Isolation baking!

Quarantine day 13.

Still hanging in there! And by hanging in there, I mean we are watching a lot of Reading Rainbow, and eating a lot of snacks. The kids want me to bake something new every day, but I’ve told them we cannot waste food. I only bake a new treat when we’ve finished off the previous one. Last week I made a cream cheese pound cake. The kids and I thought it was just okay (Virginia said it tasted too cheesy), but Joe really liked it.

After that was gone, we made a peach cobbler/crisp. I’d made these oatmeal crumble bars a few weeks ago and we loved them. I thought I could halve the oatmeal mixture to make a great cobbler type topping. I used a jar of peach pie filling, and it turned out really good! We love the bars, but by leaving out the base layer and just having fruit with the oatmeal topping was delicious.

Oatmeal Crumble Bars

1 cup AP flour

1 cup rolled oats

¾ cup sugar, divided

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon light brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg, beaten

21 oz canned/jar fruit (cherry, peach, etc)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8-inch square baking pan with non-stick spray.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, oats, 1/2 cup of the granulated sugar, 1/4 cup of the brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the melted butter, vanilla, and egg until well combined. Scoop out 1 cup of the oatmeal mixture and set it aside. Transfer the remaining oatmeal mixture to the prepared pan. Use the bottom of a measuring cup to pack it smoothly into an even layer.
3. Spread the fruit over the base. Stir the remaining 1 tablespoon of brown sugar into the reserved oatmeal mixture. Scatter the oatmeal over the fruit in an even layer.
4. Bake until the crumble is deeply golden brown, about 40 minutes. Let mixture rest in the pan for 20 minutes before slicing. Leftovers will keep, covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Recipe found in a Master Chef Junior Bakes cookbook.

The cobbler/crisp did not last long at all! Today was two weeks since the kids have been in school. Virginia and I are still doing good with her worksheets and reading in the morning. Luke sits with us sometimes, but mostly just runs around while Virginia works. I made a great Amazon purchase a few days ago, and today our mini trampoline arrived! I thought it would be a good way for the kids to get some energy out. They love it!

After lunch Virginia and I decided we needed a chocolatey dessert. We picked a chocolate cake from one of her books, it was very simple! I had it in the oven in less than 15 minutes. I hadn’t baked with mayonnaise before, but knew it worked similar to yogurt or sour cream to keep baked goods moist. We let it cool for an hour before slicing it. It was so tasty! Definitely a keeper recipe.

Chocolate Snack Cake

1 ½ cups AP flour

1 cup sugar

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

⅓ cup chocolate chips

1 cup water

⅔ cup mayonnaise 

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Confectioner’s sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8-inch square baking pan with non-stick spray.
2. In large bowl, combine cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Heat water in liquid measuring cup in microwave until hot and steaming, 1 to 2 minutes. Carefully pour water over chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth. Let mixture cool for 10 minutes.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
4. Add mayonnaise, egg, and vanilla to cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Add flour mixture and use rubber spatula to stir until just combined and no dry flour remains.
5. Use rubber spatula to scrape batter into baking pan and smooth top. Place pan in oven. Bake 34-38 minutes.
6. Once done, place baking pan on cooling rack and let cake cool completely in pan before slicing. Dust cake with confectioners’ sugar before serving.

Recipe found in America’s Test Kitchen Complete Baking Book for Young Chefs.

Joe and I thought it would be fun to let the kids stay up and have a movie night since it is Friday. Joe told me he wanted to watch The Karate Kid. I assumed he meant the one from when we were younger, but he played the remake that was done about 10 years ago. It’s a cute movie, but it was a full 2 hours long. We started it early, but it was still 8:15 when the movie was over. The kids are usually in bed by 7:15. They were both still awake, but Luke was pretty tired. They liked the movie though, and thought it was fun to stay up late.

I’m glad that the weekend is here. The kids do pretty well while Joe is working, but it’s much more fun on the weekend when we can all hang out together. Still no word on how long we’ll be at home, but I’m guessing at least another two weeks. The virus is still spreading quickly, and the hospitals are struggling to keep up with the sick. The country has been so divided between pro and anti Trump, that instead of it being about this crazy virus killing people, there are people that are hardcore Trump supporters that still think it’s not a big deal. Trump supporters were slow to adapt to the idea that self quarantining would help slow the spread. For like two months, while we were watching China deal with the virus, Trump said it wasn’t a big deal and that the US would be fine. He was more worried about the economy than people getting sick. Even now, with hospitals lacking ventilators to keep people alive, Trump is saying things will be back to normal by Easter. Doctors and scientists seem to think that that is highly unlikely. Anyway, it’s a crazy time to be living through.

 

Fighting our own germs

Isolation day 9.

On Monday morning of last week, Virginia woke up with a red, sore eye. By the afternoon, I realized it was pink eye. I was able to get drops from the pharmacy without having to take Virginia in. Virginia was a champ at letting me put her eye drops in. I washed all the towels, blankets, and hoped that it wouldn’t spread. Everything looked good, until Saturday morning when Luke woke up with a pink eye. I know you aren’t supposed to share medicine, but I just put some of Virginia’s drops in his eye to avoid having to go back out in public.

Luke had woken up early that morning and took a nap after lunch. When he woke up in the afternoon he was crying and pulling on his ears. Joe and I know an ear infection when we see one! Of course it was Saturday, and our only option was Urgent Care. I took Luke to the nearest office, which is at the big Kaiser office in West LA. I really didn’t want to have to go there. The most recent thing I read online said there are like 200 cases of Covid in LA county alone. But I knew Luke needed Amoxicillin and he had to see a doctor to get it.

When we got to the office there was a nurse and a security officer outside talking to everyone that wanted to go in. I told them Luke just had an ear infection, they asked if either of us had a fever and then let us in to the Pediatric Urgent Care. The waiting room was caution taped off, they had us wait in the main hall until a nurse was ready to take us right back to a room. We saw other people in rooms, but they were trying to keep people from waiting around each other. The doctor looked at Luke’s ears and said that one ear was red and had extra fluid, so she prescribed the Amoxicillin and his own eye drops. On her way out of the room, she looked at me and very sternly said, “Please stay at home.” She looked worn out. I told her we had been and wouldn’t have gone out if we didn’t need the medicine. It took an hour and a half total, but we got the medicine and got out of there.

Luke was not great at taking his eye drops, Joe and I had to wrestle with him but we made it work. Luke went to bed early Saturday night, his ears and eyes were bothering him and he was pretty upset. He was brushing his teeth before bed and he told me, “It’s hard being me.” It was so sad but so cute! He woke up Sunday morning and was feeling better, but his other eye was also infected. So I washed blankets and towels again, and disinfected everything I could (again).

Virginia finished her eye drops today, and Luke is getting better at letting me give him his. We got a new game for the Switch on Friday called Animal Crossing, and the kids love it! Joe, Virginia, and Luke have characters that live on an island, and they work together to collect and build things. It’s very cute. The kids have played a ton over the weekend, but there is a lot of reading involved, so it’s been good for Virginia to practice.

It’s Monday so we started our “school” again this morning. It’s technically Luke’s spring break for the next two weeks, but I printed out some worksheets for him to do when he wants. Virginia is still in a good mood when we do her worksheets. It’s hard for me to know how she did in school, but I’ve been so impressed with how well she is doing at home. She is reading so much!

I am trying to avoid watching the news, especially when the kids are around. I’m reading a lot of alarming things online, but it’s hard to know what is true and what is just nonsense. Parts of the US have been put under shelter at home guidelines, and governors of 12 (I think we’re currently at 12) states have ordered that all non essential businesses close. We’re supposed to be staying at home to avoid spreading the virus, but some people are being morons and just going about life as usual. If all governors would just order people to stay home (aside from going to the doctor and to get groceries) then maybe we could “flatten the curve” (to help hospitals stay under capacity of ICU beds and ventilators). They had to actually close down beaches in Florida, because people were still going there in huge crowds. People are crazy.

We’re going to cancel our flights for our spring break trips. It’s sad, but we’ll reschedule. It’s just a matter of when we can reschedule, since we have no clue as to when life will go back to normal. In the meantime, we are trying to stay busy and keep in touch with family.

Life on the Prairie

Isolation day 5

We have a very loose schedule that we have been following this week. We have breakfast around 7:30. I either work out alone or let the kids try yoga with me (Virginia and I attempted a very intense Pilates workout from Youtube). Virginia has been taking showers on her own, which is great. Luke opts out of bath time pretty often. At 10, Virginia and I do a few of her worksheets from her teacher, and read a book. We have lunch around 11:30. After lunch, the kids play upstairs for a bit. I try to make them play until snack time, which is at 3. Today they came downstairs a little early and we watched Reading Rainbow together.

Virginia has a website to practice reading on, and another for math. In the afternoon she works on those for a bit. I’m working on letters with Luke (he knows over half on sight, but I’m working on learning the rest). He can write his name, and we’re working on letters and numbers. Luke started speech therapy at McKinley two weeks before the virus cancelled school. He’d had four lessons with his teacher, and she emailed me some worksheets to help him with while we’re at home.

Joe has been working from home and it is going okay. The kids know he is home, so they want to talk to him, but he is video-conferencing with his team so they can’t go into our room while he is working. He is usually done around 6, and then we have dinner. So far we have been eating pretty well, because of all the stock-piling I did while the grocery stores were still well stocked.

We finished off a loaf of bread yesterday, so this morning I baked a loaf from a recipe I found on Pinterest. I made a simple white bread, it was pretty easy. It smelled great while it was rising, and even better when I put it in the oven. I think I should have given it more rise time, because it didn’t grow much while baking. That, or I should have had the oven at a higher temperature. The loaf didn’t brown as much as I thought it would. I was worried it would be really crumbly when I sliced it, but it held together pretty well.

Right out of the oven!

Made a great PB&J!

We’ve been eating whole wheat bread for a while, but I didn’t have any whole wheat flour. It tasted pretty good for white bread! I think it would make a great grilled cheese sandwich. Joe cut himself pretty thick slices for his lunch, but after his sandwich and the 3 I made for myself and the kids, I can probably get at least 2 more sandwiches from the loaf. Not bad! I used this recipe, using bread flour instead of AP flour- https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/sandwich-bread/

I’m hoping this weekend we can get in the car and take a drive, just to get out. The kids are doing pretty well with being stuck inside. They know that a bad virus is going around, but Joe and I have let them know we should be safe as long as we stay in. It is so nice and sunny out, I really do wish things were normal and we could go about life as usual.

 

Corona Virus+Quarantine=So Much Family Time

It’s been nine months since I last wrote. We’ve been doing a lot of baking, but we’ve also been very busy with school, visitors, holidays, trips, etc. It’s hard to believe we’ve lived in Santa Monica for almost a year! It feels kind of like we have been on a very long vacation. The weather really is amazing, and there is so much to see out here. We’ve had more visitors here in 10 months than we had in basically all four years in Seattle.

My mom came for a week in July and loved it! Meghan came for Labor Day weekend, and didn’t want to leave. Molly and Callie came in early October. In November we went to Nashville for Luke’s birthday and Thanksgiving. The four of us spent Christmas at our house, and the next day we met up with Gracie, Matt, Ella, Mimi, and Pops and drove to Big Bear. We spent three nights at a house in the mountains. A big snowstorm came and made it difficult to get around (snow chains are the worst), but we got to take the kids to ski lessons! Luke hated it, but Virginia actually loved it! I took a ski lesson and did really well. When I went back to ski with Joe, Gracie, and Matt, I wiped out on a steep blue hill and thought I had a concussion. I’ll stick to the ski lodge from now on!

My dad came for a week in February. A few weeks ago, Cindy and Rick flew in to celebrate Ella’s first birthday down in Irvine. Right after they left, Meghan flew back and spent a few days here. We had the worst weather we’ve seen, it rained almost every day. We ditched Joe and the kids and spent a very rainy, cold day at Disney. It was still really fun! I love Space Mountain! She flew home and then things got crazy.

China was hit by a really bad virus, the Corona Virus, back in January. It spread through China like crazy, and they tried to contain it, but people still got out and it spread to other countries. Oddly enough, Seattle was the first US city to really get hit. It is spreading quickly though, and this past Friday (March 13th) our schools shut down. As of now, the kids will go back April 20th (spring break was scheduled for the 6th-17th). That means no school for 5 weeks. Joe is working from home. We are doing this thing called “social distancing.” Everyone is supposed to stay home in our own family units (no play dates, no going to see relatives) to help slow the spread of the virus, to help keep the hospitals from getting overrun. The virus itself is like the flu (fever, dry cough, body aches), but it is deadly to the elderly or immuno compromised people. The good news is, children seem mostly unaffected.

It feels like we are living in a sci-fi movie. When rumors started spreading that we would be quarantined in our homes, I started stocking up on groceries, medicine, other necessities. I’m so glad I did it, because by Friday, the grocery stores were literally wiped out. I couldn’t find a single loaf of bread, any canned soup, all the toilet paper was gone. It was really creepy. But we have a good stockpile here, and we’ll be okay for a while. The news says that the stores are restocking now, so hopefully in a week I’ll be able to venture out for fresh fruit.

The kids are handling it really well. Joe is pretty calm about it. I don’t feel like the four of us at are at much risk of getting sick. The incubation period is between 7-14 days, and some people get it without any symptoms. Virginia’s teacher has emailed enough worksheets to last for two weeks, so every morning we sit down and do a few. We’re reading books, working on our sight words, doing math. Virginia jokes that I am “Teacher mom.” We’ve been watching National Geographic documentaries on tv. The kids spend a lot of time playing together. I’m so glad they have each-other! We’ve also been Facetiming with family and friends most days to stay in touch.

Restaurant’s, movie theaters, stores are closing down to keep people away. Grocery stores, doctors offices, banks, and other essential places are allowed to stay open. New movie’s opening dates have been pushed back, Coachella and other concerts have been cancelled or rescheduled. I feel so bad for people that have weddings scheduled right now, for high school juniors and seniors who are missing really important things at school, kids who have to postpone birthday parties.

Virginia’s spring break is two weeks long, and we had trips planned for both weeks. We were going to fly to Nashville for the first week. We rented a massive cabin in Gatlinburg for three nights. We were going with Callie, Carlin, Lillian, Christian, mom, dad, Courteney, and her boyfriend. We were going to go down to Gatlinburg and spend a day at Dollywood. The following week, we are supposed to fly to Hawaii with Mimi, Pops, Gracie, Matt, Ella, and Nana Blackburn. Mimi and Pops rented a nice house for us, and we were going to go to the beach and hike by a volcano. Both of those trips are looking very much like they will have to be cancelled. We booked the Gatlinburg house back in July. The kids are so excited about both trips. If we can’t go now, we’ll reschedule them for a future date.

It feels very weird to be living through this. We don’t know how long we will need to stay at home. We don’t know when we’ll be able to travel. Our family is lucky, because Joe can work from home and will still get paid. We also have a very healthy savings account, if he wasn’t being paid we would be able to live off savings for quite a while. People are losing their jobs because things are closing, and they don’t know how to find other work. Some people have to keep working, even though they are worried they will get the virus.

I thought this would be a good time to start this up again. I have lots of time! I am trying to ration our eggs/butter/milk, but I have enough to do some baking. I feel like Virginia might benefit from our one on one schooling. I’m no teacher, but I’m doing my best! I’m very glad that the four of us are together, and that our extended family are all healthy so far.