The End of Quarantine: Cottage Chronicles 2020

 Today is the end of our quarantine.  It has basically been a month.  I had one day off and started the process again at the 2 week mark.  I was asked if we were going to have a celebration to celebrate being off quarantine.

I am sitting here looking out at the water wondering why I am so excited?  What about my life will change off quarantine?  Not much.  Now I can go to the grocery store.

We have done a lot of wonderful things during quarantine.  We have celebrated 2 birthdays.  We have toasted the final class of college and graduation from Michigan for Lizzy.  We have celebrated Birk making the tough decision to change her school from Michigan to Babson.  We have played an unfinished heated game of Monopoly.  

We have baked and scrubbed and organized and laundered and breathed life back into every corner of this building.  

One of the most interesting thing is to see how our personalities compliment each other.  We make a mini community with the quirks and gems of our personalities.  This little village has law abiders, bakers, energy bolts and boosts, critics, comics, sages, musicians, movie buffs, crafters, plumbers, artists, pundits, ball throwers, boat drivers, water skiers, sweet tooths, hair stylists, dog groomers, furniture assembly experts, bar tenders and the list goes on...

We have also sadly watched from afar the wildfire apocalypse that is playing out at home.  

Covid times, covid times...

Cottage Chronicles, 2020 Edition

 People as me what I do up here at the cottage.  Well here is today’s project:

I am double netting our bed.  Mosquitos are gone, but we did have one bat sighting, so I’m being very careful.  

If anyone remembers last year:

We’ve slept in the guest room for weeks now, so risking it again tonight.  I am literally the only one that can spot a bat in my family.  

Do I think the bats are gone because I don’t see them?  No way.

Recipe for Success or Disaster

A few years ago, I found an old tin recipe box at the antique store full of recipes.  They recipe cards were yellowed with age, oil stained and worn.  There were hand written cards, like "Aunt Cassy's Plum Cake" and torn swatches of paper from magazines with recipes for scones and casseroles.

Some recipes were scribbled on the back of old gas bills.  Some recipes seemed ancient and others taken from the back of onion soup mix boxes.  There was even an old thank you card tucked in there.  Clearly, this box had seen some times.

I just read an article about an old cookbook that was clearly a wedding gift.  It was inscribed neatly in black ink, and it was clearly, the cooking bible of its day.

It's hard to imagine a world where you had access to recipes through one book.  I have shelves and shelves of cookbooks, yet, I would never call myself a cook.  No one wants to eat what I can make, I am better off in the deli section at our local fancy, corner grocery store than I am turned loose in the kitchen.

Wouldn't it be interesting if the Bible was your only reading source?  What if Aunt Better Crocker was your only way to put dinner on the table?  I feel like we are flooded by books, music, art, and more.  You name it, our American culture overflows with it.  There is so much and so much information, how do you even begin to pare it down to a bite sized nuggets of information?

In this land of plenty, it is hard to separate the meaningful from the poppycock.  Think of how interesting it would be if you lived in a time when you could invent without a zillion other people out there inventing the same thing, too.

It just seems like we are a land of lost opportunity, due to our own tidal wave of information that we have created.  Well, and it's not like it could go any other way.  What did John Steinbeck say?   "We now face the danger, which in the past has been the most destructive to the humans:  Success, plenty, comfort and ever increasing leisure.  No dynamic people has ever survived these dangers."

Remodels, Windows We See Right Through

This window is now in our entry way.  It's funny to think that it once just sat in the antique store, waiting for a home and now, it's home.  We look at it every day, even if we don't see it anymore.

Go Seen Go: Passing The Driver’s Ed Test with the Tough Guy

Standing here watching my little guy speed off with the toughest driving tester at the DMV. Good luck, little Seen.

Back story: The rumors fly about which DMV you should take your driving test. Where is it easy? Where is it hard. Where should you avoid if you are a girl? A boy? Who is grouchy? Who is nice?

Well, I booked Seen into the toughest, grouchiest, hardest testing ground ever. Then, it was said that you could be ok if you don't get the Hawaiin ex marine.

Well, you guessed it--he got him! It looked like we were going to get the sweet looking older lady. By right of line we should have gotten her. But, oh no, he comes the bad ass marine. He seemed polite, he seemed fine, and off they drove.

Now I'm standing here, tears in my eyes that my little guy is so grown up and tears in my eyes that he is out there with a tough judge. Boy oh boy, if my kid is out there driving, I want him to pass the tough guy test. I want him really ready. Please be ready. Please show the tough guy you're ready.

AND HE DID PASS!

If you little one is going to be going out into the world...best to pass the the bad ass marine test!

The Canadian Chronicles 2014: The Summer of Pestilence and Disney

Knowing that my personal woes are on a small scale, I am nominating summer of 2014 for the title "Summer of Pestilence."

Let's set the scene.  The girls have been asking and asking to go to Disneyland.  We promised them a trip attached to no particular date.  That was the first mistake. Looking at the calendar, we pigeonholed ourselves into a visit to the Happiest Place on Earth that had us getting home and leaving in a day and a half for our summer in the Canadian wilds.

Knowing our time was crunched, we did every bit of preparation we could do before our "Happy" excursion.  We dialed in the mail, the pets, the bills, the summer chair cushions, the car storage, the laundry, the packing, etc.  I tried to out fox the foxes and was feeling very satisfied with my organizational skills as we were sitting on our plane with our friends bound for L.A.

Even on the plane, we got seats together, our flight was on time, we got to the airport packed and ready to go without incident. My friend Paula and I were seated in a row directly in front of our "Happy" girls. The flight door was closing, and as my friend's daughter was just about to switch off her cell phone for the flight as one last text chimed in...

"Mom,  So and So has lice."

And they had both just spend the night with So and So.

And so it goes...the plane took off and that began our Disney trip...with many many little stow always flying on both of their tiny heads.

Canadian Chronicles 2014: Creativity and 4 Board Monopoly

4 board Monopoly was the talk of the summer.  The kids had to play it, and the dilemma was we did not have 4 boards.  In the wilds, this is how you settle that problem.

Anyone that has visited us in Canada, will recognize the Boardwalk, Park Places and pitfalls that might greet you or be your undoing in this game.

It is still a work in progress, but come next summer, the game will be on!

Fish, Fish and More Fish: Traveling Portugal

Those of you that know me know that I don't eat fish.  Clams, oysters, octopus, lobsters, crabs, shrimp--you name the sea creature (including seaweed) and I don't only not eat it, but am sensitive to the smell.  I've taken a beating over this throughout my marriage to my husband. I didn't know there was even anything wrong with me until I met him and his family.

Yes, according to the family that travels the world and is so tolerant of every culture and custom, they cannot wrap their heads around a girl raised in the Midwest by a vegetarian mother.  I never knew I was odd or that I should be ashamed of my tendencies to lean towards the vegetarian side of the menu.

Or the fact that I am a careful, patient person. I am not a risk taker.  I think this trait is actually a perk in my chosen profession of pre school and junior high school teacher, well, and even mother.  I mean, every single time I've tasted seafood it has had the effect on my taste buds of touching a hot stove. Really, I'm not very interested in trying it anymore.  I'm 46 and I figure I will spend my years left choosing the things that I actually might enjoy to eat or experience, call me timid, but it's not like I'm locking myself in my house and refusing to come out.

Some people, if they die tomorrow and are checking in with St Peter at the gates, they might say I wish I tried that spiny sea creature, it looked so delicious! My regrets might be more along the line I didn't burn some journals or shave my armpits  Hey, that is me, and I am not you, or that other girl over there, and this is my thought.

Well, all of this to say after dining at about every fish restaurant we could possibly think of for twos weeks, I had had it.  I am not exaggerating.  We were at Fish House, Fish Grill, Fish Market, Fish Night, Sea Life, Ocean Fish, Town Fish, Sun Fish...all with very nice wine and white tablecloths, but oh boy.  I am becoming an expert at recognizing fish in multi-languages.  

I threw a bit of a fit, seeing that our restaurant for the evening was a place with a giant grill on the middle so you could see your fish cook--the name:  Fish Grilled in the Middle of the Restaurant. After the last restaurant, where the man was showing off a lobster bigger than my 13 year old I could only imagine the parade, the grilling, the de-boning and the aroma. No thank you.

I googled vegetarian restaurant Lisbon.  The first one popped up with many accolades, why not?  My husband reluctantly cancelled Fish Grilled in the Middle of the Restaurant and made a reservation at Terra. Yum.

For starters, we got in the cab and it was the first restaurant that the doorman or the taxi driver did not recognize. A little red flag, but not everyone enjoys a full vegetarian menu.  We found our weathered looking restaurant and entered.  We then were informed it was a BOO FAY. Mmm. My husband pouted across the table and I had to stifle my laughter, as this restaurant was the antithesis of every single place we had eaten on the trip.

We were clearly in someone's backyard sitting in metal folding chairs.  We ordered wine, that if you got through the first glass, tasted better.  Birk and my husband sat arms crossed across the table, but I was able to try everything on the buffet without fear for the first time on our longish trip.  They ate a little.  I ate a lot.  The dinner will not go down as the best on the trip, but it will be remembered for being able to enjoy someone's back yard.