Random things I haven't posted about yet ~ Orange Raspberry Lemonade

This is not my first attempt at blogging. Usually I get busy or tired or depressed or I think “no one really cares anyways” (actually that’s probably the depression talking) and I just stop. But this one is different. This one is for me. And maybe that’s a lesson. Maybe they all should have been for me.

Today, as I’m sitting down to look at our homeschooling binder and preparing to at least catch Steven up on grade 5 while the uncertainty of a new school year looms (more on that later, I think), I’m realizing that there are tons of things I haven’t shared here. So here’s a list, in vaguely chronological order… the order I found the photos in dropbox anyways. I didn’t really edit them… so sorry for the mess that might be in the background.

We bought hair clippers back in April, knowing that we would all be way too hot stuck at home (with only an air conditioner in one downstairs window and some strategically placed fans) over the summer. I originally planned on just giving us all buzz cuts, but Steven wanted me to try and do his normal hair cut. I’m no hair dresser, but I think I did ok… enough that I pretty much did the same thing on myself. After doing that with craft scissors, I bought some propper shears so trims have been easier. I might actually keep it like this. Maybe I don’t need to pay $50+ for a haircut anymore? Will this pass once the pandemic is over? I don’t know. My hair was super long. I’m going to donate it when I can take it to a post office. Also, I found a grey hair! I thought Liam was just joking when he said he saw one.

These are carrot cake sandwich cookies. The recipe is here. You should make them. But make double. Trust me.

It was still snowing in May. Like the world was saying “It’s ok, just stay inside with your hot chocolate, it’s safer”. Our house is not well insulated, so I was wearing a huge sweater and a hat and mitts in my “office”, but I wish it had stayed cold longer. The heat is harder to manage.

For Mother’s Day, Liam and Steven made me pancakes. And then Steven did my nails. And then he set up this epic snack table for us to watch a movie.

At one point in the last couple months, the depression really hit me, I guess, but not in the way it normally does. I was all mopey and I wanted to do things but I didn’t want to do any of the things I could do. I wanted to go for a walk or go to the beach or go to the arboretum and take pictures. And those are all things most people would have felt safe doing. But I was (still am) so leery of going anywhere with other people, because I can’t control those other people. Maybe those people think the pandemic isn’t a big deal, maybe they won’t think twice about passing close by me on the sidewalk, maybe they don’t care that I’m clearly trying to keep my distance. I’ve encountered people like this every time going out has been unavoidable (which thankfully has been rare). So I moped around and was like “there’s nothing to do!” and then half laughed at myself because how many times have I been annoyed at a kid for feeling that way?

I ended up starting a different knitting project. Something simple and cute and practical… it’s still not done, but almost. I also printed off tons of free colouring cards and stuff from online and started colouring them to send to people. The one in the picture is here. I haven’t actually sent them yet, but most of them are coloured. I kinda lost steam at the assembly part. I’ll get back to it soon hopefully and get them sent out to put some smiles on peoples faces.

I just really like this drawing. It’s one that Steven made in his first Outschool class (the outschool link I put there will give us each $20, you can put yours towards your first class). He’s done some other classes too. Some were just DnD games with people his age (instead of being the only kid at the table as he normally is), one was how to make an escape room. We offered to pay for one a week but he lost interest, hoping to get him into it again. If nothing else it’s a good opportunity to be social.

Yes, that’s a turkey hanging out on our back porch. We were just doing dishes when we spotted it. It hopped down and ate some of the weeds (or maybe bugs on the weeds?) that were in our overgrown yard before hopping the fence and moving on to other yards.

For Father’s Day, I made stuffed peppers for breakfast. Steven didn’t really help, he was busy getting his escape room ready. One of his outschool classes was making an escape room for Father’s Day. He actually did really well. I did a test run and made some suggestions to make it run a bit smoother, and helped with the construction of the cardboard lock boxes, but the puzzles were all him.

I mentioned my birthday dinner in a previous post, but here are some pictures on the cake Liam and Steven made. Oh, and I won yarn on my birthday too… so that counts as a birthday thing, lol. I also got some new cast iron pans and squirrel proof feeders, and the compact elliptical I had mentioned in a previous post as well.

I made more masks. I’m still making more masks. I had to take over the kitchen table because my sewing table is now my work at home “desk”. That’s actually one of Steven’s masks I’m wearing.

Steven went through a huge growth spurt. He outgrew everything. Even the mask I had made him (he wears the same size as me now!). And now he’s all long and gangly and just drapes himself over everything. It reminds me of the Zits comics I used to always read in the newspaper.

Anniversary dinner, dessert and scrabble. Steven doesn’t like scrabble, so we play the odd time we’re by ourselves.

In the middle of July, the numbers dropped to nothing in this area, so we took a bit of a risk to feel normal for a day. We went to Liam’s parents’ house for dinner, saw all of Steven’s cousins, visited Grandma and went to the beach. We stayed far away from everyone else at the beach obviously, most people were heading home by the time we got there anyways. But it was so nice to just have a normal summer day with family after over a hundred days of being at home. And then Steven actually slept over at Liam’s parents’ place for a week or so, since the numbers were still down, and we got a bit of alone time to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. For now, we’re keeping an eye on the numbers and have said he can go visit them whenever he wants to as long as they stay down. Right now the numbers are lower there than here.

And… I guess that’s it for this post.

Stay safe!

Random things I haven’t posted about yet

Author: Lauren

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