Keeping Me Sane

I’m thankful for the beautiful weather, my family and friends, cooking, biking, running, and Bryan and Reese for keeping me sane during this time. I’m hanging in over here and we are all still trying to live our best life. But I definitely enjoy getting out and about, seeing people and exploring what the world has to offer, and am looking forward to the days when we can do all of this again. Whenever that might be…

Another week down over here and at least three more to go, in the current condition. We’ve had our stay at home order extended in Washington until May 31st at the earliest. Washington’s approach back into daily life is a four pronged approach and the earliest I would expect to get back into the office is still five weeks out, or so I believe. That’s not the end of the world but I can’t wait to be allowed to hang with friends again. The work days sure seem to roll one into the next but we’ve tried to make the most of our time outside of “work hours” and here is how we have done so:

1. We did go on a glorious walk with Polly and Ryu and their new dog last Thursday and it was just so amazing to see a friendly face in person. We walked through one of our fave parks in Seattle, Interlochen, great for their wide open, car-free street, and forest-in-the-middle-of-the-city feel to it. Perfect for social distancing.
2. We celebrated Cinco de Mayo early with our nanny share family last Friday with a pork taco platter and Mexican mole enchilada casserole (that was delicious) from Raiz to enjoy with moijtos and a side action of the movie Coco for the girls.
3. Reese and I went for a rainy run through the Arboretum on Saturday and divided up the run with some puddle jumping.
4. We had a movie night with the projector in our workout room. Aladdin on the big screen was a fun treat.
5. While Reese napped for a long time on Sunday, Bryan and I invested time in our own respective hobbies. I made a batch of homemade fettuccine for the first time in forever and the recipe for a white chicken ragu (that came out super good). After we each played independently, we then posted up in the sun in the backyard where I cross-stitched and drank iced coffee.
6. We took Reese for a 21-mile bike ride to and around Mercer Island and back. We haven’t done this bike ride since about 7 years ago and we both forgot how nice a ride it is. It’s also quite hilly. It was perfect biking weather and Reese did phenomenally in her Chariot for the full 2.5 hours (we did break at a park about 2 hrs into the ride).
7. Bryan and I had intentional date night at home after putting Reese to bed on Sunday. We finished the pasta, salad and white wine and ate and talked in front of the fire. It was a great few hours just the two of us.
8. I finally finished my cross stitch project as of 5/5/20. Mark it in the books. So excited to be done and also finished fixing the framing on all three.
9. I baked a quick apple fritter bread that came out so good. Definitely a good way to get my “donut fix” now that I no longer have my office’s weekly donut Fridays to look forward to.
10. I went on two walks with the girls and the nanny during the middle of the day last week; the first to get Raised Donuts as a Monday pick-me-up and the second to go to the local p-patch to get some fresh mint for mojitos.
11. The three of us also went for a walk around the UW campus that we have never really done before. The cherry blossoms on campus are all gone but it was a nice place to walk with essentially ZERO other people out and about.
12. We have new toys for the girls as of this week. We had the table and chairs made custom, like our work desk upstairs, and that was delivered on Tuesday. The girls instantly fell in love with sitting at their table for coloring and snack time. We also received our toy kitchen set on Wednesday that we put together. We plan on putting it outside in the toy house eventually but it is in the living room for the meantime. It’s perfect; nice and small but came with some cooking ingredients and utensils, plus inexpensive!
13. We finished the latest season of Ozarks and wow or wow. Much better season than the last and glad to have something to keep us on edge, you know, aside from the current craziness that is all keeping us on edge out there.
14. I got in a solo run along Lake Washington on Friday and broke any time I’ve had for at least two years. Felt good, not great!
15. We ordered from our favorite restaurant Harvest Vine on Thursday night and were able to walk in the great weather to pick up our own personal paella, an amazing asparagus and manchego salad, and a free slice of Basque cheesecake. We had this fancy dinner alongside the live piano music streaming from Canlis restaurant before calling into our FareStart weekly Zoom call.

Now it’s Mother’s Day weekend and we are having a great weekend over here, soaking up all of the sunshine and hot weather before it cools down and rains this week. Will update on what trouble we get into later.

Chelsea