March 23, 24 and 25

I don't even have the wherewithal to properly write my dates in the Title of the post. Much like my undergarment use...OK, I wear clean underwear every day but I haven't worn a bra in over two weeks....  Haha!!  I also don't know what day it is most of the time.  I could have sworn yesterday was Thursday.  All day I thought it was Thursday.  Not that it would matter.  All the days seem the same other than Benjamin proudly points out that he does NOT have to do school work on Saturdays NOR Sundays.   But the paper recycle gets picked up here once per month and we have missed it the past two months and we really needed to make sure it was out there.  And it was.  Yay.   Small celebrations for the silly and mundane.

Benjamin making
bread to go with
our potato soup

 We continue to be healthy and handling the new normal with more comfort and ease withstanding a few major blow ups from time to time.  Josie works most of the day in her room.  She loves that she can stay in her pajamas all day and work to her own beat.. literally.  She constantly is listening to show tunes and musical sound tracks with her ear buds.  I know she is also on her phone texting friends and watching stupid Youtube videos but she gets her work done on time with minimal drama.  There was a day earlier in the week, Monday maybe? Where she had a bit of a meltdown over school work but for the most part she is getting her stuff done.  We have the rest of this week and all of next week and then technically the kids have "Spring Break" for 2 weeks... so same type schedule but no school work. 

On the 25th Marty and I walked/biked to our local and nearby grocery store.  It is really small and a typically well stocked and relatively empty.  Our good friends who live right next to our old apartment and just around the corner from where we live now had texted with saying that they had our same plan.  One of them goes in and does the shopping and the other one waits in the parking lot to help schlep it home.  Marty walked through the park with Mogli and planned to meet me there after the walk. I rode my bike because it is so much quicker to get there and SO much easier to just push my bike with groceries in the bag in the basket than to try to carry it.
Just as I was rounding the corner to the grocery store parking lot I realized that I had forgotten my coin to get a cart.  It is a deposit that you have to stick in the cart and then it releases it and you get our coin back when you return it.  I normally never get a cart because if I do I always underestimate the weight and then I'm stuck trying to carry it all home.  But since Marty was coming I knew I needed a cart.  Thankfully our friends that had the same plan were still loading up in the parking lot and I was able to borrow their coin/cart.  You really have NO idea how frustrating it is to forget a damn coin for the cart when you really need a cart.
The store was very quiet. It was just around 8:00 AM.  There were just a few other customers and workers restocking.  The produce again was as plentiful and full of variety as normal.  The prepackaged bread section was nearly all gone, dairy was pretty well stocked, there was absolutely no pasta, canned tomatoes or anything at all in the Italian area.  The TP was still gone as was the flour and most of the freezer sections were empty.  There weren't plain tortilla chips (only flavored ones) otherwise I got what I needed.  I had planned to make a huge pot of Italian meat sauce and freeze some and then make a large lasagna so that was frustrating and at some point we may run out of TP but other than that it was quite successful.

Later on the 25th Marty and I rode our bikes out to our friends house again to pick up a bunch of books that she is lending us for Benjamin to read.  The kid reads like no one I've ever seen.  It is crazy. He stayed up late on the 24th finishing a book so "school" on the 25th didn't start until well past 11AM.   The bike ride is about 5.5 miles each way and takes about 25-30 minutes.  It has been beautifully sunny and a bit cold but the sunshine helps.

These are all the books that Benjamin has read
since we started "quarantine" 2 weeks ago.
Deck of cards for size comparison.  And
he has finished 2 more books since taking this
picture!!

Meals continue to get great reviews from my family which makes me happy. Monday was a potato/leek/
cauliflower soup which I combined these two recipes:

Recipe One


And Recipe Two.  We had the fresh bread that Benjamin made and topped the soup with Cheez its smuggled back by Marty from his Seattle trip.
Tuesday was YUMM bowls!!  Thank GOD for Marty's purchase of Yumm sauce while in Seattle and Wednesday was left over Butternut squash Dal and this yummy kale salad.  Recipe given to me by sister in law, Kelley.  I finally found kale!!  We were biking back from our friends house with the load of books when we rode right by a small outdoor market. YUM!  We are all going to have trouble fitting through the doors once they allow us out again.

I have been walking A LOT.  Mogli is loving all of the extra walks and sleeping a lot.  There really are some highlights to all of this.