Howdy blog readers! Happy Tuesday to you all. Please note that I am writing my third blog post in two weeks (woot woot). Really trying hard to write consistently and get back in the habit of blogging! Keep the encouragement coming!
Our life continues to be pretty mundane. January was a total bust. No vaccine in sight (super jealous that all 3 of my sisters got it already), crappy air quality all month and grades 5-12 opened for in-person school (Nia’s in 3rd grade). It was a whole lotta let down for what I had believed would be the big month when things would start changing.
MUST. STOP. DOING. THAT. TO. MYSELF. Brings me sadness every damn time. For February, I vow that I will not set myself up for disappointment. NO EXPECTATIONS.
I will say, I admire Nia’s resiliency. She just takes all the sh*tty mundane stuff and makes it fun. Take mopping, for example. We did our usual 4 hour sweep/mop session last Saturday. She threw on her swimsuit and made a damn good time out of it. Granted, I didn’t get as much work out of her as I would have liked, but it was nice seeing someone being fun and joyful.
I decided to go ahead and make a 30 second video so you could get a peek into Nia’s version of mopping. :) I guarantee you will be amused or your money back…
Christmas break was 3.5 weeks looooooong, which left lots of time for Nia to make big messes. Thankfully we did have a few virtual camps that school provided to fill the time. One of her favorite classes was Micro-green Gardening where they learned how to grow four different types of micro-greens. She was very into it and bursting with pride when we figured out how to incorporate these random greens into our meals (ex: mustard seed and wheatgrass). It was fun to see her get so into it. Makes me think we might need to do a bit more balcony gardening in the coming year, as I too have grown to like plants since my time in Malawi…
Nia’s cousin Armin gave her this awesome fort-building kit from Christmas. She and her Dad made some awesome geometric configurations, as well as some rad forts that destroyed the living room for weeks on end. Can you tell I don’t like messes?? The most hilarious part was when I’d walk into the living room and find Nick building something with no Nia in sight… stress relief anyone?? :)
Nia’s also recently become interested in rocks and gems and has amassed a surprisingly large collection in 4 months. Below she’s doing a Nat Geo dig kit where you hunt for rocks buried in a hardened block. The plus side was that it was a slow and laborious process, so it filled a lot of hours. The downside was that there was sand everywhere! Very cool if you have a budding geologist or archeologist in your house though.
Here’s a sampling of what she found!
Nia also discovered “24 hour challenges” on Youtube this month and insisted on doing one. We negotiated her down to a 5 hour max and set her up with food, water and activities in her “tent” (really the mosquito net that goes over our bed). She was happy as a clam and Nick and I enjoyed a few solid hours of relaxation. Win/win!
Our most recent household purchase was an Instant Pot. We have had it for a month now and probably used it 20 times. We’ve done all sorts of things – rice, pasta, potstickers and there still loads of recipes in the queue that we haven’t gotten to yet. Up this week – butter chicken! Thanks to all who passed on their favorite recipes on Facebook. We were very inspired to play with it. Now I’ve got my eye on an air fryer. Anyone tried one of those???
That’s it for today. Short and sweet. Wishing you a great start or end to your day, depending on where you are in the world! Cheers, Sarah
