Monthly Archives: April 2020

Pandemic Photo Journal: April 5-11, 2020

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I am trying a weekly photo journal of my life during this stay-at-home pandemic. The idea is to post on Sundays and include one photo for each day of the week with some text. I may not limit myself to one photo because I have a hard time with rules like that. It seems a perfectly logical thing to do on a family history blog. This is certainly an historic time.

Sunday, 4/5/2020

Palm Sunday is definitely different this year. And yet, beautiful. Zoom during Sunday school hour, Zoom with pastors and so many near and far for a hymn and prayers. Again, the prayers lifted by the congregation made me tear up. Then the expanded podcast. How did the children’s choir director get all those sweet voices to record at home and sound like they were in a room together??? Wonderful sermon, pre-recorded beautiful choir music … These are different days that require different ways. Yet- Holy. Lovely. Safe.

Monday, 4/6/2020

Read Miss Rumphius in our ESL Book Club today. One of the students said that this book is not just for children, but is like a book of philosophy. Again, the theme fit very well with this time we are living in as we discussed ways that we see people making the world more beautiful. We thought of medical workers and researchers, grocery store employees, neighbors shopping for elderly persons, landscapers and people whose yards are beautiful, the students in our class, street cleaners and those who take away our garbage and on and on. Everyone agreed with this quote from Lady Bird Johnson: “Ugliness is so grim. A little beauty, something that is lovely, I think, can help create harmony which will lessen tensions.” It was suggested that even the little things we do in our own homes to add a little beauty make us more peaceful and our peacefulness grows to those around us.

It has been fun to reconnect to former students using this platform. Today we had students join us from Estonia and Iran (both of them live here, but had made trips to visit family before this mess started and then got stuck there), Peru, South Korea, and China, as well as Philadelphia, Bastrop, and Plano. The student in China had recently returned after being here for several months. He joined us from the hotel where is quarantined for two weeks. Unfortunately, a student from Spain who is here in Austin lost an uncle to COVID-19 in Spain and her father had been in the hospital for three weeks, but is recovering.

Tuesday, 4/7/2020

* Photo from walk in the neighborhood
* One of my oncology nurses emailed me yesterday and asked if I would make masks for patients. I got started later than I intended today and was not as fast as I thought I would be. Trying a pattern that has ties and a pocket that can be used to add a filter. 

Wednesday, 4/8/2020

* Finished a few masks and tried one on. The first mask I made with a pattern that used elastic. It was way too big for me, but fit my husband. This one with the long ties would fit just about anyone.
* Cooking with greens. See Pandemic Pantry Potluck

Thursday, 4/9/2020

* ESL Class via zoom
* Bible study via zoom
* On my evening walk I saw these birds being socially distant. 😉

Friday, 4/10/2020

* Finished and bagged 8 masks for patients at TX Oncology
* CT scan
* Maunday Thursday podcast
* Scenes from this evening’s walk. Chalk art and Easter decor. I wore a mask. Trying to be a trendsetter. No one else was wearing one.


Sorry – some days just need more photos than others …

Friday, 4/11/2020

* Posted my first Pandemic Pantry Potluck post. Not sure I can keep up with all the things I keep deciding I should do.
* My masks don’t look very nice coming out of the dryer. I posted this photo and my comment on Facebook and my friends all said they were perfect – all cotton is best to use and wrinkles, after a few washings a friend says her masks got in a “groove,” and another reminded me that “If they help, they don’t have to look perfect, do they?”

Saturday, 4/12/2020

* Picked up first CSA veggie box of the pandemic at the farmer’s market.
* Prepared my butterfly prayers for church tomorrow. For the past few years, a few of my ESL students and I would attach hundreds of the paper butterflies to fishing line to be hung in the sanctuary. This year we are all on our own to do this at home.
* I tuned in to the movie “Battle of the Sexes” (about Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs). It reminded me that on my walk yesterday evening, I heard a little girl’s voice complaining. As I got closer, I saw that she was probably 3 or 4, riding a bike with her parents. She was obviously tired and wanted to turn back. The thing that was upsetting was hearing her dad say, “Are you going to be tough, or are you going to be a girly girl?“ If I had been closer, he would have at least gotten an evil eye from me.

Stay home and stay safe!

Pandemic Pantry Potluck: Salmon Patties and Parmesan Spinach Cakes

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I’ve been thinking about how the pandemic is playing out in our kitchen.Things are not as they were before:
My husband is working at home, so he is here for lunch every day.
We are trying to stay away from stores, so we are using grocery delivery services.
The stores have shortages of some items, so we can’t always get what we want.
We have become much more conscientious about not wasting food.
We have take out delivered about once a week to support some of our favorite restaurants.

I started a Pandemic Photo Journal a couple of weeks ago. Now I think I’ll start a kitchen-themed pandemic journal to chronicle what’s happening in our pantry and kitchen – recipes or just musing on the state of toilet paper and flour. Whatever.

I have belonged to a Community Supported Agriculture farm off and on for several years. Off when I’ve been sick and my husband has taken over responsibility for feeding us. On when I was up for dealing with all those veggies. With trying to stay away from grocery stores and wanting some healthy food around, I thought I should rejoin the CSA. Procrastinator that I am, I waited, and my usual CSA had a waiting list. I saw a  Facebook friend had subscribed to another service, not a CSA, but a service that delivers organic produce acquired from several farms in the area. They only deliver on Sundays, so we got our first delivery at the beginning of this week. Interestingly, it looked like most, if not all, of the produce came from the farm that I was on the waiting list for.

I spent quite a bit of time Sunday triple washing and spinning chard, beet greens, mint, and oregano and figuring out how to store everything.

Wednesday I decided to tackle the chard. I knew what I wanted to make, but had to wait for Tuesday’s grocery delivery for ricotta cheese. Somehow, we got two cartons instead of one. Oh well, we’ll need to incorporate more ricotta into upcoming meals.

The recipe is from EatingWell.com. I have made it several times before when I had an abundance of greens. I substituted chard for the spinach. Since I had fresh oregano from the produce delivery, I added a little of that too. I just spread it all into a 9×9 inch Pyrex baking dish instead of using a muffin tin and baked it a few minutes longer. Something smaller would work as well – maybe better.

Parmesan Spinach Cakes

12 ounces fresh spinach
1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese or low-fat cottage cheese
1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
2 large eggs, beaten
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
Pulse spinach in three batches in a food processor until finely chopped. Transfer to a medium bowl. Add ricotta, Parmesan, eggs, garlic, salt, and pepper; stir to combine.
Coat 8 cups of the muffin pan with cooking spray. Divide the spinach mixture among the 8 cups (they will be very full.
Bake until set, about 20 minutes. Let stand in the pan for 5 minutes. Loosen the edges with a knife and turn out onto a clean cutting board or large plate. Serve warm with more Parmesan, if desired.

I had a craving for my mom’s salmon patties before we were sheltering in place and my husband bought some at Sam’s for me, so I already had a package of five 7-ounce cans in my pantry. Even though I had a craving that one day, I didn’t make any until this week. I don’t have a recipe and it had been so long since I made them, that I forgot how. I know mom just threw them together without a recipe and they were very simple, so I didn’t go googling for a recipe. Here is what I did:

Salmon Patties

2 7-ounce cans of salmon
1 large egg, slightly beaten (maybe one egg per can would be better)
a few saltine crackers, crumbled
salt and pepper to taste
Since I had fresh oregano on hand, I added a little.

Mix together and form into patties. Pan fry with vegetable oil until browned on both sides.

They were okay, but could use some fine tuning. If you make salmon patties and have suggestions, please leave a comment!

I got a call from the CSA farm saying that I was one of the first 100 on the waiting list and they were now opening up more slots. I cancelled the subscription to the service that we got these veggies from and subscribed to Johnson’s Backyard Garden once again. I probably should have waited a week to get my new box, but we picked it up this morning. Lots of greens!! More on that later.

What’s cooking at your house?

Pandemic Photo Journal April 5, 2020

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I am trying a weekly photo journal of my life during this stay-at-home pandemic. The idea is to post on Sundays and include one photo for each day of the week with some text. I may not limit myself to one photo because I have a hard time with rules like that. It seems a perfectly logical thing to do on a family history blog. This is certainly an historic time.

Sunday, 3/29/2020
* The day started with ZOOM Sunday school hour: Resisting Racism. The pastors hosted a short time together at 11. So good to see faces. Emotional for me as prayer requests were named in the chat box.
* Two more bearded iris in bloom as #1 fades.
* ZOOMed afternoon tea with two sisters and dad.
* Phil’s Ice House take out for dinner
* After dinner walk. Chalk art. Christmas display.

 

 Monday, 3/30/2020
* Hosted a successful ESL Book Club on ZOOM. 18 students participated. Reading The Legend of the Bluebonnets, by Tomie dePaola in the middle of a pandemic is very different than reading it during a “normal” spring. New ways of thinking about sacrifice, selfishness, famine and drought, and caring for the earth.This time together offered the students a chance to share how they are dealing with staying at home and understanding the new vocabulary this has meant for them. Then I learned that Tomie dePaola died today. 🙁
* Rainy day
* I drained my last carton of Tazo chai latte. The grocery delivery doesn’t have it available. Nor does Amazon. What will I do tomorrow? And the next day? And the next?

Tuesday, 3/31/2020
* Ray Benson and Chris Cuomo have COVID-19. The list of musicians and public figures keeps growing.
* Five bearded iris blooms
* Early evening walk and found this chalk art on a fence.

Wednesday, 4/1/2020
* April Fools Day canceled due to Coronavirus Pandemic – except in the newspaper comics.
* Worked on decluttering the kitchen. A big part was sorting/tossing/organizing recipe clippings
* Co-facilitated last session of small group discussion of White Fragility. ZOOM, what else?
* No pic today.

Thursday, 4/2/2020

*We had a lovely ESL class via zoom this morning. Our Asian students are as anxious as we all are because of the pandemic, but they are also carrying the burden and worry of being blamed, targeted, and unsafe. Some no longer go for walks in their neighborhood or would never venture out to the store. This toxic atmosphere started with the president and has been fueled by his continuing use of the term “Chinese Virus.”
* Blessed with an abundance of blooms today. I’ve never had so many at one time before. My husband moved them to this spot and they seem happier here.
* Risked taking a walk between rain showers. Unfortunately, there was lots of loud thunder for the last part of my walk. I walked as fast as I could to get home! The dogs were driving my husband crazy – he was on a conference call for work.
* I enjoy hearing my husband laugh after a hard day of work-at-home. Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Last week it was The Kominsky Method.

Since I had no pics for Wednesday, I get to double up for Thursday. Took these before the thunder!  I love all the wonderful things to look at in this yard. Today I noticed the art on the utility box between the sidewalk and the curb.

Friday, 4/3 2020

I wanted to return to Neill-Cochran House to spend more time with the art of Ginger Geyer, but ‘Rona shut down that plan. I was happy to get an email from the museum yesterday with this virtual tour, narrated by the artist. The artist went to seminary, so many of her works incorporate religious themes – sometimes in unexpected ways. In our house, she has been known as “the pie lady” because my daughter has worked with her on her website and the first time they met, she told us about the ceramic pies and other things placed around the artist’s home, looking very real. You can take the tour too! If These Walls Could Talk
* My husband worked 12 hours today with essentially no breaks for meals. His working at home is longer and harder than his usual work day. This is why I am having trouble fitting in my 10 minutes to play piano.
* Stormy afternoon, so I spent a lot of time holding Dreamboat, the scared-of-everything dog.
* Finished puzzle #2

Saturday, 4/4/2020
I spent yesterday making a space to sew in my daughter’s room upstairs because my sewing space is so cluttered, there was no room to sew. I carried a small folding table up the stairs with difficulty, but the sewing machine was too heavy and my husband was working so hard, that the project didn’t get finished. This morning, he was working again, so I used the time to clean up my designated sewing space enough to use it. And washed some fabric and found a pattern for face masks that I plan to use. This one has a pocket for adding a filter and the nurse who posted it said she used an AC filter that is rated high for allergens and also filters out some viruses and bacteria. I hated to do it, but sent my husband to the store to pick it up for me.

That’s all for this week. It has been a week of many ups and downs. Friends in the hospital and hospice, friends with good news from the oncologist, and news, news, news about the virus and that was mostly bad news.

Hang in there! Stay home and stay safe!