We got walloped with a huge nor'easter Monday night into Tuesday, and M's district called an early dismissal on Monday and a true snow day for Tuesday (as opposed to remote school which means working from home for him), so this week has felt a bit like a pre-vacation vacation. The girls and I have been enjoying the extra time with him a lot!
Before shoveling...
And after!
Monday night was a bit like a date night... the storm had started in the afternoon, so we went out for a first round of shoveling after we put the kids to bed. After we finished we came back in to find the message that M's school had cancelled for the next day, so we poured some wine and enjoyed an episode of Hornblower (our latest favorite show) and stayed up late while the kiddos were sleeping and the storm was howling outside.
Hornblower is kind of similar to Master and Commander, a movie we both love... plus M has read the Patrick O'Brian novels several times through and is kind of obsessed, and me... well, you know me, anything to do with Regency England is always a hit in my book. And, in COVID times, a show that involves adventure and travel/exploration is pretty welcome while we are stuck at home on the couch! It's a little bit BBC-cheesy (don't even know if it was actually made by the BBC, but you know what I mean) but even that is pretty endearing. So we are loving it.
Perhaps the best part about it, however, is that we are watching it on YouTube and using the auto-generated captions because we have to keep the volume low while the girls are asleep. The most hilarious phrases come from those captions-- "Mr. Hornblower", for example, has been translated as "Mr. Home Brew", "Mr. Habla", "Mr. Home Brah" and once even "Mr. Omelette". We get a huge giggle out of reading the hysterically incorrect captions. Even if you don't enjoy the series you ought to try the captions just for a laugh. Or maybe it's only funny to us cuz we're weird like that.
We have also been enjoying a HUGE container of dark chocolate covered almonds that were given to M by one of his teacher friends. I wish I could say this wasn't a nightly thing, but, um, so far it has been. Those things are dangerous.
Speaking of yummy foods, I think my preparing-for-the-storm Spidey Sense must have kicked when I last went grocery shopping, before I even saw the weather report. Or maybe it was just that we had a lot of pantry staples to use up, like beans and canned tomatoes, that we bought when stocking up the pantry before this latest COVID surge.
I made homemade baked beans in the crockpot to use up a massive amount of dry navy beans I had on hand. They smelled so good all day long on a cold day, and I think there's just something so comforting about baked beans with a hot dog on top, amiright??
Quadruple batch of waffles during this latest snowstorm, because obviously I called a snow day from homeschool (well, we did do some math but not much else academically). The girls spent at least four hours outside playing... I think it was more like 5, actually.
Black bean soup... sooooo comforting and yummy. And packed with veggies, which was a good thing because...
This little girl scared her Mama to death by coming down with a runny nose, cough, and fever last week. I called our pediatrician and luckily they were able to get us right in for a COVID test, and we got the results back that same day... negative for COVID. I tell you, I have never prayed so hard that my child had a cold or the flu. It's not that I'm terribly worried about my kiddos getting sick with COVID, because I know it probably wouldn't be that serious, but I just worry about managing keeping distances in our super small house, and I felt terribly because we had seen a couple of friends (with masks of course) in the days leading up to her being sick. Anyway, things would have been so much more complicated if it had been COVID, so obviously it was a huge relief to get that negative test. The day of worry took a lot out of me and I was exhausted for a couple days after. The new complications of pandemic life! I was never much of a hypochondriac before this year.
She got a treat for being super brave for the COVID test!
The other news of the week...
C gets braces!
It's kind of blowing me away lately how big she has gotten, so quickly. She admitted to being a bit nervous before getting them on, but when the moment came she took a deep breath, got in that chair, and was super brave. She really is quite grown up.
Making Frozen 2 cookies with a kit we got for Christmas from our Aunt and Uncle! Such fun.
Other random complaint... I really have a love/hate relationship with grocery order/pickup/delivery services. Above you see pictured a bowl of Corn Pops-- when I ordered Corn Flakes-- definitely not the same thing. And I ordered two large family size boxes... womp womp. My children were overjoyed to have copious amounts of sugary cereal in our house, because that never happens, and I will admit I had a bowl for dessert one night. But, I mean, come on, don't most people know the difference between Corn Flakes and Corn Pops?? Am I too harsh? I love the convenience of not having to go into the store myself, but TBH the hassle of having to waste money on mistakes like this, or go back to the store later because something was out of stock and they didn't know what to substitute, or sometimes an item *is* there and the shopper just can't find it....... annoying. Okay, okay, okay. #firstworldproblems. Ranting terminated.
I think that's it for my updates this week! Hope you are staying safe and enjoying the wintry weather if you're here in New England!
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