Five on Friday--Five Things Making a Difference Right Now
Well hello friends! From my living room to yours, I hope this little return to the 5 on Friday blog post finds you and your family staying healthy, relatively sane, and settling into a new-for-now normal, whatever that happens to look like for you. These are bizarre, scary, and uncharted times, aren’t they? Literally nothing could have prepared us for what these past many weeks have looked like. I keep thinking back to our spring break, which was March 9-13, and how we park hopped every day that week, meeting different friends and checking out different playgrounds around town. If you had told me Friday of that week would have been our last play date for months, and that my kids in fact would not be returning to school on that Monday (something I didn’t know for sure until Friday afternoon), I would have probably fallen apart. But that is indeed what happened. At first it was simply a matter of “okay lets do school at home for a few weeks and then we’ll all go back to finish the year, right?” Obviously that’s not how things turned out and here we are on week 8 of school from home (our school was AMAZING and had stuff ready to go for us that Monday when we were supposed to return from break, so we’ve been in this home school stuff since then without missing one day of school).
We are definitely into a routine now, and I’m trying so hard to discipline myself to only think about this week, to not worry about what this summer will look like or I start to sink into more fear or grief at things being closed or cancelled. We will be doing school at home until the last week of May and then, well, no one knows.
One of my favorite authors Shauna Niequist mentioned recently that she understands the world better when she’s writing. Words and writing words help her process what is happening. I’ve been writing a little bit more lately. But mostly in a journal and jotting things down in my day planner that I don’t want to forget about this season. Because it is a season, even if we don’t know when it will end. And it is unprecedented. Someday my kids will want to share with their kids what this period of time was like. So I’ve been trying to document things a little more frequently and more intentionally. Most of those things will only ever end up in our family annual photo album, but I thought I would share a few of the things that have become regular and essential parts of this new normal for our family. My hope is to simply share five things each week that are making a difference in our days here at home, in how we spend our time, and in our mental health. Maybe they’ll help you out, or maybe they won’t apply to your situation but I know I’ve received some amazing ideas from others on social media these days, so I thought I’d start sharing more. So without further ado here is this week’s 5 on Friday!
ONE
Audible + Kid’s Alexa = HOURS of entertainment
For Christmas this past year Aidan got a kid’s echo dot that was setup basically to play music or audio books that are a part of our Audible library. He has loved it, simply asking “Alexa, play Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone” or whatever title he wants to hear. When we entered into our safer at home time this became an absolute lifesaver. He has always been my kid who has struggled a bit more entertaining himself. He is SO extroverted and just craves interaction, so just telling him to “go play” doesn’t usually end well. However this kid will sit and listen to stories for hours. It must feel like someone is talking to him and he is getting human interaction even if he’s alone. I don’t know, I just know that in the past 8 weeks he’s listened to a ton of books while coloring, doing sticker art, playing legos, eating lunch, or building hot wheel tracks. He’s gone through all the Judy Blume “Fudge” books, he’s re-listened to at least one Harry Potter book, and his new obsession is the Boxcar Children series. He’s currently on book 5 and can’t get enough which makes me SO happy because I LOVED those books as a kid! It’s bought me a ton of sanity and in this season where libraries are closed and we aren’t going out and about I’m willing to spend a little money purchasing audio books we can all enjoy around the house.
TWO
Bikes
The first week of being at home Charles took Aidan to buy him a new big kid ten speed bike (it was his birthday gift from January we hadn’t ever gotten around to getting him) and we put the training wheels back on the smaller bike for Asher to learn. They are both so in love with biking it is saving my sanity! Every night after dinner we either cruise around our neighborhood or we toss the two bikes into the van and drive up to a big church near us and do laps around their building in the parking lot. Now that Asher’s figured it out on his own I am actually getting quite a bit of exercise power walking/jogging to keep up with him. He’s not the most athletic kid, so finding something active he loves has been a huge lifesaver for all of us.
THREE
Puzzles and Cocktails in a Can
For some reason these go together in my mind :). So I’ve never been a puzzle person. Growing up it wasn’t ever something I wanted to do and now when we get together with my family there’s always a puzzle going but it’s my mom and sister who get into it, I’d always just rather read. However when this whole pandemic started I could not read. I had a stack of books and I just could not get into any of them. I could not concentrate, I couldn’t settle my brain to focus for more than a paragraph. I kept scrolling social media, checking my phone incessantly, checking the news. It wasn’t awesome, but it was probably normal for the fact that we were just entering into a global pandemic. Randomly one day I pulled out a puzzle we had in our closet and set up a card table in our living room and started sorting pieces. The kids helped a little, but for the most part I found myself gravitating toward it every afternoon when the kids had their movie time. That was when I got to open a chilled beverage (umm a can of sparkling rose wine to be specific) and just sit for 30 minutes or so before starting dinner. That little ritual became something I started looking forward to every day. I think it was a signal to my brain that the day was winding down, dinner would be soon, school work and hustling to get stuff done around the house was over and I could rest. There is something so tactile about the sorting of puzzle pieces, the putting together one section at a time and the satisfaction of completing it that has been so incredibly helpful for my brain in this season. I’ve since ordered several more puzzles and have been working on them in the late afternoons and then again in the evening while Chuck and I watch a show. I have started reading again, which feels like a nice return to normalcy for me, but I’ve also fallen in love with puzzles and that feels like something fun from this pandemic I’ll keep enjoying going forward.
FOUR
A Meal Plan/Freezer Cooking
This will come as no surprise to anyone who has read anything I’ve ever written, but I have to have a meal plan in place—even more so now as we aren’t eating out and have been trying to shop even less. I’m trying to be really careful to make sure we are eating what we have, using up what’s in our freezer, and planning ahead. I’ve been making my menu a month at a time these days and was able to get to Costco about 2 weeks ago for meat for the whole month of May (which apparently was good timing since I think they are now limiting what people can buy?). I spent a couple days prepping all of it to turn it into ready to go yet very simple meals—like instead of freezing the pork tenderloins in their Costco packaging, I remove them from their packages and froze them in ziplocks with their marinade so when it’s time to cook them I just have to thaw overnight in the fridge and pop in the oven or Instant Pot. Same with the pork chops or chicken breasts, a few hours of work on the front end turns into meals ready for the grill, oven, or instant pot saving a ton of time (and money) later in the month. I think I’ve shared on here before but my all time favorite, go to source for all freezer meals are the two fantastic freezer meal cookbooks by Polly Connor and Rachel Tiemeyer—From Freezer to Table and From Freezer to Cooker (all slow cooker and instant pot recipes). I still run into Aldi one morning a week to grab milk, produce and random things we run out of, but our main sources of protein and dinners are taken care of for the month.
FIVE
Disney Nature
We all know our kids are getting more screen time these days—whether that’s because parents are just trying to cope with all the hours we are all home, or because their school is online. I’m working on letting go of guilt associated with screens, and one of the things that has made a huge difference for us is watching at least one Disney Nature film a week. They’re on Disney+ and they are absolutely fantastic. Educational, funny, breath taking photography and each one tells a fantastic story. The kids have loved them, and they help me at least feel better about movie time if they are learning about African elephants instead of, you know, Pokemon. I joked that our kids are going to graduate from the Kennedy family homeschool with degrees in biology from all the animal films I’ve made them watch!
How about in your households? What things are making a huge difference for your sanity in this strange season we find ourselves in? Stay safe friends, and we’ll see you back here next Friday with 5 more things including thoughts on social media, a couple things I’ve learned about myself in this season, and a couple of book recommendations!
