the push to get educators vaccinated. I took an evening appointment and drove to the vaccination site five minutes from my house and in a total of less than 40 minutes, I was vaccinated. (I had to be in the high-risk observation group for 30 minutes because apparently I checked a “not sure” box on my registration when I filled it out at 5 a.m. a few days before my appointment.)
Because of the availability of vaccine appointments, our school district scheduled two virtual school days where the kids are on their own to do the work assigned by their teachers, so on the heels of my vaccine appointment, we had two virtual school days.
The first of those days was our daughter’s 13th birthday. I spent most of it resting, alternating between the couch and my bed. I napped. A lot. For me. I usually never nap, so even one short nap a day is a lot and for several days after the vaccine, I took at least one nap a day.
The girl delivered cupcakes to her friends throughout the school district and hosted a Zoom call so they could eat them together and chat on a non-school day. It’s the best we can do for a pandemic birthday party. (This is already her second pandemic birthday, poor thing.)
Toward the end of the month, I paid off my credit card for the first time–I think–in our married life. This credit card was our “emergency fund” for a lot of years, and this year I set a goal to pay it off. Stimulus money helped to speed that goal along, and I feel a great relief to have it gone.
On another virtual instruction day, I took my daughter to the bookstore. I had a couple of books to pick up that I had ordered. We walked out with four more. Then she spent her Starbucks gift card on a refreshing drink on the way home.
Attended our first lacrosse game, a Saturday scrimmage on a beautiful day. I’m grateful that we don’t have Saturday games regularly, but this was a joy to watch, even if the score was one-sided and not in our team’s favor.
For our virtual adventure to Montana, we made nut burgers, which apparently is a delicacy in Butte, Montana. It’s a hamburger topped with mayo mixed with crushed peanuts. The website where we found the recipe said some people love it, others don’t care for it but nobody hates it. This is accurate.
We also ate Dalmatian Pasta Fazol for our Croatian virtual adventure. This pasta soup (I guess it’s kind of a soup) has pinto beans and a garlicky broth. We had A LOT of leftovers, but I wasn’t sorry.
Our son added to his Saturday menu rotation. The latest dish is spaghetti and meatballs with garlic knots. So, we attempted homemade garlic knots. I’m not great with yeast doughs, so I found a no-yeast recipe that turned out pretty well.
To celebrate our daughter’s birthday we had double chocolate chip cupcakes from Lancaster Cupcake, our award-winning local bakery. Here’s the description: Chocolate cake with a cookie dough filling, cookie frosting, and a fudge drizzle with cookie dough pieces on top. YUM! It was as delicious as it sounds.
She also chose Italian food from a local place called Fiorentino’s for her birthday dinner. Our usual place, we discovered, is closed on Sundays. We are not sorry. Our son had an individual pizza that came in a box with faux newspaper that felt very New York-y. Daughter had baked lasagna and gouda mac-n-cheese bites. Phil had a meatball sub with onion rings. I had a meatball Caesar salad with eggplant fries. All delicious.
Of course, we had corned beef with cabbage, potatoes and carrots, and brown bread for St. Patrick’s Day.
The kids and I got takeout from Gracie’s on West Main on our way back from the scrimmage. Daughter had a stuffed burrito. Son had a hamburger. I had a omelet with home fries.
Birthdays don’t count for our once-a-month takeout in support of local businesses, so we had Thai food on the final Sunday of March from Ploya Thai Kitchen. Son likes orange chicken, which was on the menu. (We have so many Thai places to choose from in our area!) Daughter and I both had a form of Pad Thai (mine was veggie, hers was crispy chicken). Phil had drunken noodles that he ordered spicier than he expected, but he likes it that way.
Ant-Man and the Wasp. There need to be more Paul Rudd movies in the world. He is one of my absolute favorites and if he’s ever revealed to be a dirt bag, I will cry real tears.
Captain Marvel. Whoa. If you’re uncomfortable with trauma and healing from trauma and deep searching for your identity then don’t watch this. Phil and I had never seen this one so watching it for the first time with the kids was almost overwhelming. But 90s music? And a woman learning to live in freedom out of who she really is? What is not to like?
Avengers: Endgame. So much to process. I hadn’t forgotten how hard the movie was, but I had sort of forgotten how brilliant it is. And I think I appreciated it all so much more because we’ve so recently watched all the movies so the character arcs were more obvious to me.
The Crown. I finished season 4 and I have A LOT of feelings. Like a lot of little girls who grew up in the ’80s, I was a bit obsessed with Princess Diana and completely devastated by her death. Watching this season of The Crown, in which Diana and Charles’ relationship is featured, left me with renewed grief and anger. I know that it is a fictional TV show based on real people and events, so all of it may not be true and some of it may be embellished. But I still think it’s sad that an institution like the monarchy broke a woman like Diana and seemingly hasn’t learned its lesson. (See: Meghan Markle.) Am I less enamored of the Royal Family now? Yes. Will I still drink tea out of my William and Kate tea cup? Also, yes.
Schitt’s Creek. We finished it. I wasn’t ready. I have questions. I’m going to need several spin-offs to satisfy my questions. But my brother says good stories have good endings and no spin-offs are needed. (I just don’t want it to end!)
Grantchester. We’re caught up! Finished season 5 and waiting for season 6 like everyone else.
Cheer, the docuseries on Netflix about competitive cheerleading. Lots of people were watching this last year at the start of quarantine. I did not. One night I was needing something to put on the TV that required less of my active attention, so I gave it a try. It’s, um, interesting.
Nailed It! The kids and I love this show and were excited to see its return. It’s also interesting to see the kinds of COVID measures they’ve taken to produce the show.
Space Force. This series co-created by Steve Carell and Greg Daniels is subtly funny so far. Worth a watch if you love the kind of humor found on The Office.
Poldark, season 5. Ugh. I don’t love it so far. The series has departed from the book plots and while this isn’t the sort of thing that would always bother me, for some reason, it does with this show.
Call the Midwife. I’ve been slowly working my way through this series for years. It’s equally heart-breaking and uplifting, but I love the characters.
Men in Kilts. We’ve enjoyed exploring Scotland with Sam and Graham.
And speaking of travel …
We always watch at least one video to accompany our virtual adventure. We watched a PBS documentary about Montana, and it’s amazing how little I know about some states in our country.
For our Croatia virtual adventure we watched a Rudy Maxa travel documentary and an episode of Bare Feet. There are a wealth of travel shows out there. Since we started doing virtual adventures last year, we haven’t completely struck out on finding a show to take us–virtually–to the place we’re interested in.
Footloose in Madeira with David and Debra Rixen. I’m not sure when we discovered these travel documentaries but they are delightful and feed my travel bug. The Rixens have probably a dozen travel documentaries on Amazon Prime. They are a calm sort of travel show. This one made me want some wine. And to travel to an island.
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We also watched part of the interview between Oprah and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle early in the month. What I saw was enough to make me sad and angry, especially since I was watching the fourth season of The Crown at the time.
A lot of nights, we watch an episode or two of Good Mythical Morning on YouTube. Phil’s brother introduced us to Rhett and Link. I don’t love every episode we watch, but they do have some interesting content.
Truman by David McCullough. Ugh. I’m learning a lot but it’s taking such.a.long.time.
Breathing Under Water by Richard Rohr. I continued with this for my Lenten reading. It will take me past Easter to finish.
Romancing Mr. Bridgerton by Julia Quinn. Book 4 in the Bridgerton series, and my favorite so far.
Death Before Wicket by Kerry Greenwood. Not my favorite Phryne Fisher mystery. But this was fairly quickly followed by …
Murder in Montparnasse by Kerry Greenwood. This was my favorite of the 12 books in the series so far.
The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny. I wait MONTHS for these books in the Inspector Gamache series to be available. This one arrived at the perfect time. Inspector Gamache could travel to Three Pines and find lost eyeglasses or missing kittens and I would still want to read.
How Not to Be Afraid: Seven Ways to Live When Everything Seems Terrifying by Gareth Higgins. Rarely do I tear open the mail and start reading a book immediately, but I did so with this one because I don’t know about you, but I NEED what’s in this book right now. A full review will follow in April, when the book releases.
I finished reading Monster by Walter Dean Myers, a book one of the English classes at school is reading. I’m a new fan of Myers’ work and this one is a creative way to tell the story of a trial for a juvenile charged with felony murder.
Also for school, I finished reading The Adventures of Ulysses by Bernard Evslin. I read this a few years ago because some students were reading it, but I think I enjoyed it more this time because I did some reading aloud with students.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. This is our next book club book. I’ve read it before, but it’s always good to read and discuss with a group. Still powerful the second time around.
Our son’s teacher introduced him to the Theodore Boone books by John Grisham. They read the first book together in class. He has since read the second and third books in the series. Book 4 is on hold at the library.
We read Stick Dog Meets His Match out loud together at bedtime.
Then we moved on to re-reading The Bad Guys books because we have two new ones and we wanted to revisit the previous books. We’re about halfway through the series.
Our daughter read The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. She is newly obsessed with Percy Jackson books and loved The Unwanteds so much that she requested a bunch of the books in the series. She also read a book called Teen Trailblazers: 30 Fearless Girls Who Changed the World Before They Were 20, a birthday gift from a teacher friend of mine.
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Whew. There it is. March in a round-up.
February is a short month, but it sure did seem long. Here’s the second installment of our 2021 happenings. (Missed January and you just HAVE to know what we did with our lives? Click here.) Please understand, that I’m not doing this to justify productivity or prove that something worthwhile happened in this crazy time. It’s a record, for me mostly, and for you, if you’re interested, of how we’re spending our days.
Snow was a prominent theme this month. We shoveled snow. A LOT. And the kids actually played in it a little bit.
We’re not big snow players in this house. We had two snow days from school early in the month and then two remote learning days toward the end of the month because of snow.
On one of the early snow days, I finished an “I Love Chicago” puzzle.
The kids and I are trying to have some Saturday fun because a lot of times it’s all housework and screens, so on the first Saturday in February, we ate ice cream outside for National Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day. The waffle sundaes (see the What We Ate section) from Lancaster Sweet Shoppe were delicious, and eating ice cream outside in February is not something I will repeat soon.
At the end of the month, we took a hike at Valley Forge National Historic Site with some online friends from My Peak Challenge. It was a mild day compared to most of the days in February. We hiked about four miles. Our bodies needed the fresh air and sunshine.
Speaking of online Peaker friends, I baked chocolate chip scones in a Zoom meeting with fellow foodies from around the world.
Isabelle and I got haircuts! Our first ones in 11 months. It was such a morale booster, for me, at least. (And I feel the need to say that we followed safety protocols.)
I signed up for the Red Rose Run virtual race taking place in June, and I ran twice during our four-day break in the middle of the month. Snow and ice have made running a challenge. I’m looking forward to the melting.
I made bone broth from the Cornish game hen carcasses (see Valentine’s Day dinner). And then made more bone broth from frozen scraps.
On Ash Wednesday, I participated in a service on Instagram hosted by Kate Bowler and Nadia Bolz-Weber. For the ashes, I wrote some words representing things I want to release in this season and burned them. It was slightly terrifying to light them on fire in my house, but also a little bit satisfying. The ashes didn’t stick on my forehead for long, but I’m still glad I made the effort.
Some of you know about my obsession with space, stars and planets. So, I watched the Perseverance Rover landing on Mars. I’m in awe of the science, technology and talent that makes this happen.
As a family, we resumed our twice-a-month virtual adventures. We write locations on pieces of paper, then pick one out of the jar and plan a meal and media around that location. Our first of the year was to Cote d’Ivoire, Africa. (See the “What We Ate” section for our themed meal.)
Shows we’re still working our way through: Grantchester; Schitt’s Creek; The Crown; Carmen Sandiego. (See January happenings for more on each of these.)
We finished Mr. Mayor. I don’t know if it will be renewed, but we enjoyed the series.
Spider-Man: Homecoming. This is one Marvel movie that Phil and I had not seen before, and Michael Keaton as villain? Yes, please. Now I want to watch all the Keaton Batman movies again. And Beetlejuice. And really everything he’s in. Michael Keaton is a national treasure.
Thor: Ragnarok. I forgot how good this was.
Black Panther. Is it the best Marvel movie? Arguably, yes.
Avengers: Infinity War. I don’t like that I know how things end.
The Super Bowl. I want Tony Romo to commentate everything. All the time.
Finding Dory. Just me and Phil on a night when I needed a story to help pull me out of my funk. I might like it even better than Finding Nemo.
Ever After: A Cinderella Story. A standard go-to from my single days. Sometimes you just need to feel the familiar feelings of a story to make you feel better.
Men in Kilts: A Road Trip with Sam and Graham. Even though my husband has not seen one episode of Outlander, I asked him to watch this show with me because of the travel and the whisky. We watched the first episode on Valentine’s Day.
Bridgerton. I rewatched after reading the first two books in the series, so I caught some little things that I missed the first time.
Several documentaries/news shows about Cote d’Ivoire for our virtual adventure.
Fisherman’s pot pie. After watching someone eat a pot pie on TV, we were craving it, so I made a pie crust and we used up some of the frozen fish and seafood we had and added potatoes, frozen veggies and a gravy made from seafood stock. Comfort food.
Corn flake chews. And homemade English toffee. We “baked” on one of the snow days because sweet treats make everything better, yes?
Waffle sundaes for National Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day. A waffle topped with ice cream of our choice (me: chai stroopie; Isabelle: triple chocolate; Corban: chocolate marshmallow) and a variety of sundae toppings (fruit, sprinkles, chocolate sauce).
Super Bowl foods: mini pigs in a blanket; mini tacos; potstickers; salad; steamed shrimp; chocolate chip bars. Much of this was Costco frozen foods, but it was the perfect party food for a house without a party.
Spaetzle. German egg noodles, basically. One Wednesday when Phil was cooking, we had braised pork chops, sweet and sour cabbage, and spaetzle. A very German feel to the dinner. This was our first time making them at our house.
The aforementioned chocolate-chip scones.
Valentine’s Day dinner: 1st course: empanadas from Empanada Gourmet: Uruguayan, three-cheese, spinach and dulce de leche; shrimp; lobster dip and a smoked fish spread; roasted stuffed Cornish Game hens, sicilian cauliflower; white forest cake; Rare Vos beer by Ommegang (shared between Phil and I)
Fastnachts. Is it even Fat Tuesday if you’re not eating donuts made with potato flour?
Chicken mafé for our virtual adventure. It was a peanut-y chicken stew over rice, and it was satisfyingly delicious.
Wings. We’re trying to eat takeout once a month from a new or favorite restaurant in Lancaster. Our first choice for wings temporarily closed the weekend we were going to eat there, so we picked a backup: Joe’s Famous Wings and Wieners. (We only had the wings.)
Truman. Still. I think I’m about halfway. It’s a struggle.
The Duke and I by Julia Quinn. This is what the Netflix show Bridgerton is based on. I gave up a night of TV to finish it. Different than the show, but I’ve made peace with shows-based-on-books being a different art form and therefore not needing to be EXACTLY like the book.
The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn.
Stick Dog Gets the Tacos. “Whisker-twitching nut-munching demons.” (AKA “squirrels”) My son and I read most of this one together. He finished it one night without me. Then we moved on to Stick Dog Meets His Match.
A Dance in Donegal by Jennifer Deibel. Made me long for a trip to Ireland.
All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. Gut-wrenching, thought-provoking book about mental illness, suicide, depression. YA. Reminded me of my hometown teenage years.
Breathing Under Water by Richard Rohr. I’m reading this for Lent. And as a companion to a sermon series we’re listening to via an online church service.
An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn. Book 3 in the Bridgerton series.
The Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Murder by Rachel McMillan. I’ve been wanting to read something from this author for a while. I enjoyed the relationship between these two friends and the unique setting (1910s Toronto).
Isabelle’s favorite book this month was Close Calls: How Eleven US Presidents Escaped from the Brink of Death by Michael Spradlin. She loves history and historical fiction, and we heard A LOT about this book as she read.
Till next time!