covid baking adventure: breakfast muffins

I'm lucky I like to bake. It means we usually have an extra bag or two of flour hanging around. It's crazy how everyone has snagged up all the baking supplies, yikes! This recipe is super easy and uses only two cups of flour. I've been getting glorious fresh eggs from a friend's hens and I love how yellow the muffins turned out. Half the muffins got the basic treatment, while the other half got a dusting of cinnamon and sugar. I bet these would freeze well. They are definitely better the day they are baked but they also toast up nicely. Recipe is from I Heart Naptime. 

daily walk: march 29

 

a puzzle borrowed

We've been doing a puzzle a week it seems. Space for puzzles is limited so I cleared off the island so we could stand and puzzle about. There really isn't room for the pieces to be all over the place so I'm using our old ice cream bowls to sort pieces by color and I love it! Hooray for organization! 

daily walk: march 27

 

This is one of the ghost bikes we have in town. It might be the only one, I'm not sure. This cyclist was hit and killed by a hit and run. The passengers and driver of the car were underaged kids who had been drinking. It's terribly sad. I think the ghost bike tribute is beautiful though. 

They added a bike lane with a on demand light so cyclists could cross the very busy road to access the streets that go across town. There are big plans to make our town more cycle friendly. Not everyone is happy with the plan, but I am looking forward to more streets being bike friendly. 

I have a confession. This walk had a very unnecessary purpose. It was a walk to the drugstore to acquire malted milk eggs as I am currently hooked on them after not being able to eat them for two years. I know they are evil sugar and probably awful for you, but the world is crazy right now, and trying to teach preschoolers via zoom, whilst worrying for your health, and the health of all of our first responders is stressful. To balance out the sugar, I have subscribed to a local produce box so you can be certain I am beet-ing it up with all the root vegetables and lettuces in the land. 

This is my "oh crap I need one more photo for my walk" photo. It ain't pretty but it's kinda cool. I mean how many photos of succulents can one lady take? 

mr. & mrs. knucklehead

 

daily walk: march 26

 

happy birthday, mamos!

 

It's my mother's birthday today. She would have been 79 years old! It's been twenty years since she died and I miss her every day. I can't believe it's been so long. I found this mushroom staking a claim right next to the driveway. My mother used to do pen and ink drawings that often featured small wonders such as mice, butterflies, and mushrooms. This one is for you mamos. I love you. 

daily walk: march 24

 

another puzzle finished!

 

I'm down to only two more. I hope my order is shipped soon. This is a puzzle from Galison, they make the best puzzles! The pictures are fun and colorful, the quality is awesome, and the pieces have a good feel in your hand. Plus, this one features books. Happy, happy! 

the view from my side of the desk

Both the mister and I are working from home so we've moved a spare kitchen table from the garage to the homestead. It backs up against the sofa with me at one end, the mister at the other. This is confusing to the cat (did I tell you we have a new cat?) and so she does this, because the mister is her favorite. 

daily walk: a new route

 

a pandemic tradition, I hope

 

Aka weekend scones. We had buttermilk and so I gave the mister puppy dog eyes and asked him if he could make is famous buttermilk scones, which are really from a recipe I found, but I just hate combing the cold butter to the flour. I have no idea why but it irks me. Scones are my favorite favorite and so I puppy dog eye it up and the mister makes the dough the night before and I bake them up the next morning. These have chopped crystallized ginger in them. SO GOOD! I would share the recipe if I could remember where I found it. I hope I can convince him to make a batch of dough every weekend. Fingers crossed! 

the march bed

 

daily walk: all the blooms

debrace day!

My mouth and bite are still wonkified but good gravy, my jaw is less angry and the floss no longer gets stuck, and I am not biting my cheek anymore, and the snaggleteeth have been unsnaggled. Not too shabby for a dentist directed orthodontic adventure! She was and is amazing, and stuck with my wonky mouth. It hurt like hell but it was totally worth the two years of agony. Here's day one with braces if ya want to see the magic.

Remember when I was going to get the jaw surgery and all that but didn't because we weren't sure insurance was going to cover it, and then no orthodontist would touch me without the surgery? My dentist specializes in odd mouths. She loves the challenge and wholeheartedly believes the shape of our bite and tongue placement effects our breathing. She took impressions of the wonk and with my permission presented it to an entire seminar audience of over three hundred dentists who were looking to use the Six Month Smile program. They looked at my case and helped her come up with a plan and she did it! It took two years, ahem, but she did it! There were tears, and lasers, and deep breath coaching, and we did it! Sure, I have to wear a retainer for the rest of eternity but it was worth it.  She says she will never take on another mouth like mine, but I am so grateful she did! 

***edited to add how happy I am that I got in just under the wire before dental offices closed due to the pandemic. 

another neighborhood walk aka no dinosaurs allowed

 

meet joe

 

Joe is a neighborhood cat that has been around this one cluster of homes for a few years now. He used to have a buddy but I think that kitty has since passed. I always thought he was a stray, but a woman was out in the yard of one of the houses where we walk by and she mentioned that his name is Joe. 

I asked if Joe was her cat, and she said he chose her so she guesses so. He's a super friendly CHONKY thing and will come running down the sidewalk announcing himself to you. He's al about the pets and love to have his belly rubbed and does that cute thing with the front paws that make it look like he is dancing. 

I'm so happy Joe is around still. Whenever I need a little kitty love, he is the purrrfect (snort) remedy. It helps that I have to walk a few blocks over to get some action. Yay for neighborhood cats! 

time for a neighborhood walk

 

The mister and I are going to try to take at least one neighborhood walk a day. he's now working from home as am I. My assignment for myself is to take at least four photos a walk. Here are my first four!  How cute is that little free library? 

and so it begins

 

Well this has been a weird week. We got the call to shelter in place and the school I work at has closed the classrooms. We're all scrambling to figure out what the next step is and I'm super happy we made it to the library before the call came it. I had a written list and ran around looking for anything I could find at our branch. Seven books in twenty minutes ain't half bad. Only two of the titles were not on my list. Score! 

I placed an order for some puzzles and until then we have this classic farm house puzzle. I remember when I was a kid, we had two or three jigsaw puzzles on the top shelf of the closet in our den that we never used a gathering room. It had a desk in it and my mom's old underwood typewriter, and there was a sewing table and two enormous cabinets full of fabric. Later it became a storage unit for anything and everything, but those first few years we lived there, I remember sneaking into the closet to see what I could discover and there were these two puzzles. One was a farm scene, the other Big Ben, of course. We never put the puzzles together, and I think I just liked to put m hands in the pieces to feel how they felt. 

Stay safe everyone! Wash your hands! What song do you sing for your twenty second wash? At school I taught the children to wash together while we sing the alphabet song all the way to the end. Suds fly everywhere! It's fun! So now, of course, I still sing the abc song in my head. I'm gonna need to find a new one.