Author: amanda

amanda

Quote of the Day

These lines from “The Next Right Thing,” a song from Frozen 2, seem especially appropriate right now.

“I won’t look too far ahead
It’s too much for me to take
But break it down to this next breath
This next step
This next choice is one that I can make.”

It’s Great to be Eight!

Time for another birthday, self-isolation (family-isolation?) style! Hey, at least the last one was less than a week ago…this hasn’t been going on that long (yet)!

Today is Chickadee’s eighth birthday…I can’t even believe it! It was kind of a strange birthday, starting with church live-streamed into our living room, plus an unexpected snow shower. And of course she opened presents this morning, too…she got a lot of fun stuff, and I’d like to play with it all, too!

Since we couldn’t do the things Chickadee wanted to do on her birthday (particularly going to the zoo), we spent the day watching some of her favorite movies and TV shows…both Frozens, Harry Potter, The Lego Movie, and Sailor Moon. And of course we couldn’t go out to dinner, so Chickadee asked me to make a family favorite: breakfast for dinner. She picked breakfast sandwiches on bagels, which is a real treat!

For her birthday cake, Chickadee chose sticky toffee pudding instead of the elephant-shaped cake I’ve made for the last few years (that hurt my heart a little!), with homemade caramel sauce and whipped cream. We all really enjoyed it!

So that’s another birthday celebrated in a very unusual fashion. At this point, I’m wondering to myself how many other family birthdays/special occasions will fall under the shadow of current events. One thing is for sure…we certainly know how to celebrate at home!

Quote of the Day

This quote from Deep Space Nine is a little too on the nose right now, and without context, could easily be about current events:

“I hope you’re right, Commander. I really do. But until we determine the source, we have to follow standard containment procedures and isolate all members of the senior staff.” William Sadler as Sloan in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Christmas in March

Today was like Christmas in March, because today was the long-awaited day when Animal Crossing: New Horizons finally came out, and I was ready for it!

I’ve had a great time playing this game all day. My island started out with two villagers, Rocket and Antonio, and while the two of them aren’t my personal favorites, I’m looking forward to seeing who else will move in (I hope Roald shows up sooner rather than later!). I’ve also really enjoyed all of the new elements to the game, and I can’t wait to see what I unlock next!

Don’t think the irony of this timing is lost on me. While I’ve been looking forward to my “Christmas in March” for months, suddenly, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Our local radio station is playing a week of Christmas music, I hear the Hallmark channel is showing Christmas movies, and Anheuser-Busch has even turned the Christmas lights back on at their brewery in St. Louis. What can I say? We all “need a little Christmas” right now…mine just came in the form of Animal Crossing!

Seventeen?!?

The world is crazy right now, but that didn’t stop us from celebrating Turkey’s SEVENTEENTH birthday today! An added bonus: Moose was with us all day, as he’s now doing school from home!

We started the day with gifts. There were quite a few Lego sets, which Turkey started building right away.

We spent most of the day watching episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. All while enjoying the scents of…Thanksgiving? I had an extra turkey in the freezer, and Turkey asked if we could have a mini-Thanksgiving dinner for his birthday!

Instead of pie for dessert, he went with birthday trifle, topped with what has turned into an alarming number of candles:

I think he had a nice day, even with all of the uncertainty in the world around us. I know I had a great time celebrating him!

St. Patrick’s Day 2020

St. Patrick’s Day is one of our favorite holidays, and I was determined to celebrate it as we usually do, which honestly wasn’t too difficult, because our observation of the day very rarely takes us out of the house!

I started preparing for the day a few weeks ago, which in retrospect was probably a good thing. New this year: a lot of my supplies were purchased at Aldi!

I was so well-stocked that our celebration began last night, with a dinner of Irish-style ale & onion bangers, plus homemade colcannon:

We set our leprechaun trap as we usually do, and, as always, caught no leprechaun. We did find some nice mint patties, though!

We enjoyed our traditional breakfast of Lucky Charms, and Irish Breakfast tea for those who weren’t interested in coffee:

We had a few special treats with lunch:

Even with nowhere to go, I wore green for St. Patrick’s Day (and Mary Blair March!):

And we enjoyed our traditional dinner of corned beef and cabbage, roast potatoes and carrots, and soda bread with Irish butter (plus leftover colcannon from yesterday):

And for dessert, we had our favorite Guinness cake:

We celebrated as we always do, and it was a fun and delicious day. There was something low-key about it, though…it’s hard to ignore world events, even when we’re having fun at home!

The Ottoman Garden–March

No photo from the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Ottoman Garden this month. The Garden is shutting down for the foreseeable future, and we’ve already been isolating at home for a few days. At this point, with things being so uncertain, I have made the decision to abandon this project for the year…but I hope to have 12 full months of Ottoman Garden pictures in 2021!