Quarantine, Days 34-41

Another week of quarantine, another blog post.

I started out the week in such a happy way, doing another at-home recording session for one of my professional ensembles.  We recorded the Cozzolani Magnificat, a piece I had never done before, so it was such a nice challenge for my brain.  Up until that day I didn't realize how much I had missed having a professional musical project going.  It just felt SO right to be singing and learning new music and exercising that muscle in my brain.

Because this one was a video project, I had to be in concert black, but as this picture that L took of me after I finished recording will show, I was comfy jeans and fuzzy socks from the waist down :)  Comfort is the new concert attire these days!  No more uncomfortable dressy shoes.

Speaking of musical projects, the audio project I recorded last week is now complete and available for your listening on YouTube!  Check it out!

Look at all of these beautiful Queen Amidala costumes and headdresses that the girls made out of their Legos while I was recording!

That same day, C dressed in galaxy leggings and a galaxy sweatshirt so she had a total-body galaxy theme going on and I just had to get a photographic record 'cuz it was pretty cool.

Then after that, J wanted her picture too.

Who can resist her?

I ordered us a boxed set of the Narnia books after our viewing of the old BBC miniseries a few weekends ago.  J has been asking and asking to "watch the next movie" and, although we finished all the movies they made, there are still more stories in the books, so I went ahead and purchased them since our library is currently closed.  We have been reading them aloud every night.  The big girls of course are very interested but I have been really surprised that J loves them so much.  I had figured they would be a little over her head just yet, but she hangs on every word and is the first to ask for it every night.  We're usually reading as the sun is setting through the blinds in my window (C snapped the picture above one night as we were reading) and it is just a lovely peaceful time together.  A good quarantine memory!

It has been COLD here lately.  I mean just depressingly cold.  On my early morning runs I'm still wearing four layers and a hat and gloves... I don't think I saw temperatures above 30 this entire week for any of my runs.  The girls will usually go outside for me but some days they just don't want to and I don't blame them.  I caught this cute video of them during their outside time the other day, trying valiantly to keep warm by doing calisthenics together:

The next week doesn't look much better for warmth, but next weekend the forecast is for temperatures in the 60s.  I hope that forecast holds!  It's hard to keep one's spirits up in the gloomy weather.

In which Daddy takes a break from work to come out to the kitchen for a snack and is rewarded with a big squeeze:

Guess what??  He was able to take the whole weekend off!!  It has been wonderful having him around <3

We found a local farm that is selling eggs by the dozen in a contact-free cooler with a cash box outside their now-closed farm store.  I swung by and picked up four dozen (about a two-week supply) the other day.  Any reason to get out of the house is such a blessing right now, and a drive-through visit to Dunks is even more appreciated than it ever was.  These little things keep us going.  And the eggs have been delicious!

We jumped on the puzzle bandwagon too this week, pulling out all of our puzzles from the game shelf.  We figured out that the puzzles we own are either on the easy side (nice because we can complete them in a 30-minute sitting and then put them away) or WAY hard.  The way hard ones are a nice challenge for the brain, but because we don't really have the table space in our tiny house to leave puzzles out (we have to eat, of course) we quickly gave up on the WAY hard one.  It would be nice to find some more in-between puzzles, say 500 pieces and not all-trees or all-sky, that would take about an afternoon's worth of work to be finished.  Anyone up for a puzzle exchange by mail?

Look at those overwhelmed looks of concentration!  And all the tiny pieces!

Other small pleasures that cheer me up:

Freshly baked gluten-free bread.  I found a new recipe that is SO delicious and pretty foolproof.  If your store is out of wheat flour and you still want homemade bread I would highly recommend this recipe!  It is turning out great pretty consistently for me... a tough thing to find with a gluten-free recipe.

Another small pleasure-- foamy, frothy soymilk in a fresh cup of coffee.  Westsoy and Peet's are almost as good as Starbucks, although I do still miss Starbucks.

Watching this little girl do her "careful coloring" is also something that brings me great joy:

She takes a lot of pleasure in being super neat and tidy, and adding little details like rings, earrings, and lipstick:

She's fancy like that.

Other things getting me through:

A little companion making play-doh pizza next to me while I roll out the real dough for dinner.

A local frozen custard shop that now delivers directly to our door:

Six pints is disappearing alarmingly quickly.  😯

Yesterday's weather was beautiful, and while we were out for a walk we saw that a neighbor had set out a bin of free books... such a wonderful treat for us while our library is closed!

That's about it for our week!  I hope you are finding some small blessings, too.  Back tomorrow with the workout recap and meal plan!