What's Been Going On: Thursday, 6 January, 2022 - Sunday, 9 January, 2022

 Chilly, chilly this morning! 14 degrees Fahrenheit this morning, and I’m NOT looking forward to standing out in that while waiting for my daughter’s teacher to come get the class when the bell rings.

Sending my daughter back to school today feels like a terrible decision out of a bunch of equally terrible decisions. Be kind to the parents in your life right now; we’re all struggling to do what’s best for our kids when given no real decent options. It’s really, really tough.

It's been a busy weekend around these parts. Nothing major, but I felt like I got a lot accomplished, which is always nice. Here’s what I’ve been up to lately!

 

Thursday, 6 January, 2022

After breakfast and coffee, I wrote and posted my Thursday post (I usually try to get these written at least the night before, but it doesn’t always happen), and I posted my review for Gory Details: Adventures from the Dark Side of Science by Erika Engelhaupt on my book blog. And then it was time to start ‘school’ with my daughter!

We read about how clothing is made, school in other countries (this was a long book, so we broke it up into parts), and a long book on lighthouses. Suffice it to say, my daughter never wants to go back in time to become a lighthouse keeper! I also had her do a bit of writing. Her writing has improved a lot since last year, so I’m really happy about that.

After lunch, I took out the recycling, loaded and ran the dishwasher, and we finished the book about school around the world. We did our 30 minutes of Read Harder (I’m reading American Literary Almanac by Karen L. Rood), then I finished reading Made in China by Amelia Pang.

I swept the living room, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and cooked the pizza I’d bought the day before. We had dinner, and I did my Duolingo, biked for 25 minutes, then showered. I began reading The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis, and my husband and I watched three episodes of Killer in Plain Sight before bed.

 

Friday, 7 January, 2022

 

Terrible night of sleep! It’s been too cold out to get much exercise, and my step count has been way down, which I think fed into my inability to sleep decently. I crawled out of bed, and after breakfast and coffee, I wrote up  my Friday post and posted that. My daughter and I tidied the living room and the kitchen, and I did some of my PT exercises with a resistance band to help out the crawly, restless-leg type syndromes I was having.

And then it was time for school work with my daughter. We read about colonial America, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and a story from the Osage tribe. She did her writing while I did more PT exercises.

After lunch, I chopped some broccoli, onion, and a red pepper, and put some tofu to press. I made the sauce for what would be Sheet Pan Cashew Tofu (this is seriously better than Chinese food delivery!), and made a batch of guacamole with the avocados that had been lingering on my kitchen counter all week. And of course I cleaned up my mess!

My daughter and I did our 30 minutes of Read Harder, and I dozed for a few minutes afterwards. My husband rubbed my back, which had decided it would be cranky and not work that well, and when he went downstairs, I put on my shoes and…walked laps around my house for thirty minutes! Gotta get that exercise in somewhere, right? What else can you do when it’s too cold to go outside? I actually got sweaty doing this.

Afterwards, I caught up on a few computer things, then cooked the Sheet Pan Cashew Tofu. We ate dinner, I put the leftovers away, loaded and ran the dishwasher, and then it was time for virtual services at my synagogue. It was another Kabbalat Shabbat service, so it was a little shorter than usual, which meant I was done in time to put my daughter to bed. I showered, read a little bit, and my husband and I watched three episodes of Killer in Plain Sight.

 

Saturday, 8 January, 2022

Coffee and breakfast, followed by scooping the litterbox, emptying and loading the dishwasher, and tidying the kitchen. I stripped the bed and put on the new sheets I’d bought a few weeks back, and started a load of laundry. I usually try to get this stuff done during the week, but with my daughter at home and needing to keep her learning, I didn’t get much of a chance, so I made an exception and got it done this day!

I wrote two book reviews, switched the laundry, and then it was time for lunch. I biked for 30 minutes, switched the laundry, and then settled down with Prayerbook Hebrew the Easy Way. I completed the whole second chapter on feminine nouns and added to my flashcard stash.

 

I put the dry blanket back on the bed, switched the laundry again, and then sat down to read two chapters of Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Since one of my goals is to read at least one book in French this year, I’m starting out a little easy. This is a good pick because I just read it in English to my daughter. I’ve read parts of it in French before (in high school, which was *mumblemumblemumble* years ago), but not all of it (I have read it entirely in Spanish, though!). I’ll read all of this and then move on to another French book. At some point during my reading, I got up and threw a batch of Cilantro Lime Rice into the Instant Pot.

We had faux-Chipotle bowls for dinner; I did my Duolingo and visited a few homemaking blogs afterwards. I showered, then crawled under my heated throw and finished reading The Premonition. Absolutely incredible book. We didn’t watch anything last night; my husband was too tired and had a headache.

 

Sunday, 9 January, 2022

After breakfast and coffee, I wrote a book review, then loaded and ran the dishwasher, and began reading 100 Side Hustles: Ideas for Making Extra Money by Chris Guillebeau. I don’t know that I’ll ever start up a business like these people have, but I’m not a hugely creative person, so I enjoy reading about others who are!

I cleaned up my side of the bedroom, and cleaned up that pile of clothes at the end of my bed. You know that pile. Some people’s piles are draped over a piece of exercise equipment; other people throw their pile on a chair in their bedroom. Mine is on top of a Sterilite container that holds all the jeans that I can’t really wear anymore due to chronic pain but that I keep holding onto thinking that one day it’ll get better enough for me to wear them again (sigh…). The pile always contains sweatshirts and sweatpants and shirts I only had on for an hour or two; it gets especially bad when the weather goes back and forth and I’m forced to change outfits like I’m a cast member of a Broadway musical. I also tidied up the rack that holds the dresses and cardigans I wear most days.

I switched the laundry (there was still a load in the washer, waiting to be dried!), cleaned off some of the stuff on the kitchen table (mostly piles of unopened mail that my husband has neglected for several months!), and then it was time for lunch. Afterwards, I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher and read for a bit, until my husband suggested we do Pilates. I found a 30-minute yoga/Pilates combo, so we did that, and my back did NOT like it one bit. I pretty much lay down on my chair and passed out for 45 minutes when we were finished!

I sautéed some onion, garlic, and green pepper and read a little bit before taking the recycling out (BRRR!!! Also ICY!!!), and I brought in a bag of tater tots from the garage. I threw together my version of SouthwestTater Tot Casserole (I always add salsa to the eggs; sometimes I add black beans), put the dishes in the dishwasher, then sat down to write this post (with the cat on my lap. So warm!). We had dinner, I did my Duolingo, showered, and showered my daughter. I put the rest of dinner away, and loaded and ran the dishwasher.

I put my daughter to bed, then headed to my heated throw to read. My husband and I watched three episodes of Killer in Plain Sight, and then it was time for what turned out to be a terrible night of sleep. Boo.

 

And that’s it for now! Today will be filled with a lot of random chores. It’s the first day I’ll have the house to myself since school let out for winter break, so there’s a lot of tidying up to do. Of course, I’ll still be taking my daughter out of school at lunch time, so that will still break my day up, but I’d rather do that than have her sit in the lunchroom with 34824309034 unmasked kids, especially with the recent news about how diabetes diagnoses are up among kids that have had COVID. Not my idea of a good time as a parent.

Wishing you all peace and warmth this week!!!