1. It snowed last Saturday. We got about four inches of fluffy white snow. It all melted by the next day, but still, the pool is scheduled to be opened in two weeks! 😮
This was the view that greeted me when I came down on Saturday morning:
I'd been hoping for a warmer than usual April because of a long-term weather forecast I'd read back in March, a forecast that has turned out to be totally wrong! There was a windchill of about 18 degrees on Wednesday morning! I do not enjoy cold springs! Hopefully May will help make up for it.
2. I made bread from my sourdough starter for the first time, and I'm happy to report that it turned out really well! We all liked it and John said that it tasted like "restaurant bread." It didn't have a strong sourdough taste at all, so even Sam liked it.
I'm glad to have a source of food that we can keep going like our pioneer ancestors did. Bread starters are the coolest (it only took a pandemic for me to find that out! 😆).
I also made zucchini and tomato flatbreads for dinner one night (thank you HelloFresh!) and they were delicious! And nutritious! They had garlic and basil and lemon in them too, which are all so healthy and yummy. 😋
3. Continuing with the homemaking successes this week, I started indoor grow kits for basil, mint, and strawberries. I need to get started ASAP on vegetable planting. I wasn't planning on doing a garden until next spring so that this spring and summer I could observe where in the yard gets the best light once the leaves on the trees come back and then research and plan (not plant) accordingly, but I'm just going to go for it and do the best I can with my limited gardening experience and instincts (along with a really helpful book I got). It might turn out to be a flop this year, but hopefully something edible will come out of it. I'm going to try to do about half of the veggies and herbs right on our back deck with containers. We'll see what pops up (hopefully!). In the meantime, I need to go to Lowe's to pick up some much needed supplies so that I can get started with the planting, but I'm not very motivated because shopping has become a hazardous pain in the neck!
4. This week the governor announced that school is cancelled for the rest of the school year in Massachusetts. I wasn't surprised, but I was bummed, even though I think it was probably the right choice at this point. The boys seem to be totally fine with it (imagine that!). I feel so bad for this year's high-school seniors. What a sad way to end their high-school years. In the meantime, we continue on with "internet school" and remote learning, which the boys seem to be doing pretty well with. 🤞
(P.S. Isn't my screen saver pretty!? Well, except for the lady and gentleman being beheaded by the text message. 😂)
5. We were supposed to be in Williamsburg, Virginia this week for April vacation, along with my mom. It would have been so fun. This is a beautiful time of year in Virginia when it's not too hot and not too cold, our timeshare resort there is really nice, and we were going to go to some of my favorite historic places--Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown, and two different amusement parks for the boys. It would have been a great week, but of course we had to cancel it, and everything is shut down down there anyway. To help lessen the sting, the book I'm reading this week is Monticello by Sally Cabot Gunning (she's a historical fiction novelist I like who lives on the Cape). It's about Thomas Jefferson's daughter Martha and it's set in Virginia. It's not nearly the same as actually being in Virginia, but at least I'm there when I read. That's one of the things I love about books and reading. 📚
Well, I wrote this whole post and didn't mention China once until now! There were times when I easily could have inserted something snide, sarcastic, or angry, but I didn't. I'm doing better this week! 🙌
