Dear Amanda,
Holy smokes did life dial up to 10. How am I staying busy? I dunno I might be slowly losing my mind.
I went back to work and am now working from home. My cat is stalking me. He looks cute in this photo. He’s lying. I know, I know. He looks super cute. It isn’t funny when you’re in a Zoom meeting and he lays across your keyboard and spams the group chat. It’s almost as bad as a random kid nekkid streaking across a video chat….but also not? Because COVID norms means parents can Zoom with crazy kids in the background and no one bats an eye. But random weird texts in the Zoom chat? Yeah, super weird.
It may be approaching winter for you, but in Florida it’s always beach season. We’re lucky that in all these weird times we have a really nice escape to the beach and can avoid people. Even on cooler days we still enjoy the sun and the sand. We may not get all your pretty colors, but damn do we get glorious sunsets. I’m particularly proud of this shot where I actually framed a sailboat into the sun. I am not a good photographer.
I found this book on making cheese boards and am mildly fascinated. I made my first one and EVEN THE PICKY EATER ate off it. I’m going to make another for our Christmas Eve dinner and promise to get more photos so I can share how we did it. It went together surprisingly easy. I wish these pandemic times were over and I could just host a hundred dinner parties and trial and error this into perfection. At any rate, I think this cheeseboard was pretty awesome on my first attempt and my kids devoured it pronto!
We have some fun projects planned for the winter holiday (aka Christmas break) such as a gingerbread house and we’re going to *attempt* a profiteroles tower. It may or may not go well. We’ll see. I’ll let you know the results. Like you, I’ve been cooking a TON and really should post more of my success stories for everyone else to enjoy.
I haven’t made progress on my wall map. I really wanted to. I got side tracked. Keep asking about it and maybe it’ll eventually shame me into working on it. We’re upside down. And sideways. And right-side up? I think this photo of H sums up how we’re all feeling right now.
Finally, I tried to take a nap one day. My dog sat on me. This is my life now, represented by me trying to sleep and being sat on by a dog. Send wine? Chocolate? Do you see/sense my agony here?
At any rate, Google has been reminding me of our cruise 3 years ago for my cousin’s wedding. I miss traveling. We’re all sort of climbing the walls. We’re okay here but oh goodness are we ready to move on. I’m ready to get traveling again. Aren’t we all?
Cheers,
Stephanie