What's Been Going On: Thursday, 11 November - Sunday, 14 November, 2021

Welcome to Monday!

It’s been calm days around here; not much going on, but that’s never a bad thing. Here’s what I’ve been up to.

 

Thursday, 11 November, 2021

After having breakfast and getting ready, I put some beans in the Instant Pot. It was a wet, sloppy school drop-off in the rain, and I was glad to get home, where I did another hour of volunteer work on the computer, listening to a JBSTV program on Holocaust survivors in the background. I spent 20 minutes and then a little extra cleaning out my daughter’s room (which is taking shape nicely!), and afterwards, I was exhausted. I had switched the sheets on her bed- lots of bending, which is hard on my back, so I rested and poked around on the computer until it was time for lunch with my daughter.

At home, I ate lunch, swept the floor, and did my Pilates video. I did my 30 minutes of my Personal Read Harder challenge, then unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. Since it was a cold and gross rainy day, I prepared a batch of Tortilla Soup (to which I added black beans) and cleaned up afterwards. No recipe link, since this comes from a cookbook, but it’s warm and delicious and comforting when the temperature drops!

I sat down to browse some homemaking blogs, but as soon as I read Torrie’s post on food waste, I leapt up. I had meant to put the remains of the black bean burgers I’d made earlier this week in the garage freezer the day before but had forgotten, so I did that right then. And when I came back in, I spotted the last mushy banana of the bunch on the kitchen island and immediately threw that into a batch of muffins using the recipe from The Complete Tightwad Gazette’s Create-a-Muffin Mix. I put my batter into the fridge, since I didn’t need to bake it right then, and settled back down to browse the homemaking blogs.

I ordered two books from interlibrary loan, read for twenty-five minutes, and then left to pick my son up to drop him off at work across town. After dinner, I wrote Friday’s post, showered, cleaned up the kitchen, put dinner away, ran the dishwasher, and did my Duolingo.

I read my book and watched two episodes of Forensic Files with my husband before bed.

 

Friday, 12 November, 2021

After breakfast and getting ready with my daughter, I scooped the litterbox, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and chopped and steamed some broccoli in the Instant Pot. I put a load of laundry on to wash before dropping my daughter off at school, then came home to prepare an Impossibly Easy Vegetable Pie. I put the uncooked casserole in the fridge, cleaned up, then switched some of the laundry to the dryer and hung the rest. I was extremely dismayed to find one of my dresses had shredded in the wash. This had been a new dress I’d barely worn, which only strengthened my resolve to usually buy used clothes; if they lasted that long, they’ll likely last a little longer.

I folded and put away a load of laundry and tidied the living room. By then, my back wasn’t feeling great- I’m very aware of my danger symptoms and this was one of them, so I sat down to rest it, browsing my homemaking blogs and going through email.

I took an early lunch break with yogurt and an apple before having lunch with my daughter; we started a reread of All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor (we’d read this when she was about four, but she didn’t remember it, so I figured a reread was in order!). And then it was off to take my son on an errand, which is why I had eaten a little something earlier; I wasn’t sure how long this would take. As it was, it didn’t take long, so I dropped him off and came home and ate a vegetarian chik’n patty for the rest of my lunch.

My back felt better enough to do my Pilates; afterwards, I did my 30 minutes of Read Harder, then put yesterday’s muffin batter into a muffin tin and made a trip to the compost with the day’s organic material. I wiped down the stovetop, because I splatter stuff all over it like it’s my job on a daily basis!

School pick-up did not go well; my daughter came home in a mood and I spent the next hour dealing with her behavior while the muffins baked. OY. We had to run and drop my son off at work, then we came home and I put the casserole in the oven to bake while I showered. The Impossibly Easy Vegetable Pie is absolutely delicious (I made mine with broccoli, garlic, and onions, no peppers); next time, I’ll double the recipe. It’s THAT good. After dinner, I watched a few YouTube recipes with my daughter snuggled next to me (in a much better mood, thankfully!), and when my husband put her to bed, it was time to log in for my synagogue’s livestreamed Shabbat services.

I’m really looking forward to being able to attend in person (still masked!) on a regular basis in a few weeks when my daughter is fully vaccinated; we’ve been really isolated the last two years in order to keep exposure to all of us, and then to her, as low as possible. But now that she’s had her first vaccine, I’m feeling like there’s more of a light at the end of the tunnel. I feel incredibly lucky, however, that the technology exists that I can still “attend” services while staying safe, and I’m deeply appreciative of all the hard work my rabbis and synagogue staff put in to ensuring that those of us at home don’t miss out.

After services were over, my husband and I watched two episodes of Forensic Files.

 

13 November

Ahhh, what a relaxed, lazy Shabbat!

I don’t always get to have such a calm Saturday. I’m a Reform Jew; we do our best but understand that life happens and it’s not always possible to turn all of the world off, but this was a pretty good one. I ran the dishwasher after a long, leisurely breakfast (it was already full; I had just forgotten to run it the night before), then read with my daughter in her bedroom for 30 minutes as part of her weekend homework. Then I just hung out with her while she drew and colored; we talked about her cousins, school, bikkur cholim (the mitzvah of visiting the sick and what that might look like in a time like this), and various other things before lunch. I read a little more afterwards, then took a long, leisurely nap. SO nice.

I made cinnamon vanilla waffles and scrambled eggs for dinner, did my Duolingo, showered, and read an article that had lingered in an open tab on my computer all week. After putting my daughter to bed, I read my book and watched two episodes of Forensic Files with my husband.

 

14 November, 2021

After breakfast and getting ready, I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, then tidied the kitchen. I did a little bit of work on this blog post, and when the thrift store opened, I headed over there to check out their dresses (I don’t have a huge wardrobe of dresses, so when I lose one, it hurts!). I found THREE!, plus a pair of pants for my daughter.

 Not the greatest shot, but I have nowhere to display them! The long gray one will be worn with a tanktop; it’s a bit low-cut for my style otherwise. All will be worn with leggings underneath, and a cardigan on top.

At home, I had lunch and then walked around the block with my daughter, who wanted to play in the four flakes of snow that were falling. She regretted her decision about five hundred feet into our walk, since with the windchill it was all of twenty-five degrees, along with being icy and drippy out, but we soldiered on and made it! Once we were indoors and warm again, my daughter and I snuggled under one of my crocheted blankets; she played on her Kindle, and I read, then dozed for a bit. When I woke back up, I finally finished reading The Secret Life of Home Economics by Danielle Dreilinger. Well-written and information-packed; that’s why it took me a week to read it!

My husband had made sushi for lunch, so we ate more of that for dinner. I did my Duolingo, showered, cleaned up the kitchen, and ran the dishwasher. My back wasn’t feeling great at this point- kind of the same way it felt on Friday (and it’s still not great right now. Le sigh…), so I hopped into bed and began reading White Tears, Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad. My husband and I watched two episodes of Forensic Files before going to bed.

 

And that’s it! I’m going to try to get as much done as I can this week, but that’ll depend on how my back holds up. I hope you’re having a great start to your week!