We’ve been out at The Lodge for just over 6 weeks. By now we’ve certainly settled into our new normal and have a pretty good routine going. We’ve been away from our regular lives for so long that I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on our quarantine time lately.
For me in particular, this family time is precious and I am soaking it up. I can’t help getting a little emotional listening to my kids laughing their heads off with their dad when he comes up to play with them at 4 or 5 in the evening.
Spending time in the mountains has been an absolute dream for us. I have to say we are thriving with our loose routine and the kids are loving living outside.
Right now, we’re eating 100% of our meals together. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Before quarantine, we’d be lucky to eat dinner together during the week.
Cooking and eating looks a bit different for us and surely the rest of the world right now. Since 100% of our meals are home cooked I’m spending a lot of time in the kitchen. I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ll say it again, I’m really enjoying the challenge of extending our groceries and cooking with what we have. That said, I’m definitely getting a little fatigued with the planning and preparation associated.
Currently we’re on day 18 of groceries {gasp!}, though we’ll have a fresh haul when Alex returns from Seattle tonight. I really can’t believe we made it that long; however, one of our neighbors gave us some eggs from her chickens and picked up a bunch of bananas for me, which was really helpful.
A few of my favorite meals we’ve been enjoying lately have been:
- Tuna noodle casserole/tuna salad {this was a HUGE hit!}
- Banana bread {tried Smitten Kitchen’s new recipe}
- Slow cooker pulled pork
- Sheet pan nachos {with leftover pulled pork}
- Quesadillas {with more leftover pulled pork}
My biggest cooking strategy to make our food last and still eat well has been to save the fresh produce with the longest life for later. I stocked up on things like apples, carrots, mandarin oranges, sweet potatoes and oodles of bananas. In a non-quarantine time of year we could eat five bananas in our house per day – one for smoothies and one for every family member. Now we’re rationing to smoothies only.
In non-food related items, we had a really nice week. A big highlight {and also a very big low!} was that Ben has started getting dressed! It’s been so nice to see him in real clothes again, though day one he made it as far as his swimming suit…
It’s not that we cared that he was in his jammies 24/7, but we cared when he wore a hole through the knees of four pairs of jammies and a massive meltdown ensued for that, as well as any time he got his PJs dirty from playing in the dirt, which meant he couldn’t wear them to bed. Enough was enough and we decided that Ben needed to get dressed in his play clothes from now on when he plays outside.
Everyone’s hair is starting to get a liiiiittle long. No haircuts have taken place yet, and Alex is growing a quarantine beard, so we’ll see how long that all lasts. I’ve seen some tutorials on Instagram about giving men and little boys haircuts so I think I’m a trained pro at this point…. All I can say is my hair is going to be very long by the end of this and I am SO glad I had just opted to chop a few inches off of my own hair before quarantine began.
This week I started integrating a little “homeschool” time for Ben while Hannah is napping. He is actually really close to mastering the sounds each letter of the alphabet makes, along with identifying the letter and writing it. Maybe we’ll come out of this with an early emergent reader?!
Alex has been hard at work on projects around the yard. He has been clearing out our forest over the last several weeks. It was covered in fallen trees, logs, branches and years upon years of pine needles.
Now that he’s made a significant dent in the forest project he’s ready to move onto a few other smaller projects. The forest will probably take a few more weeks to get to a state where we’re happy with it, so it’s nice to re-focus. Last week Alex built me a couple of raised garden beds so I can grow vegetables! I can hardly wait to get planting.
This last weekend Alex took on a few smaller projects, including cutting down the barbed wire that extends the length of our property. The wire was down on the ground, making it hard to see, so it was quite dangerous for both kids and our dog. It turned out to be quite a job, with tree roots getting tangled in the wires.
One teeny tiny project we enjoyed was getting some bird feeders. We had previously hung our hummingbird feeder and loved watching the littlest birds come to feast on the nectar. Now, we have swarms of birds flocking to the feeders. We are all getting such joy from sitting and watching the birds. We primarily have chickadees and robins and are working to identify other species.
Before quarantine began I was training for a half marathon to take place May 2nd. I have been continuing to train and run; however, got quite derailed by my Achilles. Thankfully I’m happy to report I’m back to running. In an effort to ease back into things I’ll push back my “race day” a few weeks, I think.
Certainly there are things we long for and we absolutely miss the life we left behind when this all started, but we’re striving not just to survive quarantine, but to thrive.