We had a very simple birthday party for Lovana at home. I cooked some shrimp I had frozen and she made a very decadent cake.
She likes to cook and bake, and had a pleasant afternoon baking. I was able to get her a bouquet of flowers at Safeway and her dad made her raised beds, as she wished. She has been able to work part time, and spends time both at her house and here. We are taking the greatest precautions–lots of disinfecting, a ton of cleaning and mopping, lots of extra laundry– all working hard to keep her in our small circle and not spread the virus. She would be very, very alone otherwise.
I did some recreational baking, as well. These sweet roll twists used some sweet potatoes I had canned years ago. Both Rob and I have been pulling items from the freezers and cupboards and using them. Some have been there for years! It’s been nice to use them up. I found a couple of frozen things I needed to toss, and am glad they have been culled. I’ve found myself making things that take longer, since I’m home more.
We are doing homeschool with Jake 3 days per week. His parents do the other 2 days. He modeled the butterfly and Patsy made the flowers with some clay I found while cleaning. I’m using books and supplies I have on hand with lots of internet videos on subjects he has interest in. His dad, the math professor, gets to do all the math:) This week, Patsy and I will really hit the books and get back to work on her curriculum after these past 2 crazy weeks. She was supposed to be gone, but couldn’t go, so we didn’t have very much school planned.
Rob has been working on another compost bin for the other side of the garden. He used scrap wood a friend gave him. He’s been making some other things as well. He’s growing some wonderful starts in the greenhouse and the ones I planted out in the garden are doing well. He plans to give the extras away. His mom told him the garden centers in her town are being wiped out of plants by eager gardeners who want to plant a garden, so he wants to share any extras, rather than just toss them, as we might do other wise.
He’s really getting into mason bee houses. They look amazing!
Another way we saved money the past few weeks was the Safeway Monopoly game. Patsy has been enjoying scanning the tickets on-line. She got enough tokens for a $25 Safeway gift card, and a Fandango one for $15. Much to my surprise, a choice for the Fandango one was a Visa gift card instead. So, I got that! She is getting most of these tickets from others in the store who don’t want to play, and are sharing with her. I’ve also spent a little more than normal there, getting what we need. We also got a few little grocery items from instant winner tickets.
We have had an absolutely gorgeous week. In fact, my garden became dry enough to till! This is much earlier in the year than I can usually get that job done. I have 2 raised beds near the house, because that enables me to plant early, even on a wet year. One is full of strawberries. Patsy added a bag of compost/manure to top dress that one. The other one was prepared with another layer of compost, and Jake planted some snow peas.
This year, we were not feeling up to the task of having someone dump a load of compost and bringing it to the back yard garden one wheelbarrow load at a time. So, Rob, Patsy and Lovana went and got these bags of steer manure/compost. The girls wheeled the bags back and spread them all over. There were more than this picture shows. I helped empty the bags all over the garden.
Jake’s daddy came over to help us till the garden, and the weeds and compost were tilled in. At one point, Rob and I each had a tiny tiller, and Ron had the big one going. It’s just too big for me to handle and Rob can’t do it right now, with his hip problem. So, that was super nice of Ron to come and do. It is now supposed to rain for several days, so I was delighted to catch this window of opportunity.
I got little broccoli and cabbage plants put in. I also got a few tiny onion plants transplanted.
The snow peas, beets, carrots, chard and boc choi are all growing in the tiny patch I planted a couple of weeks ago.
I feel that the garden will be more important than ever this year. We are going to be feeding 2 families, plus extras. With less frequent grocery store trips expected, we can use the home-preserved foods, and the fresh food once it gets ripe. We are going to have plenty to share with both families and other family and friends who can use produce. I plan to preserve quite a bit this year. We especially need a lot of green beans between the 3 families (myself and both sisters). My older sister has a huge garden, too, so will grow all of her own produce, plus extra green beans to supplement what I can grow here. We are sending cabbage plants to her very soon to grow up there. She and I always swap stuff–both plants, seeds and produce. This year may be a little more challenging, but we will manage. Rob has done an excellent job growing the transplants this year, and was even able to hand a few extra cabbages over the fence to our neighbor who was starting a garden today.
So what else have we been doing during this week that just keeps getting stranger and stranger with all the Covid-19 chaos?
The campgrounds are closed now, so Rob built a fire in our yard and we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. It was a beautiful evening.
Patsy made another one of her sidewalk chalk drawings.
We started homeschooling Jake, a joint effort between the 2 families.
I cleaned up a bookcase in my bedroom that was not only cluttered, but actually filthy with dust. I discarded many, many old magazines I did not need anymore.
I cut out a skirt for Patsy.
Rob got the television in our room working–it hasn’t for months, but I wanted to watch the news where the kids couldn’t hear a couple of times. They don’t need the stress.
We are very happy that we can still work with Jake and Michaela. So many are unable to work right now. We did school, but also made it fun!
Patsy was not able to go on her planned missions trip. She is so sad, and cried a lot. I understand that. She worked so hard preparing for this, but we all assured her that she will get another opportunity. This crazy time will pass and life will get back to normal, given time. They are waiting to see how things pan out before trying to make new plans of any kind for the kids. The youth pastor did figure out a way for them to all get on a certain app this morning during Sunday school time, so they could all visit with each other and they have plans to do Sunday school on there next week, I think. We all watched the live stream of our church service before that. It’s so nice they did that, but very odd to not attend.
So, since Patsy has all this extra time on her hands, I ordered her a Biology curriculum. She needs to do it next year, but we will get started with it now. She will be finished with the schoolwork we have in a few short weeks ….I will try hard to not make her feel punished for doing so well, but we can’t do the field trips I had planned, and she is missing countless youth group activities and times with her friends–she will soon be bored if we don’t find things for her to do. I plan to do quite a few home-making activities with her as well. We can’t have 4H meetings right now, but we can do projects here at home.
It’s amazing the changes a week has made.
We are more fortunate than many. We are exceedingly well stocked with food, since we had been working on that project before this crisis began, so were able to get what we needed before it was in short supply, and the garden is already starting to grow more food. We still are able to work, since the kids still need care, and Jake needs schooling. We will go to their house to do that most of the time, as their parents need to be out early at least 3 days per week, but they can also come here at times to give us all a change of pace. We have our small circle of family –and 2 houses we will alternate between–ours and theirs. There are many nice walks to take near both houses, and I’ve been on some of them already. We have a dog that needs walking and the garden to exercise in.
Our daughter, Lovana, works at a coffee/crepe shop. This week, they went to take-out only, as restaurants were ordered to do. Business has been dismal. Today, they let all the baristas go except her and one other. They drastically shortened the hours they will stay open. She will do M-Th and the other one will do F-Sunday. There is still a cook to make the crepes each day, and they will try to keep the business going with a smaller menu. Hopefully, they will be able to. She hopes to be able to stay in her little house she and a room-mate are renting, with just an occasional overnight visit home. We want to keep her with us enough to stay in our “little circle” so she won’t be alone all the time if we are put under a “stay-at-home” order, which I actually expect to happen tomorrow. Some of the things I’ve been reading lately say this may last quite a while, and she doesn’t want to be isolated from the family and all alone for a long period of time. That thought makes her anxious. Thankfully, the college class she was taking was on-line anyway, so that worked out.
Rob’s mom is quite elderly. He is choosing not to visit her at this time. So, he’s calling her daily, and we both were able to talk to her tonight, while relaxing by our campfire pit. His sisters are close to her house, and will see she has what she needs physically, but he can take things and drop them on her doorstep if she needs more.
He’s been able to get groceries for several family members when needed, requiring less of us to be in the stores.
We are being super careful, using lots of Chlorox wipes on everything from our phones to the chairs. I mixed bleach water and disinfected the bathroom after I cleaned it, letting the mixture dry on everything for at least 10 minutes, as instructed. We’ve washed our hands so much, I’m surprised we still have skin:). I’m sure I drove Jake crazy, following him around with a wipe all weekend, cleaning anything he touched! We stayed home. We’ve done what we can do. Now, it’s in God’s hands. Thankfully, they are very big, powerful hands. I know He has this in control, and I take comfort in that.
This is a summer nightie for Patsy from Simplicity 2819. I modified it in several ways.
First of all, the pants on the pattern fit just fine, once we made sure we had the correct measurements. She made some p.j. pants a couple of weeks ago, using this pattern, and they fit well.
I decided to re-use the pattern and make a summer nightie with some thin cotton I had on hand.
I ran into trouble immediately. I cut the nightie out using the same size as we had used for the pants. The neck opening was barely big enough for her to get over her head when I tested it. It looked small, so I was nervous, and thankfully had her try to pull it over before I went any further. I made sure that worked, and moved on.
I immediately realized that the back and front were going to be so narrow, and there was no opening, so she was never going to be able to get it on and off with comfort, much less feeling that loose, comfortable feeling we all like to enjoy while sleeping. Instead, it was going to be constricting and tight, and therefore was going to get ripped right away. This is a problem I’ve had before with both nighties and jumpers/dresses when I’ve sewed for some of my other children when they were younger.
I was in trouble, as I was out of pink fabric, so I dug into the drawer and found some white cotton. I split the front piece up the middle, added a panel of white, gathered it all up to fit the yoke piece, and then proceeded. It added several inches of fabric to the front of the nightgown. It made all the difference, and saved the project. Now its looks and comfortable, fits her really well, and looks great. Whew!!!
I have several projects planned for my Covid-19 stay-at-home time. Sewing several items is high on my list. It felt good to get the first one done!
One morning, we woke up to a very late snowfall. It didn’t last long. Rob said, “Ah, Michaela, it probably won’t snow, but if it does, I’ll buy you a Costco hot dog.” She was away with her family this weekend, but she did text him, reminding him about his promise! It will be a fun, inexpensive outing for the two of them, as long as they can get into the store before the hot dogs are gone!
It was hard to get milk around here, even at 6:30 in the morning. But, Rob and Patsy were resourceful, and found plenty at a small corner market near our house.
We had been waiting for our tax return to come back to fill an extensive list of food storage items. I’d let quite a few things run low, since we like to make sure my stockpile is rotated. We have certain places where we like to buy certain things, such as Costco, Bob’s Red Mill, Cash and Carry, Safeway, Fred Meyers, Grocery Outlet, etc.–wherever the best deal is on each item we wanted. So, Rob’s been filling the list for the past 3 weeks, with a little help from me, and we were almost done when this panic-buying madness started. Thankfully, the remaining things we needed were not as popular–like gluten-free flour (a 25-lb bag), gluten-free oats, things like that, and we easily purchased them. Rob did say that Bob’s Red Mill was busier than he had ever seen it, though, on the day he went up there, and people were getting huge bags of all kinds of things.
We had no trouble purchasing fresh produce, and thankfully, we have enough toilet paper:)
I spent my extra time this weekend organizing and cleaning the storage shelves, filling up glass jars and empty ice cream buckets. Now, I know exactly what I have and where it is. I have 2 things left to buy: mandarin oranges and water chestnuts, neither of which are urgent needs in my mind. I threw away a very few items. I made a decision that the canned soup we were given, that expired in 2011 and 2012, was obviously not something we liked or were going to eat. Those cans are gone now–straight in the trash, and that space is now filled with things we do eat. Overall, I felt really good about the fact that things had not gotten pushed to the back and ignored and our hard-earned food is not getting wasted. I also liked knowing what NOT to buy, such as dry beans–I had many pounds still left. This bulk buying at low prices, buying sales, and cooking these basic foods at home saves me a great deal of money.
I made a mega-batch of refried beans. I’ve been out of my home-made ones for a while, and wanted to re-fill the freezer while I had extra time at home. I cooked pinto beans, brown rice, boiled chicken bones and made soup right away, a huge pot of chili, and marinara sauce. Lovana came over and made kale and mushroom pizza (it was awesome, even though we were skeptical at first), and lemon bars. Now some of those time-consuming items are safely in the freezer for quick meals later on. I will finish the rest of my cooking plans in the next couple of days.
Rob’s been keeping busy, too. He’s been building little mason bee homes. He’s also been watering and transplanting in the greenhouse.
Rob and Patsy made raised bed frames for Lovana. She has a couple of trays of little starts in our greenhouse, and wants a little garden in her backyard. Now they need to get them over there and she can fill them with soil.
Patsy did a lot of school and one day, she worked on a quilt square. Last spring, she got some square kits at a shop hop, and is slowly working on this new skill.
Things are very different, and somewhat unsettling, since we are creatures of habit and routine. It was strange to watch our church service live-streamed on Facebook instead of going this morning. Jake’s school is cancelled, so we will see him a lot this week. At this point, Patsy’s spring break missions trip is still on, but that could change at any moment. There is another week to wait and see what is decided.
Like many of you, I’m choosing to live in faith, not fear. I love Psalms 43. The beginning of it says:
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth shall change.
There is a lot more of this Psalm, and so many more I love and take comfort in. I’m hoping I’ll have a little more time to read some during the week to come.
I have been playing “catch-up” at home this week. One of Jake’s big sisters took him to Disneyland, so we hung around with Michaela and I cleaned the house at every opportunity between things. I folded SO much laundry yesterday, but….what do you know? There’s more today:).
One day, we went on an excursion to a museum, as a special treat for Michaela. We had randomly come across this museum a while back when we had Jake out for a drive, and thought of how much Michaela would enjoy it, because she loves trains so much. We mistakenly assumed it was all about trains, since it was in an old depot, and had numerous boxcars.
In fact, it had a small section about trains and a lot of history about the surrounding area. We loved it! There was an actual covered wagon that had survived crossing the Oregon Trail, and the true story of the people who had traveled on it. There was a lot about the African-American influence and early settlers in the area, which of course interested me because 2 of my daughters are black. One section told of the Native American from the surrounding area, and Michaela seemed to really enjoy that section–we read and discussed every picture and signboard. She was especially interested in the picture and story of a modern-day man, who was keeping the traditions alive for his people—she just loved knowing he was still alive today–she was fascinated.
If you even get a chance to visit the museum in teeny-tiny Brownsville, Oregon, it’s worth your time. The cost is minimal–donation only–and there is a little gift shop where Michaela bought herself a t-shirt (with permission from her Mama) and Patsy got an adult coloring book. Rob dropped a few dollars in the container provided, and we enjoyed our drive home.
We had a 4H meeting, even though Jake was gone. It was a gorgeous day, and we concentrated on Outdoor Cooking.
Rob built a fire, lit the BBQ and unearthed his Dutch Ovens. The kids chopped and chopped and we made….
foil dinners,
a chili-cheese dip and then…
the kids roasted every single hot dog we could find in the freezers and fridge! They had so much fun last time we did that, they wanted to do it again. Rob said, ” Why not?” and started the great hot dog search. It WAS fun:). Next time we will have to buy some S’More ingredients, and a big package of hot dogs. This time, I put out a big bowl of oranges and bananas. Everyone ate like the ravenous children they were, and Rob hauled the older ones off to Wednesday night church, while I tidied up in the almost loud silence that remained!
All of this fun was very inexpensive–the sausage was on super sale for $1.99/package, the potatoes, carrots and onions were on hand, and the peppers were inexpensive, too. Next time, it will be even more inexpensive, because I find that this crew isn’t fond of peppers, so we will not buy them again for this purpose:)
More flowers bloom each week. I love looking at them. I was able to do a couple of hours of yard work this week.
I made some lemon-poppyseed muffins. I froze a bunch and shared a bunch. Rob made waffles and froze what the girls didn’t eat for lunch today. He made spaghetti sauce and spaghetti pie. I made some soup and we bought a Costco chicken. Those are sure worth the $5 in my opinion. There have been lots of salads in our meal plan lately, since Rob is trying to maintain his weight and even lower it a bit in light of his upcoming surgery.
He’s been going to the pool quite a bit and using the water weights to pull himself around the lazy river to try to get a little exercise. He cannot use his legs to swim, due to his hip issue, but this seems to work. Patsy and I go along when we can.
Patsy and I have been really cracking the books, getting large amounts of schoolwork done. There have been a few things that have been neglected a bit over the past few weeks because I’ve been so busy, but it’s only a matter of a few hours to get things back on track. It gives me great satisfaction to know we are where I want to be on school.
On Friday, we had a rare day off. When we realized that we were absolutely free for the entire day, we made a plan to drive down to the Oregon Coast.
It was cloudy and even rained a bit on us. We were not surprised! Rob and Patsy looked for agates for a while. I walked the dog around, read a book and rested. We stopped in at a couple of quilt shops, because that is a fun treat for me, got a little ice cream and candy to share, and drove on home. It was a fun, frugal, relaxing day in the midst of our busy, busy lives.
Patsy has been working on her sewing again. This week, she made a pair of pajama pants. She was able to use a pattern I’ve had for years and some fabric that was lurking in the back room in a bin. While we were digging around, she chose a second piece and I expect that she will make another pair before long.
She is going on a missions trip with her youth group over spring vacation and needed some new things. They don’t need to be especially nice, as they will be doing work projects at a camp. Rob got a handful of things at Union Gospel Mission Thrift Store, and she hemmed up a pair of capris into shorts this week as well.
I took her to Macy’s and she spent her gift cards from Christmas on some things she needed badly.
Our lives should settle down considerably now that our loved family member has been released from her second hospitalization. She had severe complications from her first surgery. February was a blur for all of us. She spent at least 13 nights in the hospital, plus numerous additional visits to the doctor. The whole family will still need to pitch in, but I have confidence that she will improve as time passes. We have a family schedule, so we all know when it’s our turn to help out–so helpful to have a plan.
Our daughter, Lovana, made about 150 desserts for her dear friend’s wedding dessert table. She did it over at her own house, but borrowed quite a few things from my kitchen so she would have enough for such a huge project. I was very proud of her.
The bride and groom were so cute, and the wedding was lovely. One of my favorite parts of the wedding, aside from how much I enjoy seeing these kids grow up and the beautiful wedding itself, was seeing friends we have not seen for quite a while, and watching their reactions when they saw the changes in Rob, due to his extreme weight loss. It was really quite gratifying after all the work he has put in.
One day, I noticed the garden was drying out a bit, but rain was expected the next day. That’s how it is in the early spring in this part of Oregon. We seized the short window of opportunity. I planted a few carrots, beets, lettuce, boc choi, snow peas and a few tiny cabbage plants that were extras, and will likely get eaten by slugs, but were going to get tossed anyway. Maybe they will grow…who knows? If I get anything from this extra early “gambler’s” planting, it will extend my gardening season significantly. Right now, I’m spending quite a bit on fresh produce as I refuse to cut down on healthy food.
This took much longer than it should have because the tiny tiller I can handle was being sulky and it took Rob quite a bit of time to get it to work. I’m hopeless with mechanical things, so I was grateful he could do that part. I cannot even count up the amount of money he has saved over the years by fixing and tinkering with things himself. I, on the other hand, do things like push buttons that do no good, flood the motor constantly, break things worse than they were before I started, and even got the small tiller started one year and drove over my foot with it! Yikes! No wonder he stands by whenever I’m touching anything mechanical with a worried expression on his face. At one point in our marriage, he gently asked me to please stop “fixing” things, cause it was taking him twice as long to fix them after I “fixed” them, if you know what I mean:). I will be ecstatic to let him take back over everything remotely mechanical once he is more mobile, and he will be quite relieved as well.
Rob finally has a surgery date–but not until April 20. We wish it was sooner, but it is what it is. At least he has a date, at last.
