Quarantine Journals - Birthday Prep

Penny: For my birthday, I want the theme to be "No Virus." We can make signs that say "NO VIRUS!" and celebrate that the virus is gone. If it's gone by then. I hope.

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We woke up this morning and decided to go for a bike ride. It's my first bike ride of probably three or four years, and I struggled to keep up with Richard, who was carrying the bike trailer with 70 pounds of kids in it behind him. Eventually, I did conceded defeat, and we wrote back to the house, but neither Richard nor the kids were ready to be finished so they went back out again. I made it about 2 1/2 miles.

While they were riding, I checked on the garden, watered the plants etc. It seems a squirrel, or somesuch rodent, has been nibbling on my pepper plants and has only left the top the most leaves. I found this quite depressing since they were thriving, and now I'm worried worried to move any of my plants outside less they be eaten almost instantly. So I've asked Richard to help me to build some kind of protection over the raised garden beds to keep the squirrels out.

Richard and the kids got home, and we cooled off inside for a few minutes, and then Richard suggested having a lunch on the back patio. So I took the kids outside to play while Richard made food. We all sat outside and enjoyed bacon avocado toast and homemade coleslaw. Richard made us some Mojito's from fresh mint that I had gathered from the shared mint garden we have with the neighbor.

Richard set up a temporary pulley system for the kids to play with, and they were having a blast. We came inside and Oliver went for a nap, while I played video games with Penny and then worked on fixing up my birthday cake. We already had some cakes that I've been frozen since Oliver's birthday last year, and Richard has been wanting the freezer space. I suspect they are still fine, so I pulled them out and just focus on filling and frosting them. I made a water ganache to put in between the layers, and then covered it in a blue ombré vanilla buttercream. It was a comedy of errors, like it usually is when I bake, but this time I could just laugh about it and go with the flow. My cake doesn't have to be perfect, and I wasn't too worried about mistakes. I really like how the color came out, and I'm hoping that the cake tasted good tomorrow.

I was wanting to cut a large portion of the cake off and take it over to Deanna, but I'm not sure if she would eat it? I'm not sure if I would eat it if the roles were reversed. There's just something extra intimate about somebody fixing food for you when there's a virus going around. But I know she didn't get a birthday cake for her birthday a couple weeks ago, and I would love to share it with her (if it doesn't taste terrible).

I keep thinking about going out to my dads house, but I worry about the bathroom situation and making the drive there, staying to visit, and making the drive back without having to stop somewhere to pee. I know he's feeling very lonely, and we talked multiple times about how the hardest part of all of this is being isolated at his house. But I just haven't figured out the logistics, I guess. I do miss him very much.

While I was finishing up the cake, Richard took the kids outside to splash in the small pool. He was getting frustrated because Oliver wouldn't stay in the pool, and kept wandering over the garage to go through things. Eventually, the kids ended up inventing a game of taking water from the pool and dumping it on the driveway, and they seem to be having a blast by the time I got out there. Richard came inside and made us a quick dinner, and I got Penny to bed.

I cut up some of Penny's old leggings to use as light covers for my mason jars so that I can start moving some of the stand out fruit berry plants into jars and use the Kratky method of Hydro gardening.  I think they turned out cute.

We released the murder caterpillar/butterfly into the wild today. So that's it for our butterfly adventures this year. I was excited about doing it again, but now that it's finished I think I'm fine with waiting a year before doing another butterfly release. It ended up being a bit stressful trying to coordinate all of these different caterpillars that didn't want to sync up.

Oh, and we started growing Richards oyster mushrooms, so we will see how that goes! 

Covid cases continue to rise in Dallas, as do the post of local acquaintances who are "out supporting local retail."