Catching up

This has been a strange year, with a lot of changes in life.  We have to wear masks to go into stores.  There are marks on the ground, telling you where to stand to make sure you are six feet apart from everyone else.  Hand sanitizer is everywhere and there is a clerk standing at every store entrance counting the number of people who go in.  If you enter a medical building, your temperature will be taken. You can't try on clothes and you can't eat at a restaurant; you can only pick up food.  Some schools in the area are meeting in-person a few days a week and this thing called Zoom has taken over the world.  We bring our own camping chairs to attend church outside.  Ben is working from home, with just a few hours in the office each week and he is still unable to do anything "non-essential".

We've had to make a lot of adjustments and learned how to handle new stresses.  I know this pandemic is changing a lot of things, good and bad.  I had to document some changes in our kitchen:

Roasted coffee, granola, almond milk, sourdough starter, fermented cucumbers, sauerkraut, sandwich bread, sourdough bun and boule.

Ben has been roasting our coffee and we've been making bread with fresh ground flour.  Once I discovered how easy and delicious and way better for you homemade almond milk is, there was no going back.  And the one I am most proud of, is the sourdough starter.  Ben picked up a starter packet when we bought our mill and wheat berries.  It was so overwhelming at the beginning, but once we learned and got it going, those little bubbles make me SO happy.  I realized this right here is one of the blessings of this year.  We cooked so much in Virginia and then everything died in Arizona.  It just wasn't possible to cook anything that we couldn't throw in the InstaPot.  We had been wanting to get back to really cooking, and now I'm excited to say that we're doing more than we were in Virginia.  Before you think we're crazy, cooking is just something we love doing...we love good food and the process it takes along the way.

Ironically, even though we've been cooking up a storm and restaurants are kind of closed, I feel like we've also been eating out way more this year.  I think because it is literally the only thing to go out and do.  Sometimes picking up something to eat gives us a little something fun to look forward to and break up our day.

We've always wanted to try Camarillo Cupcakes, so we stopped in one day before grocery shopping.  And yea for supporting local businesses right now!  They were delicious and we will most definitely be going back.

Now to catch up on some more fun things.  We went to the park!  It's been on-and-off-again closed, so when it's open, we jump at the chance to go play.  The boys built a fort:

And skateboarded.  That's another big change this year.  Life is all about skateboarding now!

See end of post of what happens when Colin runs inside from skateboarding and wants to help cook.  We still had pumpkins that I didn't want to waste so I was attempting to roast the seeds and get pepitas...it was a fail...but we tried and now respect why they are a little more pricey.

 

One of the biggest things I love about living in California, is being able to be outside year round.  For a couple of mornings, Alison would pour herself some eggnog and go read on the patio.  I just loved it so much.  I've lost count how many books Alison has read this year!

 I also love how she decorated her room for Christmas.  She likes a minimalist, yet cozy feel for her room and I think she nailed it.