Holidays – Page 2 – Life Off Headset

Labour Day Weekend 2022. Renaissance Festival!

Another Labor Day weekend in the books, and now I feel like summer is truly on it’s way to fall.

Not everything on my my Labor Day Weekend plans/ aspirations list got checked off, but the most important adventure was accomplished – we went to the Renaissance Festival! The Ren Faire was the perfect way to end the summer — it’s a special outing, outdoors, yet local so we can still come home and sleep in our beds and not have to unpack suitcases. I love going to the Ren Faire. The costumes, the shows, the atmosphere of hubub… Everything about it is just pure fun. Also – not going to lie, but an additional perk right now is that the two littles get to go for free, so I just had to buy tickets for me and the ten year old. (The Husband didn’t go – even though one of our first dates was to the Ren Faire, he doesn’t actually like them.) This was my first time taking the toddler. I think the five year old went once when he was still a baby in the baby carrier.

We went with some friends who had never been before, and when we met up with each other inside the festival gates, they said, “We’ve never been before, so we’ll take your lead on what to do.”

“Well,” I said, “Usually we see shows, eat food on a stick, people watch, and swelter in the heat.”

And we did all that and more.

We watched a Birds of Prey demonstration. The little kids went on Pony rides. The ten year old climbed a rock wall. The toddler wanted to as well, but you had to be four to climb. “I’ll can climb it next year!” she said.

There was a playground with a giant pirate ship where the kids would have played all day if we had let them. There were people dressed as pirates and wenches and kings and queens and fairies and knights and warriors and all other manner of fabulously imaginative creations. The toddler, being the only one in the family with Ren Faire appropriate clothes (aka dress up clothes) was the only one who got dressed up. She even wore a veil that the ten year old had been gifted the first time she went to the Renaissance Festival exactly six years ago to the date. Here’s a then and now:

Of course we had turkey legs (and all other manner of faire food):

There were shows, so many shows to see. Comedy shows, Shakespeare snippets, juggling shows, music shows (bagpipes!). We watched the drama of King Henry VIII’s court unfold as Jane Seymour waits to become queen.

There was a longsword demonstration. We did not make it to the jousting, which was my one regret. In all my years of coming I have yet to see the jousting. I think I always plan on it but then get sucked into watching something else. Well, next year I’ll make sure it’s a priority.

There was face painting and fairy wings and a warrior’s shield.

We were there all day – arrived at 10:30am and left at 6:30pm. By the end of the day everyone was sweaty and dusty and sticky. The lady at the fairy wing booth said to me, “I can always tell the parents who let their kids have the most fun because those kids are the dirtiest.”

We probably stayed a little longer than prudent; I hadn’t brought the stroller so the toddler didn’t take an afternoon stroller nap and she had a pretty epic meltdown when we got home around 7:15pm. Even still, we had a really great time and, not that I would say it was worth an evening meltdown, sometimes one can’t let the last part of the day be the last word on the whole day. Sometimes the epic tantrum is just the price of admission for a fun filled end of summer adventure.

The rest of the long weekend plans/ aspiration list went pretty well:

We did get to the Farmer’s market. The Husband and I took the two little kids and picked up some yogurt and granola from the farmer’s market downtown. Then, because I wanted to do a bigger produce shop, we drove about twenty minutes to a farm stand in the next county because as much as I love our downtown farmer’s market, the produce is less expensive at the farm stand outside the city. The five year old, unbeknownst to me put a watermelon into out basket. The thing was half his size!
Then because it was on the way home, we stopped at Ikea. I had been looking for a container for our paper recycling since our current solution was a cardboard shoebox that was starting to fall apart. The main criteria for the recycling container was that it had to have a lid because the baby is still in that phase where she will put random things in open containers. After scouring the internet, and ordering something from Amazon only to have it arrive broken, I thought we’d check out Ikea. And of course, they had the perfect thing for half the price of anything I saw online. We also found these hooded towels that were perfect size for the two little kids. They’ve outgrown the hooded towels from the baby years, but still like to be swathed post bath. I’d contemplated buying them a set from Pottery Barn or The Company Store, but, again, Ikea had the perfect thing for a fraction of the cost. And the Husband picked up a boot tray that he said was exactly what he needed for draining his plants. Again… perfect thing, fraction of the cost of buying a plant tray from the garden store. We also wanted to buy a mattress for the ten year old, but thought it’d be better to go when she could come with. We did not find a solution for shoe storage – the situation in our foyer with shoes has gotten out of hand. Everything we liked would have to be drilled into the wall, and we have vintage wood paneling that we are loath to drill into. (Later that day, the ten year old just took all the shoes out of the baskets and lined them up in the foyer. We’ll see how the “no storage” solution works… so far, it’s worked better than I thought.)
All in all, though, a very successful morning of errands. I’d forgotten how fun Ikea can be for kids. Every time we walked into one of their faux rooms, the kids were delighted. “I want to live here!” the toddler would say. And for lunch, we ate in the Ikea cafeteria and had meatballs, which felt like a treat.

I meal planned for the week based on the produce run.
Did not managed to re-assess my closet completely, but I did take everything out and purged some things that didn’t fit. Some of it, like the party dresses, I set aside for my daughters in case they want to them when they can fit in them (which is sooner than I think… the ten year old already wears tops and sweaters that don’t fit me anymore). The closet is a little cleaner, but the clothes to be put into storage or given to donation are now in piles all over the bedroom. A little bit at a time, I guess. I don’t love my options for workwear that I have, particularly for the still warmer weather we are having, but I think I will make do for now and resist buying more.
Did not order shoes, but did put some options in my shopping cart.
Did go to the pool one last time before it closed for the season.
Slow run/walk accomplished when the Husband took the kids with him to run errands one morning. Very very slow. I think I only managed to run about 3/4 miles of it. Small steps. Literally.
I did get to relax on the back patio with a book, and I managed to fit in reading a little bit of each book in my current rotation. I feel like I want to incorporate some kind of family reading time. The little kids don’t read yet, but they can sit with a Vox book. Maybe this is a cozy cooler weather aspiration.
Socks and underwear ordered for the kids. I don’t understand why so many companies sell underwear in packs of five.
Did not completely finish prepping my score for rehearsals, but I did put in a little bit of work time to finish timing the show off a video. Even though the video is not the version we are doing, watching it got me super excited to start rehearsals. The music is so good!
I did not bake muffins, but given the Costco run last week, we are pretty well stocked for snacks.
And, not on the list, but something that the Husband and ten year old have made into a family tradition of late – we finished off the weekend by watching and episode of Golden Girls and folding the laundry. (Well the baby didn’t really watch, but she did do summersaults onto the couch.)

All in all, a pretty good weekend.

Weekly (bi-monthly?) recap: Summer so far

Well, we are coming off another long weekend and a positive COVID test for the Husband. Luckily, he isolated in the bedroom and the rest of the family managed to stay negative. I think the strategy was for the Husband to isolate in the bedroom, and for the rest of us to spend as little time at home as possible. The two older kids were in camp and pre-school, and the baby and I found lots of adventures to keep us out and about.

I have to admit, that I don’t mind solo parenting. There is something really freeing about realizing that there are no excuses for not prioritizing the well-being of the people in the family. I could let the house get messy and leave the dishes to be piled in the sink until after the kids went to bed and it was totally a fine to say time with the kids was more important that the dishes. To be sure, kids should probably trump dishes any day, but I think when I know the kids will get attention from another parent, it makes it easier to find the time to do the dishes and pick up the living room and fold the laundry. I will say, lest you think the Husband was a total invalid slug – he actually felt fine a few days after his positive test, and when the kids and I weren’t home, he would emerge to do things like go mow the lawn or pick up the mess I left in the kitchen. But even still, the house was a bit of a sty and I was soooo very tired from having to do housework after the kids went to bed. On the plus side, I finished season three of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Or maybe that is a minus because that was the last season made and I have developed such a crush on Detective Inspector Jack Robinson and, truth be told, on Phyrne Fisher herself. That series was such a perfect slow burn romance. Okay, so another plus of solo parenting is that I get to watch whatever I want.

We did use up a lot of rapid COVID tests during the week. I remember when the county and the federal government first started handing out tests for free, we somehow ended up with ten test kits in our bathroom cabinet. “We’ll never get through this all!” I thought. Hah. Last week I actually had a slight panic that I would run out. I guess a family of five goes through test kits pretty quickly Luckily the county is still handing out test kits and the federal government has made more kits available – these latter arrived in the mail two or three days after I ordered them. Speedy!

At any rate, this fourth of July weekend has been low key. We cleaned out some of the attic, visited the Smithsonian (more on that below) and there was a birthday part and raft night at the pool, when people can bring their inflatables Then on July 4th itself, my friend Kristen came over and we went to the pool and then came home to grill (salmon, shrimp, mushrooms, sausages, corn, and an eggplant salad that I thought was really good). We capped off the evening by looking through old photo albums from college – Kristen and I had been roommates for all four years of college. The ten year old seemed to really get a kick out of this. She looked at pictures of me glowing with youth and said, “Now I understand why dad married you.” Thanks? I think?

It’s been a while since I wrote of our adventures -something about being exhausted from solo parenting and all the weighty world and national events this last half of June has made it difficult to prioritize writing. But at any rate – highlights of Summer so far:

-I did make it to a beach with the two little kids, packing a lunch and snacks and taking them to Calvert Cliffs State Park. It was an easy 1.8 mile hike from the parking lot to the beach, but that did not mean the hike was easy, just the terrain. With the two littles, it took us about 2 hours and lots of M&M breaks to go that 1.8 miles. At the end of the trail, we were rewarded with a sunny sandy shore and temperatures that made it a little too chilly to brave the waters, but perfect for soaking up sunshine, hunting for shark’s teeth and building sand castles. I was particularly excited to use the beach tent that I had bought last year, but which I had never gotten a chance to use yet. We stayed almost all day, and even though I was certain the littles would be tired after the hike back to the parking lot, they played for an hour on the recycled tire playground next to the parking lot. Which was fine by me – I lazed in a recycled tire hammock and read my book as the sun started to set.

-Riding the carousel. The ten year old’s theatre camp is in what was once an amusement park, but is now a park used for various arts and cultural programs. In fact, it’s at the park’s ballroom where the Husband and I met, one summer evening at a contradance. In the park, there is a carousel, originally installed in 1921. It’s $2 to ride and $5 for a day pass. One morning, after dropping the ten year old at camp, I bought the baby and I day passes and we spent several hours riding the carousel, taking pauses to go play at the playground next to it. I think we rode the carousel six times that morning. It was a great morning – the carousel music is courtesy of a Wurlitzer band organ, and hearing the familiar old tunes is one of my favorite parts of riding the carousel. They must have also at some point commissioned new music rolls for the band organ because one morning the band organ played such vintage hits as “The Boxer”, “One Tin Solider”, and “Love Potion No. 9.” There is something charming in hearing these modern hits coming from a band organ with it’s reedy pipes, bass drum, cymbals, and triangles. The simplicity of going around and around to the loud oom pah pahs, the velocity of the carousel creating just enough breeze to cut through the summer heat – this is summer as it is meant to be savored.

– The ten year old’s camp is also about a ten minute drive from a wonderful hike along the Potomac river. One day after camp, I took the baby. The trail winds through a nicely shaded route next to the Potomac, and at one point we came to some rocky out crops, great for a rocky scramble, which the baby is always up for. I am always amazed at her ability to climb rocks, fitting her small fingers in crevices and pulling herself up with the slightest purchase. We had a snack and enjoyed watching the river flow by. Hikes with the baby don’t always go far, but they are nonetheless full of wonder.

– Fizzy water and popsicles. At the beginning of June I took a weekend away with a good friend to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. One of the things we discovered there was flavored balsamic vinegar used as a drink ingredient. I came home with some blackberry ginger balsamic and blood orange vanilla balsamic and the next day went to the store to stock up on fizzy water. Well after a week of that, I remembered that several years ago my brother had gifted me a SodaStream, which I had used little bit but never really got the hang of it so I put it in the attic. Inspired by my balsamic adventures, I pulled the SodaStream out of storage, bought a new Co2 cartridge, and now have fizzy water at the touch of a button. This makes me so happy. Also – summer also means popsicle season. The husband bought a new Mexican cookbook and there is a recipe in it for lime paletas. I have been making those weekly now, though sometimes I, in a fit of frugalness, throw in all the dried and sad citrus that has been languishing in the fruit bowl. So a fun realization is that the paleta base also makes a good lemonade base. And when mixed with fizzy water, makes a delightful summer drink. I feel so clever for getting two uses out of one recipe!

– Pool Time. The ten year old is on the swim team again, so we are spending a lot of time at the pool what with four practices and at least one meet a week. And then on weekends, the kids inevitably want to go to the pool. While the five year old is very cautious in the pool, the baby is fearless. She insists on wearing her brother’s swim vest rather than her more buoyant Puddle Jumper. The swim team parents have to volunteer to work the meets and I’ve been usually assigned to be a timer, which is kind of fun and exciting and my feet have been getting very wet. The ten year old and I have worked out a deal that every time she drops time without being disqualified, she gets and additional dollar for the snack bar. I’ve never really been one for bribing a kid to do well, but I do think that achievements should be celebrated.

– Anticipation. I read this article a couple weeks ago about how anticipation can help a person enjoy life more, and that having something to look forward to can boost one’s mood. The most interesting part of the article for me, though was this: “The flip side of positive anticipation,” the author writes, ” is anticipatory anxiety.” That is to say, a lot of things mix feelings of excitement and anxiety. “The key is acknowledging the happy, positive aspects of what you’re doing along with the nervous feelings,” the article goes on to say. I was thinking about this lately when the Husband and I were trying to plan some travel this summer. There is a lot of stress that goes along with planning a trip that sometimes all I can think about is, “Is it really going to be worth packing the kids in a van for a ten hour road trip?” or “Three kids + two adults + 1 tent = no sleep for anyone.” (except maybe the five year old. he sleeps like a rock.) But, I realize that if I thought about all that could be painful about a trip, I would never take the kids anywhere. So we do have some trips planned and I’m trying to persist in finding things that will be fun and interesting on this trip to get the Husband and I excited about going. I talk to people about our plans, read books, look at maps…. anything to get me to think of the trip as more than just a bundle of challenges and missteps. I’m sure there will be many of those, but surely there will also be some good moments too.

– The Smithsonian. I always feel so lucky that the Smithsonian Museums are just a 30-40 minute metro ride from home and that there are so many wonderful things to see there and it’s all free. It had been several years since I last went to the Smithsonian’s Folklife Festival – the past couple of years I’m not sure it was held due to COVID. So when I heard that this festival which celebrates cultural traditions was going to be going full swing again, I decided to take the baby and meet up with my friend Kristen to check it out. This year’s theme was the United Arab Emirates and Earth Optimism. We saw a Bedouin cooking demonstration, watched someone make fishing nets by hand, participated in an art project and relaxed on a majlis – a community sitting place, often for discussing cultural and political issues – set up in the shade of a tree. The art project was particularly interesting – the artist Azza Al Qubaisi gave each person a cross section of a palm stem to decorate, then she will take a picture and assemble them all digitally into a design. It was really neat – the baby’s effort was a little messy and chaotic, but when seen as part of a large whole, it didn’t look that bad. The artist’s goal is to collect 1000 palm sections, which I think was a pretty easy goal.

One weekend, after the Husband was done isolating, we took the metro downtown again, this time to check out an exhibit called Futures, which sought to collect artifacts that recalled how we thought of the future as well as objects that could give us a glimpse of today’s future. There were some really neat exhibits that really made me think about the idea of inclusion – a computer generated voice that was meant to be genderless, and a version of Minecraft that you could play with your eyes. And some machines that would make food production and transportation more efficient. It was all incredibly thought provoking to think about what I would want the future to look like, and what it might actually look like.

archway into Arts and Industry Building.

I also liked that throughout the exhibit there were quotes on the wall about how we can think about the future. My favorite:

And speaking of the unimaginable future – the best thing of all in June:

– The Husband’s positive COVID test coincided with the approval of the vaccine for kids 6 months to 5 years. The baby had been in a Pfizer trial and she had a 2 in 3 chance of getting the real vaccine, the other 1 in 3 being a placebo. The trial was to be unblinded in six months or when the vaccine was approved for her age group, whichever was sooner. Anyhow, the Monday after the vaccine was approved, I was driving the ten year old to camp, when I noticed I missed a call which turned out to be the folks from the study calling to unblind the baby. It took four days for them to call me back, and I was so impatiently on pins and needles to find out. Finally, I was running errands at Target one morning and the study folks called again. This time I was able to answer the phone, having left the ringer on since I first missed the call. Well turns out…. the baby received three doses of the vaccine, so she is now fully vaccinated! Whoo hoo! Until, that is, she needs a booster. I celebrate with a grain of sobriety, since the Husband, who is fully vaccinated managed to get COVID despite everything. But… it’s a layer of protection and I’m so glad that we are all vaccinated to some degree. I did have a feeling that she had the real vaccine because the 24 hours after the third shot, she was a tired, cranky lethargic mess and she usually is the happiest ball of energy. Interestingly, she had no side effects from the first two shots, however. The baby (okay, toddler) will go to pre-school in the fall, and I feel grateful that she will have had three doses of the vaccine. On the other hand, I’m really going to miss going on adventures with her. I’m already mourning the loss of my little buddy.

(Okay, funny toddler side note – For some reason, she thinks that every store is called Target. So whenever I mention buying something, she says, “Go buy from Target?” Even if it’s a car.)

Long weekend and Summer!

It’s a long weekend. “I have four at home days!” the five year old keeps telling people. Monday is off for Juneteenth, but Friday there was no school for him because it was a Teacher work day.

The ten year old is finished fourth grade. She missed the last day of school yesterday because she and her dad already had a trip planned but then the school year was extended to compensate for snow days. When I was growing up, perfect attendance was something we aspired to, but I’m coming to feel like it’s not the most important metric. I don’t want the kids to feel like attendance is optional or teach them to be cavalier with school policies, so I’m still a little conflicted about letting them miss school.

At any rate, I didn’t get a picture of the ten year old on her last day of school, but we did stop for Dairy Queen on the way home from school. There is always a frozen treat involved on the last day. Against my better judgement the baby got her own Blizzard to eat in the car and made a mess, but I couldn’t very well just have Blizzards for me and the ten year old and not for the baby.

Maybe because this long weekend comes at the end of the school year but it feels, more so than Memorial Day, that this is the weekend to kick off the summer. The weather is sunny, hotter some days than others, and perfect for some summer adventures.

So three and a half days on my own with the two little kids. I’ve found there is a bit of freedom when solo parenting, to not have to plan or negotiate free time with someone else since you know you just won’t be getting any until the kids go to bed.

Plans/aspirations for this long weekend:

– fold the mountain of laundry (perhaps while watching a movie with the kids)

– tidy the toy room (done this morning, but it is already a mess again)

– tidy the spare room

-cull some clothes and prep them to hand off to a friend (the culling happened last night the hand off will probably happen Monday)

– make muffins

-make Rice Krispie treats.

– Hike with the two little kids. I’m thinking Calvert Cliffs State Park where one can hike 1.5 miles or so to a beach then look for shark’s teeth. though we will have to get an early start because it is not a large park so they will close when at capacity. It will be an adventure for sure.

– the ten year old’s first swim meet.

– various social activities/ playdates. Essential to solo parenting weekends is making sure I have grown ups to talk to.

– post to this blog. This one is clearly a little meta. I have a whole bank of half written posts stemming from lots of happenings in life and in my brain the past month or so. I want to finish those thoughts and recaps push those thoughts out into the world.

It’s a good combination of “to do” and “for fun”, I think. I feel like if I don’t tackle some “to do” stuff on these long weekends, they will loom and I will get restless while doing the fun stuff. I guess it’s about balance. As is most things.

Weekly recap + what we ate: the last week of the year!

The day after Christmas we went for COVID tests, back to back appointments, with the Husband and the four year old going in first while I waited outside with the COVID positive baby and then me taking the nine year old in when they came out.

The people at the testing center looked exhausted.

“Has it been busy?” I asked, somewhat inanely making conversation with the lady who swabbed our noses.

“Oh yes.”

“Worse than Thanksgiving?”

“Much much worse.”

I remembered to thank her profusely for doing her job. How stressful it must be. Even though a lot of healthy people come to the testing center to get requisite tests for travel and family gatherings, I’m sure there are a good number that actually will test positive.

It was our first trip out of the house in three days, and once we were in the car speeding home, the temptation was great to just keep driving and not go home – that little intoxicating taste of freedom. But, being responsible people, we took ourselves home and continued to quarantine.

The husband, the nine year old and I came back with negative tests rather quickly. The four year old’s test took the full 72 hours and was… positive. wump wump. But in the end, it was kind of a moot point because his daycare center ended up closing for the week anyway due to a COVID related staffing shortage. I feel like so many people I know – people who are super careful and vaccinated and boostered – were testing positive. It has been kind of brutal.

We spent the week rediscovering the joys of our backyard. I googled “classic outdoor games” and came across SPUD, which I had never played as a child, but which the kids loved. The two little kids also discovered the joy of throwing a ball at a pyramid of tin cans and yogurt containers. And of course there were cardboard creations and improvised obstacle courses.

And indoors there was this classic – the set from the Husband’s childhood, with missing pieces supplemented via eBay:

Speaking of childhood nostalgia – we watched 9-Bit Christmas and it was delightful. Full of the hallmarks of a childhood in the late 80s, and the story was kind of great too. It supposed to be a knock off of A Christmas Story, but it’s gentler and more forgiving… perhaps a sign of the times? Anyway, will definitely put that into the Christmas movie rotation.

For New Years Day, I wanted noodles, but we didn’t have the right kind of noodles at home. This is probably laughable, since I have a bin in the cupboard with at least four different kinds of noodles from Asia. Noodles are definitely my favorite food. I love how versatile yet specific they are.

So I decided to try my hand at making udon noodles from scratch. I’ve come to realize that the combination of flour + water + salt is the basis of so many different dishes – noodles, dumpling wrappers, scallion pancakes… All the recipes for Udon noodles that I read called for kneading the dough with your feet. So I mixed up the dough and got the kids involved in the stomping and the rolling. I did have to improvise a bit since we were out off all purpose flour. I don’t know how that happened – probably isolating hot on the heels of bake-heavy holiday season. But I did have whole wheat flour and sprouted flour (a random Hungry Harvest purchase). I also had bread flour, but I didn’t remember until too late, and in retrospect that might have been the best option.

The results were tasty. Granted, toss anything in scallion ginger sauce and it will be tasty, but the noodles tasted simple and doughy. The chew was not as bouncy as ideal, but I think that might have been because of the flour. I’m on the fence as to whether to try again, but it’s good to have demystified the idea of making my own noodles.

We also put together the Swedish climbing wall that we had bought for the kids for Christmas. I thought it was going to be a huge challenge, but it was surprisingly easy and the kids love it. A good indoor energy burner, for sure. And I may once in a while be found hanging from it too…

Throw back food stuffs:
When I was little, growing up in a tiny Canadian town, much of the Taiwanese food that my parents loved wasn’t available in stores. They made their own dumplings. They even made their own tofu – a multi-day process that started with soaking soy beans and involved a rustic metal machine that made grinding noises in our basement, and square molds that sat overnight in our sink. Of course these days, we buy dumplings and tofu at the store. One other thing I remember my mother making were shrimp chips – they came out of this box as hard round translucent discs which my mother fried in oil until they were puffy and pink and crunchy. You popped the fried chip in your mouth and the chip would bite at your tongue before dissolving in a crunch of salty shrimpy goodness. These days you can readily buy ready-made shrimp chips in the snack aisle at the Asian market. Even the local Giant has them in the ethnic food section, though those ones are skinny and shaped almost like French fries.
The other day, I was at HMart looking for fun food stocking stuffers, and I came across a box of uncooked shrimp chips and I had to buy them for my own stocking. Last week, I gave them a go. I don’t love frying things; I find it messy and I never know what to do with the oil afterwards. So I thought I would see if I could fry the shrimp chips using the airfryer function of our new toaster oven. They do lack the umami of being fried in oil, but the crunch shrimp-y goodness is still there. And the novelty and nostalgia.

Other cozy things this week:
In Summer of 2019, pregnant with our third baby, I decided I wanted to learn how to knit. I had learned once, but then found crochet to be easier and more forgiving so knitting fell by the wayside. Both older kids had handmade blankets made for them when they were born, and I wanted to make one for the baby that was coming. So I dug out a book, looked at some online tutorials, and cast on my first row. It was a pretty simple project – knit stich back and forth til the creation felt long enough. I don’t know if it was time or skill or what not, but the whole thing turned out to be pretty slow going. But finally, the week before Christmas, I finished it and was able to wrap it and put it under the tree for the baby to open come Christmas day. She calls it her “Bankie” and I love seeing her cuddled under it. It certainly has flaws, and the colours don’t quite go together, but I think it will still keep her warm and loved.

What we ate:

Sunday: Cauliflower Curry Soup from ATK’s Vegan for Everyone.

Monday: Sweet Potato and Carrot Eggah and Roasted Potatoes. We don’t eat a lot of potates, but a bunch came in our Hungry Harvest box, so I had some to use up. I cooked the for “0” mins in the InstantPot and then tossed them in olive oil and salt and roasted at 400 until the outsides got golden and crispy. They were really good and I’m now looking forward to more potatoes in our box.

Tuesday: Chili. Every year at some point over the holidays the Husband makes chili. He always makes it the night before so it has time to sit and meld. I love eating my chili with pickled jalapenos, onions and sour cream. The Husband likes his with Fritos. So do the kids. I love how chili is meal where everyone wins.

Wednesday: Banh mi bowls. Made with tofu ground beef rather than pork. And eaten with noodles.

Thursday: BBQ Pinto Bean Tacos with mango salsa.

Friday: Pizza (home made pan pizza) and Empire Strikes Back.

Saturday: Dumpling and homemade udon noodles in scallion ginger sauce with stir fried napa cabbage and mushrooms.