Capturing our days lately, to be able to look back and revisit. I haven’t had the time or energy to blog but I’d like to do it more or less consistently. There are things I’d like to think out loud about, share my thoughts and experience. I read some blogs (not many. I don’t spend a lot of time on social media) that have been very helpful to me – from recipes to handling difficult life situations, and maybe someone will find some tips they can use on my blog. So here is another stab at it.
Brian and I have been working from home, thankful to have stable jobs. The work has been as busy as it was pre-Covid.
Here is my desk set up with a bit of Brian’s desk showing to the left. We both have multiple monitors and enough work space to spread out. We often have work calls at the same time, and when that happens one of us finds a spot somewhere else at the house.
Full-time home schooling is a challenge, but I think we have worked out a system that works pretty well. The school district has made arrangements that we follow and the kids submit assignments online.
We do supplement the school curriculum for Phoebe, to make up for the gap that is there. On Sundays, I make a list of pages for Phoebe to do during the week. I keep a running document on my computer that I update weekly.
All in all, it takes about 30 minutes of planning. I try to cover all areas of the standard curriculum: math (including multiplication), reading and writing. The kids are also reading throughout the day.
We updated the daily chores chart and schedule, now that the kids are home all day.
Having the schedule has been so helpful to me. I am a planner and do not function well in ad-hoc situations.
With all of us here working/ studying full-time, it would be hard for me to stay on top of things. I am using the term “on top of things” very loosely, it’s a semi-controlled chaos and things don’t always happen in real life as planned, but that’s the most I can do right now.
The kids have been really helpful around the house.
Some good things lately: we celebrated Brian’s 50th birthday with a take-out pizza from a favorite pizza place (Tony C’s for the locals) and a key-lime cheesecake (the curd is from America Test Kitchen cookbook, the cheesecake itself here).
We’ve been baking a lot of bread, like lots of other people. This is a whole wheat loaf (recipe adapted from here, subbed whole wheat flour for half of the white and baked as a loaf). Recipe is in this post.
Some movie-watching (daily after school is done) and puzzle-making (weekend afternoons) – routines are important.
Dylan comes every morning, we see him scampering around the yard when we have breakfast. He discovered the roses. Now I know why there are so few blooms.
As usual, I menu plan. I wouldn’t say it’s harder to do now. What has been harder is getting groceries now that we can’t just pop into the store any time we run out of something. We almost exclusively use curbside pickup.
Keeping meals simple – not much time at all for cooking during the week. Here is kielbasa with cabbage and white beans and carrots. Some meals are like that, no recipe, just throw it all together.
On weekends, we set the table in the dining room for a nice meal, like this steak with roasted potatoes and Brussels with Panzanella salad and rice pudding.
I hope you are staying safe and healthy, and making the most of it!
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