Amyblog

IGNORANCE

A year after the start of COVID-19 lockdown, things have come to another low with the Georgia shootings. Ignorance breeds hate and violence. The world needs more education, reading and broadening of the mind.

Posted on March 18, 2021

ONE YEAR LATER

Can you believe that it was exactly one year ago that we started the lockdown? Other parts of the world started it earlier, but for us, it was early March 2020. I still remember the strange feeling we had standing in the hallway of my office with my coworkers, all of us not thinking that the remote work was going to last more than a few weeks. To this day, I still regret not grabbing my brand new box of Girl Scout cookies from my office! It's still rotting away in my office cabinet this very second! In that sense, I can't believe how quickly the year flew by.

After exactly one year, the kids are finally going back to school physically, albeit only for a couple of hours each day for four days a week. One of the days, Wednesdays, will still be online so that the entire class can "be together" while the other on-site days are split between morning cohorts and afternoon cohorts. We had to dust off their backpacks and get masks and school supplies ready again, like it was the first day of the school year! As much as it will be more tasking on our schedules to have to drive the kids to/from school each day for just a few hours, we are excited that the kids will get to meet their teachers in person and see their friends in person!

As more and more people we know have gotten the COVID vaccine, we are hopeful that we'll all be able to get the vaccine soon as well. In the meantime, life continues to March on. Our little girl is celebrating her NINTH birthday this month. We are going to have a small, social distance meet up with four or five of her closest friends at a park. Normally, we would have thrown her a birthday party for an odd number birthday. We still owe her a trip to Harry Potter Land from her eighth birthday. The lockdown began the very week we were planning a trip there! But she never complained about missing it. She's the happiest and cheeriest girl I know, we love her so much!

Also, happy St. Patrick's day, Ahgoo discovered a huge lump of Golden at the end of the rainbow last week! We are so looking forward to Day Light Savings Time and longer days of spring! Oh, and if you are up for some thoughtful entertainment, I recommend the movie White Sun. It is a dusty little documentary-like film about the Nepal civil war. The whole film is almost like a documentary, the actors are so real and raw that I forget it's a movie sometimes. The children in the movie are real and amazing. Very heart warming and thought provoking.

Posted on March 12, 2021

ORANGES

I used to slice up an orange the normal way, into wedges. Then the kids would end up just sucking all the juice out leaving everything else on the rind. It was such a big waste of a good orange! Then I discovered that if I cut up the orange into rounds, the kids end up eating the entire orange! I love eating the orange this way as well, you really don't waste anything. The only trick is to be careful not to cut too deep when you're slicing the peel off. Enjoy your oranges!

Posted on March 9, 2021

SUNSETS AND WALKS

We took a nice walk along the ocean the other night and saw a sepctacular sunset. We've had a nice February and it's so far been a pretty warm March. I am counting down the days until daylight savings time begins! Then we'll have more time for lovely walks after work. Also, in case you are still hunkering down cozy for winter where you are, I have a book recommendation. I finished Medical Firsts: From Hippocrates to the Human Genome by Robert E. Adler and it was a facinating read! I highly recommend this non-fiction book, it's easy to comprehend even for someone with no medical background. You don't have to purchase the book, I borrowed the book online from my local library app. The book covers some of the most important medical discoveries from anicient times up to our current era. The one I love the most was the story of discovery/invention of anesthesia. I still shudder at the thought of living in times prior to the discovery of anesthesia. Can you imagine even going to see the dentist?? Anyway, fasinating read, I highly recommend it.

Posted on March 3, 2021

FAMILY DINNERS

Mr. BAW loves to cook. He's got a lot of dishes he likes to make on rotation. But one of his favorite things to make is pizza. He'll use store or restaurant-bought dough or make his own sometimes. He'll cook it in the oven or use his beloved Green Mountain smoker. But no matter what he does, he always uses fresh ingredients. The kids love Mr. BAW's pizzas and they get to pick their own topings. Maybe they'll grow up having fond memories of Dad's homemade pizzas and never eat a greasy pizza again...until college, ha!

Posted on March 2, 2021

SHORT ROADTRIP

As more and more of our family members have gotten the vaccine (both of my parents and In Laws have had the vaccine) we feel hopeful that there may be light at the end of this COVID-19 tunnel. Over the long President's Day weekend, we decided to take short road trip to see my In Laws in Arizona. We feel pretty comfortable with the trip since we literally drove door to door and only picked up lunch at a drive thru in between. It was a long drive, about 7 hours, but the kids are now old enough that 6 hours of uninterrupted electronics was pure heaven for them. This year, the long weekend was a trifecta! It was Presidents' Day, Valentine's Day, and Chinese New Year all in one weekend! We only stayed for two days and the kids spent one whole afternoon at the Grandparents' pool, that's three whole hours in the water! By the time I dragged them out, their fingers were like little raisins. The next day we took a little trip to the Goldfield Ghost Town and an outdoor model train at the Superstition Mountain Museum where the kids had fun doing a scavenger hunt of the miniature train town. Then we spent Valentine's Day driving home! Although the trip was very short, it was wonderful for the kids to see the grandparents and enjoyed Grandma's spaghetti and Grandpa's crepes for brunch.