COVID-19 Quarantine Day 162 - New Job

Hey guys!  Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately.  Things are picking back up with the school year getting closer.  I started my new job last week.  I LOVE it!  I love everything about being in the library!  And I'm bringing home lots of books to share with the kids!  They have read so many books in the last week!  I'm so proud of them and impressed by them!  Avery has never really been much of a reader, but the last week, some days she's read as much as 2 hours in a single day!  That's a huge feat for my girl!  I didn't care much for reading when I was younger, so I want her to be different.  I want her to love reading the way Michael and Sis do.  The books she's been reading lately might be a little on the easy side for her, but she's sitting there and just gobbling them up, so I'm not complaining!  Reading comes pretty easy to Connor and generally I don't have to fight him much to get him to do it.  But he's been reading a lot lately too.  Before we went on vacation I got him a new book, Dog Man.  He loves them!  The only problem is that they're hardback and really expensive books.  The good news is that the library has all of them, and since they're so popular, Karla makes sure to always get the new ones when they come out.  Connor has read through 3 or 4 of them now.  I imagine he'll be able to finish all of them well before school starts.  Only working 3 days a week has been strange.  I love being at the school and love working in the library with Karla, so I want to be there every day.  I did a couple partial days this week to help the Kindergarten teachers test incoming kiddos, and it was really hard to only work part of the day and then leave before the day was over.  I just felt like I was leaving a lot of extra work on Karla's plate because I hadn't got it all done in time.  I feel like I could work 40 hours a week and still not have everything done.  It's never ending.  And the students haven't even arrived yet...  😬😬😬  I just have to retrain my brain a little.  It's going to be a great year!  I loved my job as a para a couple years ago, then last year was a lot more rough.  I'm looking forward to another great year where I love my job again.  More later!  Bye!

COVID-19 Quarantine Day 152 - Fantasy Football Team Name and Logo!!

 I've decided on my Fantasy Football name for this year (assuming the NFL play this season)!!

This year my team name will be........

Juju Brees and Gummy Worms!!

😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁

I'm very excited!!  I wanted to be "Tom is old now, Older than the trees" but it didn't fit.  🙁

After I settled on the name, I created my logo!  Uploading it here, now, so I can have a link to be able to put it on my ESPN profile.  😊  I really hope we actually get to play this year!  🤞

COVID-19 Quarantine Day 150

Our lunch today was amazing!  Michael smoked a pork loin!  Oh my goodness!  It was amazing!  Yesterday we went to the Farmer's Market (don't worry, I stayed in the car) and we got a pack of Onion Buns from Delano Hometown Bakery.  I didn't end up eating one, but I'm looking forward to having them this week.  I made homemade coleslaw to go with our meal.  It was pretty good!  I don't usually care for coleslaw too much, but I enjoyed it!  TJ and Michael put it on their sandwiches and really liked it too.  :)  I also made baked beans!  They turned out pretty good, but I'm not huge on baked beans.  Michael and TJ both liked them, and Avery loved them!  It was fun making something in the cast iron skillet, I need to use it more.  TJ brought stuff over for stuffed mushrooms!  They are soooo tasty!  I love every time we make them!  TJ makes delicious stuffed mushrooms and Michael grilled them perfectly today!  They were so tasty!  I also cut up one of the cucumbers I grew in my garden!  :D  <3  I even made homemade ranch from a seasoning packet I got from the seasoning vendor at the Farmer's Market.  Avery made lemonade for everyone too!  It was an amazing meal!  

COVID-19 Quarantine - Day 149

Hey guys!  I've been doing a lot of fun things around the kitchen lately.  Storing my items from my garden, creating recipes from my garden, and cooking some tasty meals!  I thought I'd share some of what I've been up to this last week.  I want to go back to the Farmer's Market this weekend, but I had a cough a couple days this week and got all freaked out that I got the Rona at the Farmer's Market last weekend, that I talked to my doctor about it.  She was very nice and basically said to monitor the cough, but without other COVID specific symptoms, she didn't think it was necessary for us to do a test.  I'm still planning on staying home through the weekend to make sure there's nothing more to worry about with the cough, but I think it's fine.  I coughed a bit in the evening 2 consecutive days (but not through the night) and haven't coughed in 2 days since then.  I think it might be like when you find out a student in your class has lice and suddenly your head is really itchy.  You clear your throat and cough a minute and suddenly you can't stop doing it.  I know once school starts we'll all have to be extra careful, and I'll basically always assume I'm exposed/asymptomatic, but until then, it's up to me to take care of others.  Anyway... here's what I've been working on lately...

My harvest from yesterday!

Here's how the garden looks these days, since it's been a while...

My homemade pasta sauce!  All canned and everything!!  Cooking it took about 7 hours and canning it took another 2, so now we can't eat it.  😂🤦

Making and canning pasta sauce is messy business.  (Not pictured: The blobs of sauce that fell on the floor) 🤦🏼‍♀️

 I grew this cucumber!!  It was delicious!!  I have picked 3 cucumbers now from my couple of cucumber plants, which is 2 more pieces of produce that I got from my 9 zucchini and yellow squash plants.  

Making pasta sauce is messy business too!  Those tomatoes can really get some distance on the juice...  😳😳😳

Made some vanilla syrup for coffee!

More dried basil!  😍  My basil is growing extremely well in the garden! 

Had a loaf of bread that needed used up, so I made French Toast for the kids and froze the leftovers. 

COVID-19 Quarantine Day 144

So this weekend we went to the Farmer's Market!  It was so great to be there and to get out again.  We went to the larger Kansas Grown Farmer's Market out west.  Then we went to another one TJ suggested, but turned out to be mostly a Food Truck Rally at Blood Orchard Vintage Market.  Finally, we came back to our regular one stop shop, the Old Town Farmer's Market.  After having tried several different places, I think I'll stick to the Old Town Market.  ❤  Here's some of our haul from the markets!

After hitting the markets, we went home and I made homemade pasta sauce!!  It turned out really good!  Took about 2 hours to make!  🥵  But I loved using all fresh ingredients from my garden, Grandpa's garden, and the Farmer's Market!  Yum!

After I had my sauce made, I cooked some pasta I got from the Farmer's Market.  Next,, I hollowed, buttered, and toasted baguette sections from the Farmer's Market.  Finally, I mixed my sauce and some cheese up with the pasta and spooned the mixture into the bread.  I topped it all with parmesan and broiled it a couple minutes to finish it all off.  It was scrumptious! 

I put this inside the bread too!  Got it from the Ren Fest!!

Yum!  It was a good day followed by a really great meal!

Sunday we went to Mama and Daddy's and had homemade pizza.  It was amazing!  Unfortunately, I scarfed it all down before I could get a picture of how awesome they all looked.  😳

Today I didn't feel good and thought I was going to be sick (I'm sure this isn't related to any of the tasty food at had over the last few days).  Michael ended up coming home to help watch the kids.  I never got sick, but have felt like I was going to almost all day.  😔  I started taking Tums at 530 this morning.  Michael went to work and told me if I got sick or still didn't feel any better, he'd come home.  I texted him around 830 and said I was only getting up to go to the bathroom and even then, I was hugging my bowl the whole time.  I went back to sleep and he came home.  I think Adam dropped Dayton off around 715, though I honestly have no idea.  I went back to sleep after I texted Michael and didn't wake up again until 1130.  I was feeling okay when I woke up, so I got up and put together a Watermelon Shaved Ice recipe I found online.  But I overestimated how good I was feeling and had to sit down and rest a bit towards the end of the recipe.  Michael cleaned the kitchen for me, so I felt bad leaving it a big sticky mess, so I cleaned it all up when I was done.  But by the time I was done, I was worn out and my stomach started hurting again.  I was also getting a little bit of a headache again.  So I took some tylenol for my head and some Tums for my stomach and laid down to read.  I only lasted a half hour before I was ready to go back to sleep.  That was about 3pm.  I think I finally fell back asleep around 330 and slept until 630.  I've been up for almost 2 hours now, but am definitely taking it easy.  I'm glad I haven't thrown up, just kinds feel crummy.  I'm also glad Michael has weeks of PTO saved up to be able to come home and take care of me and help with the kids.  The good news is that Michael is the only one I've really had contact with.  I've hardly seen the kids all day, much less been close to any of them.  And I don't have any COVID symptoms, like a cough, fever, or loss of taste or smell.  So I think all is well.  So that's been my day.  I'm going to think about eating something for the first time today, then maybe going back to bed.  🤷🏼‍♀️  I guess it's good to feel ill right before going to the doctor, right?  🤷🏼‍♀️  Night all!