Uptick

Slowly, I feel like I'm maybe getting a handle on this new situation we all find ourselves in.  This is very much helped by Wonderful Husband coming up with a kind of structure to the day, specifically for Squiddle learning time.  The new setup is that he has to pick three educational activities each day (reading, writing, vocabulary, maths, P.E., science, technology, music... am I forgetting any?) and gets playtime between them.  Today he picked vocabulary, technology (which was working on building the actually pretty darn complex Lego fire truck his grandfather sent him), and I'm going to make him do reading at bedtime.  We also got in a little bit of P.E. by going on a walk (me) / scooters (Squiddle and Jazzy) around the neighborhood.

It was actually fair weather today.  It looks like the two cherry trees I planted are about to break dormancy.  The plum tree, not yet.  With Jazzy's "help" I harvested the mint that's growing against the back of the house, then I washed it and dried it in the oven.  It's cooling now; in a little bit I'll strip the leaves off and jar them for tea.  I think I'll take the area the mint is growing in and turn it into a herb bed.  Mint's impossible to get rid of, so I might as well work with it.  I wish my order from Botanical Interests would arrive already, but it will arrive when it arrives.

I know that cooking-wise, I'm relying perhaps too heavily on prepackaged foods, but we're not having to go to the store or pick up takeout, so I'm going to give myself a pass.  Lunch for the boys was corn dogs, carrot sticks, and grapes.  I made myself a sandwich and had some pickled garlic (most of which Jazzy stole) as a side.  Wonderful Husband finished off the last of the fried chicken.  Dinner was rice and prepackaged orange chicken, which went across fairly well.  I realized too close to dinner that we were out of milk, which would be a debacle in this household, so I took five cans of evaporated milk and reconstituted them into just shy of a gallon, which fit nicely in one of my sun tea jugs.  (Next time I'll get to it sooner and defrost one of the frozen jugs.)  I also reconstituted a jug of orange juice, and thawed a container of turkey that was in the deep freezer.  Tomorrow, turkey pot pie!

I also got sourdough starter going again last night (following this tutorial) and I can already tell it's got live yeast in it by the thin layer of waste alcohol on the top.  I'm hoping in a couple more days it'll be ready to go.

And tomorrow I go pick up my orders from both the co-ops.

There is no WAY we can completely self-isolate for months.  Even if I had a full garden setup, which I do not yet, we would need to go to the grocery store every so often.  But I can stretch it out as long as I can to help break contagion chains.  If using evaporated and frozen milk means we only need to go to the store every two or three weeks, so much the better.  We have meat (and probably not enough veg, but we'll make do) in the freezer.  We have beans and rice and spices.  Heck, the last time I went to the dollar store, I kind of knew this all was going to be coming, so I bought plastic eggs and chocolate and egg-dying kits, because city egg hunts at Easter are definitely cancelled.

Plus Wonderful Husband and I have been carving out "date night" for the first time in a long time, and watching Good Omens after the boys are in bed. ^_^