Day Nine

We're all doing whatever we need to do to get by, and mostly I'm managing to stick to a sort of routine. Every day I get up super early to start work and then Mila wakes up 13 seconds later and derails alllll of that. She's not a morning person at all, but whatever. If she wants to be awake too early and be mad about it, that's fine. It's not like she has a choice in the whole thing.

o_O

After Mila is done being mad that she's awake when I super don't want her to be awake, I declare all rules to be non-existent and she and Alexis somehow entertain themselves while I jump from virtual meeting to virtual meeting. By the way, I'm not kidding about the non-existent rules. Ice cream for breakfast? Sure! A hair dye party? GOOOOOO! You want to run with scissors? Okay, that might be where I draw the line. Safety, kids. We still have to practice safety. It doesn't do us any good to avoid spreading COVID-19 if we're going to stab ourselves in the face with scissors.

If I deem it safe, though? It's fair game. Go do it.

Eventually I stop working and switch to being 100% about the girls. That normally means a whole bunch of Mario Kart, but now that Alexis' dance classes are fully running online, she has been ditching me for her dance friends. Which is fine, honestly, because it's easier to beat Mila at Mario Kart. I just want my trophy.

Once I have declared victory in Mario Kart, it's time for the most freakin' wholesome and adorable thing ever. Each night, I've been letting Mila FaceTime one of her friends. You guys, IT'S SO AMAZING.

I started it because the kid was losing it over not seeing her friends. I thought I would give her a little boost. What I didn't expect was to get a boost myself. Kindergarteners have the best conversations, you guys. Right this second, Mila and her friend are each drawing pictures while they talk to each other. They're critiquing each other's work and everything.

"That wooks wike a spider. Make more lines and it will obviously be a snowflake."

"When I look at it, I feel like it's sticking up a little too much?"

"Now it wooks better!"

"I love it, I love it, I love it. It's awesome.

"You're the best friend ever."

It's just so damn cute.

Also, they sort of don't get the whole phone thing. Two nights ago, they tried to play hide-n-seek. As in, Mila set the phone on the floor, ran around the corner, and told her friend to find her. I'm not sure if she was expecting the phone to get up and start walking, but that's not what happened. Eventually they figured something out, but I was super confused and still don't understand what it was.

My other favorite moment was when Mila told her friend a super important secret. As in, she kid-whispered (which is basically yelling, except that it comes with flashing lights and sirens because five-year olds can't whisper without drawing extra attention to what they're doing), "I have a secret! Don't tell my mom this, okay? You have to promise not to tell my mom."

Y'all, I was sitting next to Mila. She seemed genuinely surprised when I told a story that included every detail from her little secret. And that was after Alexis yelled, "MILA, MOM CAN HEAR YOU."

If you're struggling with this whole thing, I highly suggest finding yourself a pair of five-year olds having a phone conversation. It's a pretty fantastic way to end a very long day.

Day Eight

It's a GREAT time to figure out I'm bad at grocery shopping, so here we are. It turns out I'm super really very bad at all.

::sigh::

For as long as I can remember, I've been a "small trip" grocery shopper. I buy a few things at Aldi, a few at Target, a few at Wal-Mart, a few at Fresh Thyme, and a few at Shop-n-Save. I cannot be bothered to buy several weeks worth of food at one time because that is wasteful. I am opportunistic and buy things where they are the least expensive, which is why I'm perfectly content making a couple of trips per week and rotating my way around stores.

That's how it works, by the way. Target is for the staples, but Fresh Thyme wins for produce. I might need Aldi for things like granola bars and butter, but Wal-Mart is the best for vegetarian products. Shop-n-Save is stupid expensive on most everything, but the frozen waffles? They win for best priced frozen waffles. And, thus, I rotate. I go to one or two stores per week and shuffle around so that the house is pretty much always stocked.

This habit is further encouraged because of my childrens' activity schedules. I have four days per week where I have about an hour to run errands and such, so I can easily squeeze in a kick jaunt through Aldi, for example. It's a good use of time, even!

All of this means I am genuinely truly bad at buying for more than a few days at a time. Like, I don't know where to begin.

It has been eight days since we've been in full lockdown at our house, but really ten if you count the weekend when I scurried to get the things we'd need for a lockdown. At that point I had already eliminated the unessential stuff and given up on "least expensive." You're going to charge me $4 for that box of cereal I could get for $2.50 elsewhere? Okay. I'll allow it. BUT JUST THIS ONCE. I honestly thought I had done a good job of stocking up that day.

Spoiler: I was wrong. Sooooo wrong.

As I was unpacking the bags of groceries, I noticed the things I was missing. I made a list. A loooong list.

Four or five days later, I went out to fill in the food gaps. I took my list with me and had Alexis check the pantry and fridge to build out her own list.

I STILL DIDN'T RETURN HOME WITH BREAD OR EGGS. How does that even happen? Isn't that 2/3 of the snowstorm preparation triangle? I should at least be able to stock up for a snowstorm, especially when what we really need to do is prepare for a long winter.

(That is currently my favorite work-ism. My company is rocking this whole stupid situation, in part because our facility in China already went through the whole cycle, and in part because we have a "we're preparing for winter, not for a snowstorm" attitude. It makes everything much smoother and easier to expect that life will be this way for a few months. Seriously. And if it's not? That's just a bonus.)

I genuinely couldn't make it far without bread or eggs, but that's too bad because they no longer exist here in the year 2020. They became extinct along with the tortilla shells. I know this because I have tried to buy them. Sort of. Mostly.

Look, I can't deal with the people who don't know how far 6-feet is. I neeeeed them to back up because when they don't, I run back to my car and give up. Go ahead and judge me. I admit I am especially "gimme my space" challenged right now. So I tried to buy milk and eggs a few times, but failed miserably because they were either out of stock or the store was too crowded for my delicate little self to stay there.

ANYWAY.

Noticing how very bad I am at buying enough groceries to last ... Aw, hell. At this point I'd be happy if I could get it right for an entire week ... the whole thing has me thinking about a thing.

My parents survived thanks to food stamps and WIC and they absolutely lived paycheck-to-paycheck. That means they basically had money for groceries once per month and then had to make that food last a full month.

HOW?

I seriously don't know. My privileged ass can't figure it out.

But I do suddenly understand why my mom was a terrible cook. When you're trying to buy things that are cheap and shelf stable for an entire month, it really does limit the possibilities. A lot. There's not much you can do with a can of peas except know that it will be there for you when you need it. So, I'm just going to rewrite the history that is in my head and realize that it wasn't that my mom was a terrible cook; it's that she made do with the tools that were available to her.

Oh, and if you are one of the people who bought cases of canned vegetables at the start of all this, enjoy those crappy mushy peas. Soon it will be the end of the month and those people who can't afford more will be going to the stores and ... finding nothing. Because you bought it all.

Ugh.

(As I write this, Alexis has just informed me that we are out of salsa. You guys, salsa is one of our food groups. UUUUUUUUUUGH!)

Day Seven

Apparently the world does not want me to buy tortillas. They are right up there with toilet paper, macaroni, any kind of soup, and eggs. Just forget it. It is the year 2020 and they no longer exist.

Which, WHATEVER. I have many strong feelings about the people who are hoarding food and none of them are nice so I'll just stop talking and post how I cope with tortillas no longer existing.

I MAKE THEM MYSELF. So there. They're better homemade anyway.

They're stupid easy to make and I only don't because life is chaos. Which, it's still chaos, but it's chaos at home. I guess I have time to throw together a few things.

Especially when they turn out perfectly.

Flour Tortillas
(recipe shamelessly stolen from Mindy)

4 cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons cold butter, cubed
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1.5-2 cups of milk

Throw the flour, butter, salt, and baking powder into a large mixing bowl and squish and toss and mix it with your hands, being careful to not grope the butter too much because it needs to stay cold. If you grope it, it might melt. No melty butter, please!

Once the flour mixture looks like cornmeal, hollow out a space in the middle of your bowl of flour and pour in 1.5 cups of milk. Squish it with your hands until it turns into a nice dough that sticks to itself, but not to your hands. If it seems too dry, add more milk. If it seems too moist, add more flour. Follow your gut. Your gut is smart.

Divide the large dough ball into 24 small dough balls. Allow the dough to rest for about ten minutes and then roll out each tortilla. The tortillas should be about 8" across and about 1/16" thick. The thinner you can get them, the better.

Heat a large skillet (or griddle if you're fancy like Mindy). You aren't putting any oil or anything in the pan, so to test to see if it's hot enough, splash a few drops of water into the pan. If it sizzles, you're good to go.

Place your first rolled out tortilla into the skillet. Allow it to cook for about one minute. Flip it and cook it on the other side for about 30 seconds. The tortillas should look like this:

Perfection, no?

What's that? They aren't perfectly round? ... And? Personally I like them better when they aren't perfect. "Perfect" doesn't give you happy accidents like this one.

I always manage to make at least one heart-shaped fajita. It is meant to be.

Which brings me to the stuff that goes inside the fajita. I hesitate to call this a recipe because it's really whatever I have on hand, but I do have a preference. I personally hate when I order fajitas at a restaurant and they are nothing but onions and peppers. At home, I make sure there is way more to them. My favorite ingredient list:

Veggie Fajitas

1 package extra firm tofu (cubed)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cilantro, finely chopped
1 clove garlic
1 carrot, thinly sliced
Juice from one lime
1 red pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small zucchini, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped spinach (I used frozen this time, but use fresh when I have it)
1/3 cup corn (again with the frozen this time, but canned or fresh would work)
Shredded cheese
Sour cream

Like I said, this isn't so much a recipe as it is a list of things that get thrown into a large skillet together and cooked over medium heat until they are however soft you want them. The only real trick is knowing what order to work in. Start with whatever will take the longest to cook and work your way towards the quicker cooking stuff.

Which is to say, start with the protein. You might want chicken or beef or whatever, but we like tofu. Go ahead, mock us. We can handle it. (If you do use dead animal for your protein, drain off the fat before you start adding vegetables. Us tofu people don't have any fat to drain, so we have to add the olive oil with the tofu to prevent sticking.) Throw the cilantro in with your protein.

Next up, the carrots. I don't like mine crunchy when I'm eating fajitas, so they need a while to cook. The carrots get joined by the garlic after a minute or two.

After that I add the red pepper. Then I squeeze the lime juice in before adding the onion, zucchini, spinach, and corn.

I can't really tell you how long it will take for your vegetables to be perfect. That depends on your definition of "perfect" and your stove. For me it takes about 20 minutes from the time I throw the tofu in the skillet until I turn off the heat.

Once the vegetables are done, you stuff some in a flour tortilla and top with shredded cheese and sour cream.