Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

local takeout

Nut burgers, vaccines, and Endgame: March was a long month

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.

What We Did

Two more virtual adventures, this time to Montana and Croatia.

One and done.

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.

He insisted on taking a picture with his sister on her birthday, trying to prove that he’s as tall or taller than her.

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.

My haul from the bookstore trip

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.

What We Ate

I don’t know if I would choose this again.

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.

I ate this almost every day for a week. No regrets.

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.

Not bad for a first attempt

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.

I requested individual packaging for the deliveries and Lancaster Cupcake did not disappoint.

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.

Apparently this is the only picture my camera saved from the meal.

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.

All the required elements for March 17

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.

Veggie pad Thai

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.

What We Watched

Movies

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.

Shows we finished

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.

Shows we started

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.

Shows in progress

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 …

Travel shows

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.

What We Read

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.

I snapped this pic of him without his knowledge. It’s the only time he sits still without a screen.

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.

How we spent our Christmas vacation

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!