micalissima

Hello from the other side (of Week 2) So I've fallen off the blogging wagon.  This honestly is probably not a surprise to anyone.  Things got a little busy last week.  We started hitting our stride this second week of coworking/homeschooling.  I thought Thursday was Wednesday the whole day, and then Friday came around and it was amazing.  Best surprise ever. But seriously, there isn't that much to look forward to on the weekend other than we are not expected to be working or "on" and no school curriculum.  It's not like anything changes much for us weekday vs weekend these days. The Weekend We decided the weekend before that it would just be good to drive around.  We literally didn't even get out of the car this time.  We went west to Niles to check out their version of the Leaning Tower. We also had a proper Sunday dinner.  Roasted chicken, brussels sprouts, and lemon smashed roasted potatoes. We resurrected an old puzzle th...

Stress Baking! So my favorite cookie is called the Jumble Nut Cookie from Whole Foods.  It's basically a "kitchen sink" type cookie, or a garbage cookie as my brother would probably call it.  Their version has a few types of chocolate (including white- ew), a couple kinds of nuts, oats, raisins, cranberries, and we always think there is coconut, but there really isn't any (I checked on Whole Foods' nutrition website).   It's in the bakery, where you grab a piece of waxed paper and pull one out of the display.  I would always try to find the one with the least amount of white chocolate. In the stages of quarantine stress, I had hit the stress baking level on Thursday.  It is Monday and there are still a few of these cookies left.  This recipe is great because it makes only 16 regular sized cookies.  This would have made about 6 Whole Foods sized cookies.  They're that big.  If I ever buy one while I'm running to the salad bar for lun...

We made it! We did a full week of e-learning and working from home (Brad started Tuesday), not leaving except for walks, and WE SURVIVED! We have another two weeks of homeschooling and then it is "Spring Break" for Bennett's school.  We had planned to send him to spring break camp at the Evanston Art Center as he has been asking to go back since last summer's camp.  We received notice that they've cancelled, since this thing is going to last a while.  School definitely is out until April 12 (Brad's Birthday/Easter), and probably longer from the sounds of things. Parents in the PTA facebook group are convinced we won't have school again until August.  Given the way things are going in Italy, it probably is true.  We will just need to prepare for that potential.  I just don't know if we can handle this much working from home.  I hope the construction industry bounces back sooner than that or we're both in trouble. We have been connecting w...

We are surviving and thriving in our new normal.  Brad and I have had multiple calls we've had to do for work and honestly, Bennett has been such a trooper.  He still really likes having a big schedule to follow.  It has cut down on the "what should I do nooooowwww?" questions and we are getting in all his school assignments while giving him some independent play and reading time.  He's almost done with the 5th Harry Potter book. Gym Class Indoors Darn this gloomy and rainy weather!  The P.E. teacher has sent a couple of videos and challenges to do, so Bennett did what was called a Captain America training challenge.  It was a series of HIIT type workout moves and he did them well!  Yesterday, Bennett and I spent "movement" hour doing Just Dance on the Nintendo Switch.  What a workout.  We kept joking that Emma would have beaten us at any of the dancing scores. Word Wall of Memories Also on the list of assignments was to make the "...

Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Even on the Coronaquarantined I took a break to put together a really quick Irish Soda Bread.  Given that at least two-thirds of my household is part Irish (Oliver has not let us know yet), I figured we should celebrate St. Patrick's Day while in our Coronaquarantine by having soda bread! It's sort of a non-traditional take, so bear with me. First of all, some of the recipes I researched asked for buttermilk.  Now, when I was doing my Coronaquarantine food shopping, buttermilk was not one of the things I picked up.  I was so worried about not finding the kind of milk we like (1% organic), no other ancillary dairy registered.  The shelves were emptying out, but we did find milk.  Hooray!  My theory was to buy two half gallons.  Since organic milk somehow has way later dates of expiration, we could open one half gallon at a time rather than have a whole gallon go bad after a week. I've included a substitution that I use w...