Category: Holidays

Celebrating and Lockdown

Like half of the nation, we did a little celebrating recently. It was a long, tortured week of refreshing social media and news sites and then that Saturday morning while I was working out I read the news.

I absolutely LOVED all the videos of people happy and celebrating. The sense of relief was wonderful. That night we celebrated as a family, including Logan so he learns about civic duty and voting and speaking your mind. After all, he had “voted” with us a month ago! 😉

I got a balloon at the dollar store (mostly for Logan). We opened a bottle of local Oregon bubbly. I got a piece of special cake at the store that we all shared.

Logan got to drink his apple juice from a REAL cup. LOL He loved it. And CHEERS!

We watched the speeches, it was very very emotional.

Then Friday the 13th the governor of Oregon announced we are going into another lockdown. Portland is closed for 4 weeks, the rest of Oregon is 2 weeks, but I imagine it will go on a little bit longer. I got the news a little early and went to the grocery store before the noon press conference. For weeks now I’ve been slowly buying a little bit of extra stuff at the grocery store. Mostly things like lentils, beans, pasta, basically stuff that could live on the shelf for a bit. But this time I bought essentials like veggies, milk, eggs etc.

I’ve basically been in “lockdown” in a way since March. I’ve worked from home this whole time, which I am happy I have a job that I can do that. I know it’s a privilege. I go into the office once a month or so to do some stuff, but basically home this whole time.

So it won’t be a huge adjustment this time. Not like March. Saturday I went swimming, probably for the last time for the next month. Which I am bummed about. I understand and I think the lockdown is VERY necessary. But I just got back to the pool after 7 MONTHS. Oh well.

This lockdown will be a little harder for sure. The weather had turned rainy and gross here so less outdoor time like in March. 🙁

As for the holidays…Thanksgiving is cancelled so we will be doing our own thing at home. Not sure what we will do yet. I am thinking maybe Michael’s mac n’ cheese and a ham or smoked chicken.

Logan is SUPER excited about Christmas. We decided to put up a few decorations early. 🙂

So that’s about it for now. Hope everyone is staying safe! Wear a mask. Stay home. Be safe.

Happy Halloween!!!!!!!

Well Halloween wasn’t entirely cancelled this year, just different!

I prepared a bunch of goodie bags and put them out in our walkway. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I definitely underprepared! There were a LOT of trick or treaters!

I did two batches. The first batch went out late afternoon and then we left for a bit and when we got home I put the rest out and it was all gone in a flash!

So this year, Logan was a Shark! He had a small Halloween party at preschool on Friday.

Then we went to two of my friend’s house to trick or treat there. The first one was my friend Debby. She loves Halloween as much as I do. She usually goes all out!

Logan was a little scared by the skeletons LOL but it was cute. She made a HUGE goodie bag for him. He had SO much candy (like seriously, the equivalent of many houses!).

Then we went to my friend Ed’s house and she put together a whole scavenger hunt in her back yard!!

There were clues for each “Station” in her backyard (I posted some videos on my Instagram account if you are interested) and then Logan had to dig (with a shovel!) for the clue that led him to the next clue.

The final riddle had to spell out a word (scorpion) and he had to find the scorpion in the yard and then dig. And then he found a KEY! And the key opened a treasure chest with a huge bag of halloween candy, toys, a book, etc. It was so amazing.

It was sooo incredibly sweet that friends did this and Logan LOVED it. He was so excited and did not even mention trick or treating or notice that we did something different this year, so that was good.

I also saw, as we drove around, how many people got creative! Lots of tables set up for safe candy grabbing (some with hand sanitizer!), candy attached to fences or string by clothespins. It was so cool. It made me happy so many people tried to make Halloween fun for kids.

We had dinner when we got home. I made Michael and me a Greek bowl: spinach, wild rice, roasted chickpeas, pepperoncinis, kalamata olives, onion, feta cheese and Goddess Dressing (it called for Greek dressing, which I didn’t have, but Goddess Dressing made with tahini went perfectly!). It was so yummy!

Michael and I watched “The Quiet Place” Saturday night (Friday night we watched “Hereditary”). So we got our scary movies in. 🙂

Sunday I made a REALLY good dinner I wanted to share here.

Butternut Squash soup with tortellini, sage and goat cheese.

It was the PERFECT fall soup. The soup was delicious, slightly sweet. Loved the pasta in it. The sage was sautéed in butter til crispy, which was a fun addition. I used herbed goat cheese on top. I would definitely make this recipe again. Even Michael, who isn’t a huge fan of soup, or “sweet” soups, loved it, too. I recommend it!