In the famous words of Dory....

"just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming." And that is what we're doing.

Well, this week we weren't actually swimming, but have just been plugging along.

In the virus news, it looks like NYC (the worst hit US city) has reached its peak in the number of cases, which is a great sign!  It is by no means gone, but to be able to see a slow down in deaths and reported cases is a huge sign!  Georgia is about to "test the waters" with the reopening of some businesses starting this Friday.  It was a very controversial call by Gov. Kemp...opening gyms, salons, spas as part of this first phase.  I'm not exactly sure what to think about it.  On one hand, we can't stay in our homes forever and the economy will never recover without people out spending money, but on the other hand, gyms?!? they've alway been germ breeding areas, and salons?!? how do you get a haircut from 6 feet away?  Who knows... I think the Moore clan will stay inside at least through the end of the month and see what happens.

We had two culinary adventures this week.  Our first was making arepas.  Arepas are a South American dish that I've seen several times on Food Network and have always wanted to try.  Well, not being able to go find a new restaurant, I gave in, bought the ingredients and made them at home!  They were delicious!

You make a dough from finely ground corn meal and form it into hockey puck sized discs.  Then fry them in oil and eat them like a sandwich! We served them with pork carnitas, refried black beans, lettuce, cheese and salsa.  The whole family loved them! 

The next day was Easter Sunday.  Earlier in the week, I had asked the kids what they wanted and both requested a traditional Southern Easter meal.  In my best Paula Deen accent..."Y'all know what that is, right?!?"  Glazed, spiral sliced ham, sweet potato casserole, homemade mac n cheese and finished it off with a lemon icebox pie!  (No deviled eggs, because no one eats them in this house -- I know, not Southern!)

We did have some fruit with all of these carbs.  I had planned on having a broccoli dish, but I forgot to make it until it was too late.  Oops.

I made this pie using my mom's recipe that she had saved off of an old Borden sweetened condensed milk can. It turned out delicious and just look at those peaks in the meringue!  (We enjoyed watching our church service while we devoured the pie.)

We decorated the table and I pulled out some vintage cloth napkins that I had, which gave the place settings a perfect Spring flair!

And to prove that this "sheltering in place" is really playing with our brains.  Look at our table guest for Easter lunch...

Yes, Zac stayed at the table the entire meal.  And to be honest, it was quite pleasant, because usually he is under the table drooling on our legs, begging for food.  But, yes I know, I've lost it! 

We had a nice surprise delivered to our mailbox on Easter Sunday.  A friend made us some Resurrection Rolls! I've see the recipe before and have wanted to make them, but never have.  They were so good and of course so fitting for the day.  

Here's the recipe.

When the marshmallow melts inside, it leaves the biscuit looking like an empty tomb.

Our creative activities this week included Lily drawing a stained glass window on our garage floor...

It turned out so pretty!

And I painted a barn star on a scrap piece of wood we had laying around...

I think it needs to be larger, oh well... the farm animals approve!

And last but not least, we had a garden beautification day.  Where it started with pulling some weeds it ended with John going to the store to get stain and we stained all of the raised bed.  It looks great! 

Zac was "project supervisor".

So I guess that is week 10? 22? 97? in the books.  The kids are still keeping up with school work and taking full advantage of technology to stay connected with their friends.  And mostly importantly, we are healthy and not sick of each other...yet!

Smiles~

Laurie

A Sheltering in Place Kind of Spring Break

Spring Break 2020!!!  Whoo Hooo! However, it's a little different than what we had planned.  If plans had panned out we'd be here....

but we're not and that's ok.  We're together and healthy and just plugging along. Grateful for where we are and who we're with.  (Ask the other family members and you may get a different answer!) Ha!


Well, since I last checked in, we (as in residents of Georgia and the majority of other states) have been told to "shelter in place" until the end of April.  That means unless you are on the road for an "essential" errand - food, medicine, home supplies, etc., then you need to be at home. It's so odd to stand in our yard and not hear a plane flying over or very rarely see a car drive by.  But the quietness has been wonderful!

Last week brought the celebration of me traveling around the sun one more time... hard to believe I'm 35....plus some. It was a "quiet" (ha) celebration with my favorite peeps! We picked up dinner from a local restaurant and the family got me a huge slice of coconut cake from a local bakery! My favorite handmade cards finished the evening with my gift being a new chicken coop for my future chickens!  Yes, I have an order placed and will be expecting a delivery of some unique looking,  pretty ladies in July!!

And this was first!  My friend Kari, left an awesome corona-inspired birthday gift at our gate!

To get the kids out of the house, John put up our badminton/volleyball net and we've burned some calories after dinner a few nights.  So fun!!! But it turns out, I'm not really good at badminton...the kids are pretty good a volleyball, though!

I did a little more work on potted plants and filled up my vintage cooler on the screened in porch.

The kids decided to do a bake-off one night. I offered up my boxed cake mixes and tubs of frosting out of the pantry, but they were having none of that. Sam made an "essential" trip to Kroger and they turned into mad scientists in the kitchen.  The results?!?!  Sam made an awesome creme brûlée, complete with caramelized sugar (with torch involved) on top and Lily made a perfect chocolate cheesecake, not one crack in it!  We were blown away!  And the kids got mad at me for not being able to pick a favorite. But they were both incredible!!

Our church's youth directors organized a family trivia night that we all played together through the "Lifesize" app.  It was so fun to have about 20 families tune in and compete to answer a variety of questions!

Weird news...I broke down and started wearing a mask when I shop.  The government is now urging people to wear masks to help stop the spread, in case you are asymptomatic.  So when a local nail salon put their surgical masks up for grabs on Facebook, I was able to get a pack of four for our family.  Never in my life have I imagined myself walking around in public wearing one of these.

That's my update for now.  I'll check back in a few days with more exciting  -cough-  stuff.

Sheltering~
Laurie


P.S. Hey look...another puzzle completed ! This was awesome!

Is this Groundhog Day or what?!?!

It turns out having to social distance makes days run together and you kinda lose track of if it's Monday, Tuesday, or if you really lose track, is it already Saturday?!?! Since I last posted, we had the excitement of celebrating John's birthday!  Restaurants are not allowed to have customers eating onsite, so we had to order his favorite meal to-go.  But is there really a bad place to eat Mexican?!? We completed the celebration with homemade cards!

We might frequent this restaurant A LOT, so the staff did the traditional birthday serenade for John when we picked up the food! (He did not approve this picture! Ha!)

In continuing the "cooking to fill time" hobby, I tried my hand at a from-scratch carrot cake for John. I've asked a neighbor to make them for him in the past, but I figured this was my year to give it a try! It was a success in A) taking up most of my day (who knew cake mixes were such time savers?!?) and B) that it turned out delicious! Seriously...I was surprised!!

In Lily's cooking adventures, she has discovered a new way to prepare pasta...Colored Noodles.  She puts food coloring in her boiling water and voila!  This creation is "pink pasta"...

A LOT has happened on the Coronavirus pandemic.  Today's horrible update on cases was: 245,135  cases in the US with 5,916 deaths....so frightening! Georgia has 5,444 cases and 176 deaths. Georgia, along with many other states, will start a statewide "shelter in place" order starting tomorrow.  People are asked to stay at home unless they are out for "essential" business: grocery shopping, medical appointments, essential jobs, etc.  Every morning we wake up and watch the news to see how our lives have changed overnight.  There are just no words to sum all of this up! We just continue to pray and wash our hands!

We've been blessed to have some beautiful Spring weather, so I risked any threat of a late frost and planted our outside patio pots.  We've also had some of our shrubs and perennials show their beauty, so these are giving us some great views while we're hanging at home!

**Bleeding heart...one of my faves! 

Even though these days seem to run together into a blur, they actually go slow. We're finding it best to   only focus on the present, because things are changing daily, even hourly. 

Being still~

Laurie 

P.S. By the way...we completed another puzzle!