STFAH: Day 70

Today felt like an almost normal Sunday. I did some chores, 2 loads of laundry, a load of dishes, draino'd the bathroom sink, and some baking and cooking. I made a vanilla cake, from a mix, but I don't care. Made them as cupcakes, regular and mini and they were tasty! We did brunch, used some stuff from the freezer, and then I made my dinner, which didn't quite work out.

Most of the day was spent watching Charmed, but I stayed up late last night doing some by-hand writing and did take the time today to type it out. My goal is to finish writing my chapter tomorrow. I heard from my coworker and we're going to aim for Tuesday to go in, to give downtown an extra day to deal with the protests. They're protesting again tonight in spite of a second night of garbage curfews. 5pm?! Ridiculous!

Tonight I made a recipe from one of my cookbooks I've never cooked from before and I didn't quite like it, but because it's the type of meal that might get better by the next day, I am withholding my final judgement until then. If I like it better, I'll share the pictures and write about it a little more. I ended up with frosted flakes, a piece of cheese, and a cupcake instead. I feel like something salty though, so I might have a pickle later on...

That was really it for the day. I did some more talking on Twitter and Facebook about activism. Did some more sudoku. Pretty low key day, and I really can't believe it's day 70 of this! It'll be really weird to go back to work now, especially since it'll be so off-and-on for a while. But it'll be nice to have a little more to look forward to doing. It'll be really strange when things are more normalized again and I'm working full time. I'll have to get used to it all over again!

STFAH: Day 69

Today I did not stfah, I went out three times! Grocery shopping this morning when there was a lull in the morning thunder storm. People were out driving in protest for George Floyd all through the neighborhood, so when we got back, I scarfed down some breakfast, cut up a paper grocery bag, the only thing I had to write on, made a sign, and went back outside. I walked up and down Lake City Way and occasionally stood a corner here and there for a little over an hour. I stopped after my sprained foot started to hurt, my lower back was killing me, and my arms felt like they were going to fall off. It's really hard to hold a sign above your head for almost an hour!

Afterwards, I came home and we ordered Heaven Sent Chicken, which is a Black-owned restaurant up the street. It felt like the appropriate place to support today.

I wanted to do some baking and cooking today, but I was just tired after that. I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep, so I'm also tired from that too. We've been watching Charmed all afternoon and evening, now that we're done with Twin Peaks.We finished season two and started season three. Laundry day tomorrow, hopefully I'll find out if they need me at work on Monday so I can plan it out best.

STFAH: Day 68

Today was a much better day, headache-wise. Luckily it was just a one-day deal yesterday and I was fine today. I didn't work on any writing like I had hoped, but we focused on Twin Peaks. We're actually going to finish it tonight and that'll be the end of the rewatch! We'll probably focus on our Charmed and Disney movie rewatch next. Tomorrow we go shopping, and I'm trying to figure out a menu for the next couple weeks, including the stuff I want to make from the cookbooks I want to try in the next couple weeks, all while not knowing when I'll be at work, or not. I need to inventory the fridge to see what I'm running low on.

I think the highlight of the day was the walk my sister and I went on this early afternoon. We went a different route that my sister discovered some time ago, but I haven't been able to go with her with my foot recovering till now. I had to take a lot more pictures than just my one, so enjoy the whole set! Also, we met the man in the house with the flowers, he just moved in today and was very friendly!

It's hard to tell, but the last three pictures have the moon in them! The sky was so beautiful today, and the clouds changed so much through the course of the walk. It was hot too! But it felt so good. We also stopped and talked for a couple minutes with an adorable older couple and their dog. We were in the street, they were on the sidewalk and we all had masks. The one thing about this time that I'm noticing is that it really is bringing people out of their shells. We're talking and waving to each other more than we ever have before, because it's really the only interaction we have with each other now. It's something I hope we keep up even after this ends.

When we came back, I found a movie at random to try out. Imagine That, a family and kids movie.

This one was ok, it was cute. I think the big drawback is one of the main characters is supposedly Native American, but is played by a white actor and does incredibly offensive things through the whole film. There is a payoff at the end that explains it, but the idea that kids could be exposed to really bad stereotypes through the whole thing and not quite understand the payoff that explains it away means it's not necessarily a good one for kids who are impressionable. But it has the oldest daughter from Blackish in it, and it's fun to see her so much younger. She's really good in this!

Leftovers tonight for dinner, very tasty. I still have some left for breakfast or lunch tomorrow probably. Cool breeze tonight. I'll probably wrap up in my blanket soon...

STFAH: Day 67

Today I really did STFAH. I started off ok, but for some reason my head decided to have sinus problems so bad it nearly turned into a migraine. I took sudafed and it started kicking in and I felt better but was still headachy so I took tylenol which finally worked. I also drank a nice big mug of caffeinated tea and all of that seemed to do the trick, but I was left with a "headache hangover" for the rest of the day. No fun. Plus it was hot out so I definitely did not go out to walk.

I did, however, make an oven dinner, which is always good on a hot day. But it was my sister's recipe she'd always wanted to try and I promised I'd make it for her during her week off of vacation, so it was dinner tonight and will be leftovers tomorrow. It was actually really tasty! Here's the recipe, if anybody is interested. It's a bit prep-heavy, but it was worth it. And I think you could make this ahead of time and leave it in the fridge and bake it closer to dinner, you'd just need longer in the oven. I made drop biscuits and roast asparagus to go with it and it was all really satisfying as a meal.

I tried to find a 10 movie today but had no luck, so I decided to abandon the number thing and watched a movie that a Twitter friend mentioned the other day. I'd seen it before, but for some reason, I hadn't liked it much the first time through. I decided to give it a second try.

The King's Speech, with Colin Firth. I don't remember why this didn't work for me the first time, but it definitely worked the second time around. I quite liked it, in fact. I think I'm still going to try focusing on movies I haven't seen before, but this time I'll just choose them at random, not as part of a pattern. Especially since I'll be going back to work off and on starting next week.

I finally managed to get a tiny bit written for my chapter. I keep forgetting and/or putting it off. Something in me is just resisting writing this part of the chapter, for some reason. I think it's because I am worried I won't be able to pull it off. This chapter is about a hunt, and I know nothing about hunting, and I'm not the biggest fan of it, to begin with. But it's important to my character, so I have to do it. Hopefully I'll feel good enough tomorrow to work on it some more.

Other than that, I hung out online and fought some trolls and white people trying to dictate the terms of how and why people of color can protest. And I did some sudoku. And I researched pillows. My neck has been giving me problems for months and I need to find a better pillow, but I can't figure it out. I also reached out to my doctor's office to get the ball rolling to renew my meds. I'm going to see if I can do it without having to go to my annual checkup, but we'll see.

Tomorrow, I need to look at my cookbooks that I pulled out to try out. I have more ingredients on hand now so I might be able to make a full meal out of each one. I need to at least make one thing from each so the ingredients don't go to waste.

STFAH: Day 66

Today I am trying out the new dashboard for this blog and trying out the new format. I have a bit of a learning curve, so we'll see how it goes. It's mostly the same but a different look, but how you upload the photos works differently than it used to, so I have to adjust to that, or maybe I'm not doing something right. I'll get the hang of it eventually.

Lunch was an adventure today. We drove out to Dairy Queen and picked up food and I got a giant ice cream cone which would have melted so I had no choice but to eat it first on the way home...It was delish! We came home to eat and watched an episode of Twin Peaks.

I did my walk earlier in the afternoon before watching my movie. It was another glorious day. Warmer than yesterday, for sure. Almost entirely clear sky. The air smelled like pine and flowers and it was really quiet. I had times with my mask off and it felt normal again and it was great. Today's walk picture is quite lovely, I think.

After the walk, I came home and found a movie with 9 in the title. I ended up with one called District 9, which turned out to be produced by Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens! It was pretty interesting. Set in South Africa, but a lot of the accents sounded Australian at first, which would make sense if it was in fact, filmed in New Zealand, or a combination of the three places. It's about aliens who come to this planet and are rounded up and kept in one location and given no resources to survive, and how the humans treat them like garbage. There was some randomly anti-Nigerian sentiment in the film, which I found unnecessary, but overall it was a pretty good film. Sci-fi, if that's your thing.

Then I finished reading the book I'd been currently reading. With the Fire on High, by Elizabeth Acevedo. It was a Christmas present from my parents and I really enjoyed this one. It's the story of a Afro-Boricua senior high schooler named Emoni Santiago, and her life as she balances being a young mother, graduating high school, her love of food, and deciding her future. Any foodie would enjoy this book. If you're looking to support writers of color, this is a great book for you. Order it from your Black-owned bookstore of choice and get reading!

Dinner tonight was pizza pasta, to use up leftovers from the fridge. Mushrooms, pizza sauce, pepperoni, and quartered cherry tomatoes became a quick sauce over mini pasta shells, and topped with shredded mozzarella. Easy, fast, and delicious! And we had a Pillsbury French bread loaf to try, so we whipped that up too, and it turns out that is really tasty too. A bowl of fruit is serving as dessert.

Last night, after posting my blog post, I ended up getting into an argument on FB with somebody I'd known since my Watermark days. We disagreed on racism, dismantling white supremacy, and the best way to go about it. It got out of control and we ended up unfriending each other. I also lost another FB friend also from my Watermark days, in the same evening. I have to stand up for what's right, and if that means losing friends in the process, I guess they weren't really my friends in the first place.

I talked to my coworker today and the general gameplan for me to return to work is that I'll be notified the day before if I'll be needed the next day. Since the people working remotely have the information, I'm dependent on them to fill me in. Since the buses are unreliable right now, I need plenty of warning to work on getting there in a timely manner. Getting called the morning of wouldn't really work. So, sometime on Sunday I'll find out if they need me to come in on Monday. I plan to get some tv dinners to keep there so on the occasion that I'm there long enough to need a lunch, I won't be trying to transport food on the bus that could be more exposed to any possible germs. I suspect June will be very hit and miss for how often I go in, but it'll be more in July when I cover for the person going on vacation. It still probably won't be daily, though.

The final season of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD premieres tonight at 10pm and I'll definitely be tuning in. It's always fun to have new episodes of a show to enjoy. Charmed reruns till then.

STFAH: Day 65

Today started off with a bit of a deviation from the norm. My sister is home this week on vacation and her plans fell through, and we had Safeway coupons that expire on Thursday that we wanted to take advantage of, so we started the day with a trip to the store to utilize the coupons. We won't go there this coming weekend.

We brought lunch home from the store and ate while watching an episode of Twin Peaks. Then I found one of my movies to try. Code 8, a sci-fi movie out of Canada.

This one was ok, I kind of lost interest about half way through, but the concept was interesting. Sort of and X-Men meets police state concept.

My walk today was glorious. The temperature and weather were perfection and at least on the way out, there was hardly anybody on my route. I actually took off my mask for large chunks of time until people started getting closer. I had to take two pictures instead of one because they were both cool.

Somebody has been stacking rocks on this grate. The two on the sides were there yesterday, but the third on the outside was new today. And this rose with the beetle was on the side of a church. There is one lone rose bush and they were blooming and beckoning me over to look. They were warmed from the sun, you could actually feel heat emanating from them, and the smell was so amazing! It was a magical moment. Right at that time the heat become scorching and it was glorious, but it only lasted a minute before the breeze picked up again and I started my walk back home again. One good reason to take your mask with you when you go out on a walk: The cottonwood fluff is exploding right now. On the way back, it was like walking through a snow globe. I'm pretty sure I would have inhaled some if I hadn't been wearing one!

When I got back I took a shower, which I always do on a day I go to the store, and then I settled in on my bed and read for a while. Then it was another episode of Twin Peaks and onto Charmed for the evening.

I'm going to contact my work tomorrow to get the ball rolling for next week. I need to start coming in to retrain and finish cross training regardless of what phase our county is in. Our business I believe is considered essential because even in a pandemic, the courts are open, and people need to have access to legal services. It sounds like I'll be coming in a couple days a week, on an "as needed" basis for the next couple months at least, so it'll still be a slow reentry into the work world, but my boss assured me that my pay and healthcare will still be covered, regardless. That makes me feel really lucky and cared for. The items I ordered last week to help deal with the bus arrived, so I'm feeling more ready. I have a new lunch bag that's machine washable. And I bought a package of cotton gloves to wear on the bus so I don't have to touch anything. Germs might still get through but I would never do anything without washing my hands once I get to the office anyway. And I ordered a set of 5 machine washable bags to use to replace my backpack for the foreseeable future. I want to transport things that will have to go on the bus in something that's washable. This way I can put it in the laundry each night and wash them over the weekend. I have one N95 mask left from the bad forest fires we had a couple years back and needed it to go outside with my asthma, so between that and my other thicker mask, I should be ok on the bus.

Tomorrow's grand adventure is going to be a trip to Dairy Queen for ice cream!!

STFAH: Day 64

Today was more Twin Peaks. We finished the original series last night, so this morning we started with Fire Walk With Me and all the deleted scenes. We did a break and then came back to start the new series.

I finished the Chinese food for lunch today. I was getting a little tired of it, so I'm glad it's gone! I spent a lot of money on it, but I got five meals out of it, and I think that's pretty good. Makes the money go further that way.

My foot is feeling better today so I managed to go on my walk.

Thursday I wanted to drop off a book at this little library but I had to turn around and come back when the lightning started up. It was raining again today, but no lighting, so I made it all the way there. I normally go a couple blocks further than this point but my foot was getting a little sore so I came back home.

I came back and read for a while before started up Twin Peaks again. Doing sausages and potato chips for dinner tonight. Super exciting, I know!

STFAH: Day 63

Another low-key day today. Picked up Burger King breakfast and brought it back for our Twin Peaks marathon. We're down to the last three episodes, which we'll finish out tonight. Then tomorrow it's on to Fire Walk With Me, the movie, and seeing how far into season three we can get.

Chinese food leftovers for lunch and will have them for dinner after this. I had one donut leftover from yesterday that I had for a snack.

Something is messing with my allergies today. My eye started to itch and I'm hacking and coughing and my nose won't stop itching. It's no fun!

My foot is still stiff and sore from scurrying home the other day in a thunderstorm, so no walking again today. It's not sprained again, it's just a bit of a set back in the recovery. I probably need to elevate it tonight when I go to bed. The stiffness is probably low-grade swelling. I can still walk on my foot normally, not even a limp, it's just sore. In theory I may be going back to work off and on in a week so I'd like my foot to be as healed as possible for that.

Oh, I haven't mentioned yet, but I have started to slowly watch Avatar: The Last Airbender after Netflix added it. I was not in a place to watch that kind of stuff when it first came out so I never saw it but have only heard good things about it. Since I have watched anime since then I knew I'd be ok with it now. I'm liking it so far. I've done an episode each night so far, and I think I'll keep that up. I do need to keep working on getting my sleeping pattern back to normal so I might not have time for it every night, but we'll see.

STFAH: Day 62

Today was a pretty lazy day. It was basically all about getting and eating food and watching Twin Peaks. I did manage to do a load of dishes, though. So I guess I can't say I was totally lazy.

We started the day with a quick trip to Fred Meyer, in spite of trying to go to grocery stores every other week and this is the off week, but we needed a new vacuum because the one we have is spewing stuff everywhere, which kind of defeats the purpose of a vacuum cleaner. The new one we got is very slim, so that'll be nice to use. Our configuration is better than it was in the other apartment so it should help me to vacuum more often. I quite like having a clean floor!

Our next trip was the the Top Pot Donuts in Wedgwood. I've never actually gone to one, I usually pick up their donuts at the grocery store, but stores are only selling them by the dozen now so people don't touch the items on accident picking them out themselves. It was really nice. Everybody had masks and gloves, the patrons all had masks and social distanced. The cashier wiped down the credit card and handed it back to us in the towel so it never touched her hand a second time. She also wiped down the pen we used to sign before and afterwards, so it felt very safe. The donuts are the best, as always, and just what we needed for a Twin Peaks marathon. We will be back.

The next stop was getting Chinese food for lunch. We went to Judy Fu's Snappy Dragon which was a first for me and I really liked it. I have enough leftovers to last the weekend. It's pretty expensive, but it's handmade and I know for a fact that Chinese cuisine is very involved and intricate and people deserve to earn a living, so I'm ok with it. I might not be able to get it very often, but when I do, I don't mind.

Once we got home we settled in for food and Twin Peaks and have been watching ever since. I've been working on my sudoku puzzles while I watch. I'm not as good at the moderate ones, which is discouraging, but I just need more practice. Pretty much the same planned for tomorrow, though we might take a bit of a break for a walk. I'll take a picture, if we do.

STFAH: Day 61

Today was a low-key day. My foot was sore from walking back during a thunderstorm too quickly yesterday so I decided early on not to go for my walk today, so there's no walk picture of the day, sadly. I did some chores I've been putting off, though. I actually dusted! And then I vacuumed the entire apartment. I've been slowly clearing out the walkways areas and moving stuff around so it made it easier. It looks really nice here now. I also took out garbage and recycling too.

I watched two movies today. Both movies I've never seen. Earlier in the day I watched The Life of Brian, which for some reason I've never seen before but it's a classic.

It was pretty funny, but I think Monty Python and the Holy Grail is funnier, but I might be biased since I grew up watching that one.

My main movie of the day was something with the number 7 in it. I started off with an anime movie called The Seven Deadly sins, but I learned quickly that not all anime is created equally and this one was pretty porny, so I turned it off and looked for another movie. I stumbled across this one called 7 and a Half Dates, which turned out to be pretty good.

I had trouble finding pictures for this one. It's a Nollywood film, which means it was made in and about Nigeria, and most of the websites that had pictures for it had viruses that my virus blockers blocked. This isn't a movie poster, but it is from the film. It's English, with a few subtitles because sometimes it does switch languages or sometimes the accents are too thick to hear what's being said. I really enjoyed this story and its message. I definitely recommend this one.

I ordered a couple things from Amazon the other day and they arrived this afternoon. This tea:

I got a sample size box of this from World Market before we moved and I finally tried it. It's fantastic tea! And a large box isn't that expensive, which is great.

I also ordered this cookbook after somebody was talking about Edna Lewis on Twitter a couple weeks ago.

People were comparing her to Julia Child while overlooking the fact that Ms. Lewis was in fact from the culture she wrote about while Julia Child, to use today's wording, appropriated French cuisine and became the face of the culture in this nation in spite of not being French. I realized I didn't have any Edna Lewis books, and she's just as much a legend as Julia Child, whom I adore, so I needed to get at least one of her books. I'm excited to add this book to my cookbook project. I looked at Mahogany Books to order it from them but they don't carry it so I had no choice but to look elsewhere. I want it to become that I use Amazon as a last resort, not a first resort.

Dinner tonight was the potsticker stir-fry which was really easy and quite delicious, and some eggrolls. We're planning on getting "real" Chinese food tomorrow to support local Asian businesses during this time because they're still suffering from racism and xenophobia. I don't mind eating it two days in a row!

Charmed reruns tonight. This current episode has a very baby Misha Collins guest starring in it and it's so strange seeing him on this after watching Supernatural. It's always fun seeing things like that!

STFAH: Day 60

Today started with me lounging in bed and finishing the book I've been reading. When I got up and got ready, I watched the Supergirl finale which I managed to not catch when it first aired. I tried to watch the Council of Dads episodes I missed but it wasn't set up quite to watch it through On Demand so I might try to track them down online soon, if possible.

I emailed my boss this morning which I've been doing about ten days before the end of the month, just to catch up and see what's planned for the next month. He called me back and we chatted for a while. My coworker who has been working remotely and coming into the office occasionally to do certain things, is going on vacation in July, so they want me to start coming back next month on a part time basis to retrain in my job(it'll be almost 3 months when I'm back! I'll be rusty) I also need to finish training in the position the other woman did before she got a new job. I was about half trained in what she does, but I'll be finishing up that training too. Since we've got a lot less coming in, I'll cover everybody in July, which will be awesome! Apparently we're up to 4 Zoom accounts to get everybody up and going. Nobody's doing in-person depositions right now. I am so ready to go back and get into a bit of a routine again. I have to wear a mask on the bus and to get into the building, which was already my plan. I will probably not leave the office once I'm there, except to go to the restroom which is down the hall from us. Breaks and lunches will be taken in my office. Fortunately all of our offices have doors that we can keep closed and are big enough that we can easily continue to social distance. There are apparently some big advantages to working in an office of five, that is now and office of four! I miss everybody.

Twitter was interesting today. I engaged in an epic take-down of a Karen who decided she needed to use the n-word on somebody's thread. I called her out on it and she proceeded to have a gigantic meltdown in front of the world's eyes. The OP, a man fighting white supremacy, took a screencap of her post and rt'd it, and in the midst of everybody reporting everybody else, he ended up being sent to Twitter jail, which is so unbelievably unfair because the person who used the n-word, had no consequences. It was just another example of white supremacy that we need to fight.

Today's walk was cut short. I wanted to do my usual walk and take the book I finished to drop off at the little library in our neighborhood, but I only got about halfway before the rain turned to a downpour and lightning. I immediately turned around and came back home. I was soaking wet by the time I arrived.

Just a typical beautiful rainy day in Seattle!

Today's movie was disappointing. 6 Years, which didn't keep my attention that much, and what did was both boring and upsetting. Two college students dealing with their abusive relationship that really should just have ended. I didn't really care for this one.

Grain salad with Greek salad dressing and ingredients. Tuna packet for protein. Not bad. I ran across an idea I'm going to run with for tomorrow's dinner. Potsticker stir-fry. Should be tasty. I'll report on it tomorrow.

In other interesting news: I finished the "easy" section of sudoku puzzles from my book and graduated into the "moderate" section. Definitely harder, but I'm enjoying the challenge. I'm glad I didn't give up too soon on sudoku, because it's really awesome!

SFTAH: Day 59

Nothing terribly exciting happened today. I did my usual watching stuff and reorganized some stuff on the floor. Moved some things around. The walkway from the main entrance past my desk area is clearer which I really like. I plan to vacuum and dust tomorrow.

I'm getting anxious about June and my employment situation. I might reach out to my boss in the next couple days to see what the plan is. If my situation is changing I might need to sign up for Apple Health Care as I'll need to renew my prescriptions for the year next month and will need access to healthcare for that. My work has been very generous so far, and I don't know if our county will get the go-ahead to move into Phase 2 starting next month or if we'll have to stay home longer. I don't know if there will be any work for me to do yet. So many unknowns right now.

I haven't written this week, I've been putting off the live-writing, maybe because it's supposed to be a hunt scene and I don't really want to write that? But not writing it feels like a cop-out. My character has spent weeks practicing for and worrying about this hunt. I can't just write it off-page and say "it went well, he did this and that, the end." I just need to do it, is all. Maybe tomorrow I'll try. I watched the Knives Out commentary this morning but all that stuff is over with now. Instead of watching stuff, maybe I'll just write. Even if it's garbage, just write.

My bff gave me a tip to fold up a kleenex and put it under my new mask at the top by my glasses to keep them from fogging up and it really helped! It was important today because it was cold and rainy on my walk. There was hardly anybody else out when I was out today, it was nice.

I pass by this cone every day on my walk. I like it because the grass is growing out of it. It usually looks more comical and less creepy than it does today. Maybe because it's usually sunnier out. Maybe because the pipe next to it looks like Pennywise the Clown is going to show up in a minute and ask me if I want a balloon. It's honestly not usually this creepy-looking around here. It's just the weather today!

Today's movie was actually really good.

Once again, Diane Keaton has impressed me. She and Morgan Freeman make the best married couple. This is a great story, of an older couple deciding they need to move, and remembering their past. They have a dog who ends up having some health issues that spur them on. Even though it's all pretend, if seeing and hearing an animal in distress is something that upsets you, go into this knowing there is some of that in this movie. But I really liked this one. Highly recommend it.

Leftovers for dinner tonight. No food plans yet for the rest of the week though I might start focusing on my cookbook meal I want to work on. I think my plantains are getting ripe enough...

STFAH: Day 58

Today started off rather productively, I must say. I got up with my alarm and got ready for the day AND cleaned my bathroom and wiped down every handle in the apartment in time to watch The Golden Girls on Hallmark. After that I watched stuff on Youtube, then switched over to try out the Knives Out dvd specials. I didn't have time to watch the commentaries, so I'll try one of them out tomorrow.

While watching stuff, I worked on a recipe idea I might try later this week. I love spanikopita and have phyllo dough in the freezer I want to use up, but I don't have any spinach. I do, however, have collard greens. So, my idea was to make a Southern version of spanikopita with that instead. I have green bell pepper I can add to it, and cheddar cheese instead of feta. And of course, a dash of Tabasco. We'll see if I manage it. Phyllo also works really well as a dessert and I do have walnuts I could use for baklava, another favorite...

Before my walk, I listened to a podcast by Johnathan Perkins and his sister called  Abroad While Black  that I really enjoyed. I follow him on Twitter, he's a wonderful source of information and inspiration for people working towards dismantling white supremacy in their own lives and in the country as a whole. If you're looking for a podcast that deals with this subject matter, I highly recommend this one. I don't know how to follow/subscribe to podcasts cuz I generally don't listen to them, but if I could, I totally would subscribe to this one. I just bookmarked it, which isn't the same but it's better than nothing.

Yesterday, my mask that I ordered from Etsy arrived. It is so cute! I wore it today for the first time on my mask. I have to adjust to how the air flow works cuz it causes my glasses to fog up more than the hospital mask does. But it's so cute and I feel like a ray of positivity wearing it out.

Sunflowers are my favorite. Here's the Etsy shop, in case you'd like to order one for yourself. With shipping and handling, it was still under $10. I'm trying to support businesses of color more, so I searched out on Etsy and found that this one is run by an African American woman. I loved the sunflower pattern and the price can't be beat. Check her out, there are quite a few designs to choose from!

My walk today was chilly so I wore my coat, which I haven't had to do lately, but I was glad I did because it was breezy out so it got quite cool. My picture of the day was a shot I swear wasn't there the other day. They must have just bloomed or something. They stand out a lot because it's not too bright out, and I love all the other flowers in the shot too.

I don't know what kind of flowers there are, but they're very pretty! They were too far into the yard to see if they smell nice.

Today's movie was called Flock of Four. I don't know if it was made for tv or not, but it randomly had a lot of former Disney kids in it.

This one was ok. It tried hard, but ultimately missed the mark of the story. I haven't seen LaLa Land but based on what I do know of that movie, I'd call this a poor man's version of that. A group of white kids in 1959 go off on a quest to track down a jazz legend in the segregated side of town, where they meet a couple of black teenagers who help open their minds to how privileged they are. The main kid obsessed with jazz finally manages to track down the jazz legend who simultaneously dressed down the kid and assures him that he's one of the "good ones," thus making the kid feel better. For a music based on the pain of slavery, I felt that the story was telling white people they have just as much right to be a part of that genre for my taste. Especially when they refuse to see that they are part of the reason for the pain behind the music, it feels wrong for them to then profit from it. I dunno, it's a touchy subject and the movie felt a little too made for and by white people for my taste. There were better ways to showcase this time period and the history of jazz in Los Angeles.

It was Taco Tuesday for dinner tonight and I made homemade guacamole to go with my tacos and it was delish! I also made some roast potatoes to use them up, but put too much cayenne in them and it was a bit too much. I'll make the rest tomorrow but leave out the cayenne!

STFAH: Day 57

I spent the first part of the day watching Golden Girls reruns on tv, and then all the specials on the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker dvd. There was a full length film about the history of Star Wars and the final movie. It was really well done and showcased how many women and people of color are now working behind the scenes in the movies. Not just on screen, but editors, stunt coordinators, 2nd unit directors, etc. There is a lot more diversity now than there was when the movies began. It's encouraging and exciting to see that the world of Star Wars is truly for all, and not just mostly white boys.

After that, I took out the garbage, compost, and recycling and came back to get lunch ready. I watched my movie, and did some chores in the kitchen, including putting dishes away, repackaging and freezing the hotdogs my sister bought that were still sitting in the fridge, and putting the spices that arrived last week into their bottles.

I watched some youtube videos and then went on my walk. I've found going after 4pm is best for the route I take because the sun is below the tree tops and cools it down significantly. It was the perfect temperature today and had just the right amount of a breeze to make the walk so lovely!

The computer super freaked out when I tried to upload this picture. For some reason, my camera shot this picture and it was 6 MBs in size so I think this blog system doesn't like to upload something so big. I had to resize this to get it to work, and now it's fine. This lady bug was too cute to resist!

My movie of the day was 3 Generations.

It's the story of one family coming to terms with having a transgender child. I thought this was pretty well done, but it would have been nice if they'd used an actual transgender actor instead of a cisgender actress, but the story itself was solid. And as always, is there anything Naomi Watts doesn't do better than everybody else? She is just so amazing!

Charmed reruns tonight, along with leftover pizza, salad, and fruit. I don't know if it's part of being more isolated from the fun stuff in life, but fruit is so delicious right now. It's a good reminder that there's still simple things in the world to make your day better, even in the midst of all this. Taco Tuesday tomorrow night!

STFAH: Day 56

Today started out with me tapping into my great grandfather Heinrich Weitzel, aka, Henry Whitesell's butchery skills. We maxed out what we could buy at the stores yesterday, meat-wise, since it's currently being rationed. This morning I prepped it and got it all into the freezer for future use. There is no longer any space in the freezer, so we're done stocking up for now.

In an appropriately titled movie for my morning activity, my sister and I started our day with lunch and watched Knives Out. It's a gem of a mystery if you haven't seen it yet. I highly recommend it.

When the movie ended, before switching over to Twin Peaks for the rest of the day, we went out on a walk for a bit of exercise. There were a lot of people out at the same time, the weather is really nice today. Some of us had masks, some of us did not. It was pretty easy to social distance though. I managed to get a picture of the day but my camera's battery is almost dead so I'll have to charge it tonight. I ran across this and couldn't not take the picture. I don't recall seeing it before, so I'm pretty sure somebody put this up over the last couple days...

"Up on the rooftop..."

We came back and have been watching Twin Peaks ever since. Homemade pizza for dinner tonight and I used up a package of phyllo cups from the freezer by making little pizza bites that were super easy and super delish! Leftovers tomorrow. I also managed to do three loads of laundry today too. A good blend of relaxing and productive today. That's how I like Sundays to be, in general. It almost felt like a normal day today!

STFAH: Day 55

Today we ended up doing our grocery shopping as soon as I got up and I got items that will work for the first two cookbooks I've been perusing to try recipes from. I should be set to try them over the next two weeks. I was finally able to get some yeast at the store too. I only bought two strips because I wanted to leave plenty for others. I'll be set for some time to come now, and it'll open up more options for me with the cookbooks.

We were going to watch a couple movies and start Twin Peaks, but only had time for one movie and Twin Peaks. The other movie will happen tomorrow. The movie was Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I bought it a long time ago but never had time to watch it, and have been looking forward to it since I brought it home.

I loved this movie when I saw it in the theatre and it holds up after time passed and I could see it again knowing what I know about the story. No spoilers, but I love how this movie ends. It's possibly one of my favorite movie endings of all time. I am and always will be, a huge Rey fan.

Then we launched into our Twin Peaks rewatch. We've been wanting to do this for a while so I'm excited it's finally here!

We will eventually watch the Fire Walk With Me movie and the Return, since we own all of them.

No walk today since we did the shopping and my foot was cramping by the time we were done, but I'm going to hopefully manage one tomorrow. In between the movie and the show, maybe. Free Safeway French bread and roast chicken dinner tonight, leftovers tomorrow for lunch, homemade pizza for dinner!!

STFAH: Day 54

Well, today was a pretty productive day, if you mean the amount of stuff I watched on Netflix today. I finished out my Black Lightning rewatch, sadly. It's such a great show and even if you've seen it, I highly recommend a rewatch. There is so much I didn't notice or catch the first time. I forgot to watch anything on Youtube, but I did watch my hour of The Golden Girls to start the day. After Black Lightning, I decided to find something on my to-watch Netflix list and finally watched Always Be My Maybe, which I thought was a series, but turns out it was a movie. It was really good and I really enjoyed it. Highly recommend.

Then it was onto a movie with 2 in it somehow. I saw that they had The Secret Life of Pets 2, but figured my sister would want to watch that with me, so I looked for something else that was a sequel to something I'd already seen. I went with Jarhead 2. It wasn't that good, but it wasn't completely abysmal. If I'd known it was direct-to-video, I would have skipped it. I'm trying to stick with theatrical releases.

Then I turned off the tv for a while and finished out my typing. Now I'm ready to live-write the rest of the chapter starting next week. I'm excited that I'm already at 14 pages before I even get to that part, so I'm great on chapter length.

Another thing I worked on today and spent a lot of time thinking about, is a possible project I might work on. I'm not sure if I'll just do it on my own for myself, or if I'll document it on my food blog, or maybe just mention it in these posts whenever I do it, but I made a list of all the cookbooks I own and turned it into a spreadsheet, separated by theme. I was thinking that each week I could make at least one recipe from one of the cookbooks until I've tried out every cookbook I own. I own 86 cookbooks...If I do this, it'll be about 1.5 years before I complete it. Doing it in the middle of a pandemic when I only go to the grocery story every other week, in the midst of food shortages, might not be the best of timing. But it's something to do. Something to plan and look forward to. I don't know for sure yet, so no promises.

I went on my daily walk after finishing typing. I went a different way, trying to see if the German coffeeshop/bakery was still open by the time I walked past it, but they were closed. It was a different direction than I normally go, right on Lake City Way. It was narrow and too many people to properly social distance, so I won't go that way anymore except early in the day when there's less people around. I really like their pretzels and they said they have access to flour and yeast that stores don't, so I might be able to get some yeast finally, which will be important if I undertake the above cookbook project. It's not as pretty a walk either, but I did manage to see a few pretty things along the way.

The camera doesn't do the purple of the flowers justice.

Tonight is movie night, so I was able to make up for Jarhead 2 with The Secret Life of Pets 2, which turns out my sister did want to watch. It was really cute! Loved it!

And now we're watching Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, which is something I've wanted to watch for a long time but haven't had a chance to see yet. And it has an actor from Black Lightning doing one of the voices, so it connects back to my Black Lighting rewatch too!

Leftover chicken and pierogies for dinner, which didn't reheat well, but I downed 2/3 of a back of cheddar Goldfish beforehand, so it's all good.

No big plans for tomorrow, mostly movies and possibly starting our Twin Peaks rewatch. Only on the weekends though, cuz it's too creepy for nights!

STFAH: Day 53

Today was a change in venue. I got up super early and went with my sister to her preschool, where I sat in an empty classroom all day, with a dining room chair, a tv tray, and a laptop. I also had a fridge, which was nice, and a bathroom right next door, which was also nice. I had no tv, though, which was rough. But the good news is, I got a lot of typing done because I had no tv or social media to access. I watched some stuff on youtube, but not the whole day. I feel like I did pretty well, overall, but it did feel strange to be in a space that was inhabited by other people. I've been in my own living space, with my own bathroom, since we shut down, so the idea of sharing space with others, even in passing, was just a bit nerve-wracking. I took a good shower tonight!

I've been slowly writing a chapter from my book that I realized as I was editing it, needed to be there. It's been hard to be creative during the self-quarantining because I have very little outside world interaction to stimulate me. And I generally dislike typing up what I've written by hand, but since I was essentially a captive today, I took advantage of it and got a lot of typing done. I still have a few pages to type up, but I'll be able to live-write the rest of the chapter next week if I get the rest done tomorrow.

We tried to get sandwiches on the way home, but they weren't answering their phone, so we ended up picking up Taco Time instead. I made sure to get stuff I could eat cold and/or reheat later so I could go on my walk. The chair I sat in was really cramped and I needed to walk around for a bit. Even though I had to walk up and down stairs today, I seem to be ok, footwise. My left knee was in a bit of pain this evening, but not at the moment. Hopefully it was just a fleeting pain.

I took two pictures on my walk, one was supposed to be the picture of the day, but then a giant dragonfly flew past me and landed in the grass nearby so I had to get a picture of it too. So, you get two pictures of my walk today. Since I didn't want a movie and I don't have a picture of that, this will make up for it. Enjoy!

STFAH: Day 52

Today was pretty much like every other day. I did take the time to organize my Safeway Monopoly coupons and wrote out a list, with the help of the weekly ads, for our shopping trip this coming weekend. It'll be easier and faster in the store to get through and take as much advantage of it as possible.

Last night I ordered a sunflower pattern mask from a Black-owned Etsy shop and today I got an email saying it had been sent out already. I can't complain about that turnaround time! I'm trying to support more businesses of color, not only during this pandemic, but in general. As we like to say, we vote with our dollars, but what we really mean is, our money has power behind it, so it's an important part of antiracism work to financially support businesses of color whenever possible. I'm really excited for my mask because sunflowers are my favorite flowers! I saw the pattern and just fell in love with it.

My muffins from last night are still good today, which was really excited. Muffins don't usually last that long, so I'm excited that they're still good. I'm going to eat one for dessert tonight but I'll see if the last one will be good tomorrow.

My walk today was so lovely. I went the other direction than I've been going recently and I found that it hurt my feet less. The ground is less curved so my feet and toes aren't always trying to grip the ground and tilting this way and that. There were more sidewalks the direction I went, which helped too. I would say it was a bit less beautiful, surrounding-wise, though. But I think my walk picture is quite beautiful. I took it right at the start. It was too pretty to ignore.

Now that my Alphabet Movies are over, I want to keep watching new movies each day, so I'm trying to keep it going with numbers. Some type of connection, doesn't have to be exact, to numbers. So, today's would be 1. And I didn't find any movies with just 1 or one in the title, but I found one that I thought stayed within the spirit of what I'm aiming for.

1996's The First Wives Club, a movie that came out the year I graduated high school and have never seen even all these years later. I was impressed and amused by this movie. I thought it was a pretty good message. I love Diane Keaton, and who can say no to Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler either? I really enjoyed this one!

Tonight's dinner was a new recipe I tested that turned out pretty good. Basically a chicken potpie-type sauce with chicken and veggies, and then you add frozen potato pierogies that I happened to have on-hand. It called for cheddar potato, but mine were just potato, but it was still a great meal! Here's my pro-tip for cutting recipes down if you don't need a full amount. Cut the main items in half, meat, veggies, etc, but keep any sauce or liquid part, the full amount. That way you'll get plenty of gravy or sauce and nothing will dry out and it'll be extra delish. Especially when you reheat the next serving, it'll be less likely to dry out. I'm likely to eat the leftovers Friday, as tomorrow we'll probably pick up sandwiches on the way home from Erin's work tomorrow.

More Charmed reruns tonight. I have to try and get an early night's sleep as I have to get up super early tomorrow to escape the fire alarm testing.

STFAH: Day 51

Today we got word of our building's annual fire alarm testing on Thursday which is never a fun thing. I've never actually been home for it before so I've never had to endure it before. My sister kindly offered to let me come to her work to stay in an empty room for the day, and even though the idea of spending a full day away from home right now actually makes me feel panicky, and it's been over 2.5 months since I've had a full day out of the house doing anything and I won't have a tv available, and my eating habits have changed a lot since I was working, it's going to be worth it to not have to endure a day of shrieking alarms.

I started the first part of the day with my usual routine of Youtube videos, Black Lighting episodes on Netflix, but then I changed it a bit by watching the governor's press conference. I like to stay informed whenever I can, so when I see there's one coming up, I try to make time to watch it. During this time I did lunch, in which I made quite possibly the best toasted cheese sandwich I've ever had. Sourdough toast, turkey slices, and a shredded cheddar blend and for once I managed to not burn it. Our new stove runs hot, so I have to keep it really low or it'll burn. I finally got the hang of it. It was quite delightful and I'm going to make another one tomorrow.

My Alphabet Movie project officially ended today with my Z movie. I didn't have many choices, and really wasn't sure about the one I chose, based on the title.

But then I saw that this movie, from 2008, was written and directed by Kevin Smith, so I had to try it out. This movie is so hysterical! It's so wrong, it's absolutely not for kids, do not watch it with your family, there is nudity and sex and lots of bad language, so consider that fair warning if you're contemplating watching it. But it's sooo Kevin Smith, and I love his stuff. It was a fun way to end this series, though I'm going to continue to watch new movies. I was thinking I might try numbers. We'll see if I can find anything good with numbers in the titles.

I ordered a second set of spices from Market Spice at the Pike Place Market a couple weeks ago. I decided that since I usually buy spices in bulk, which I can't do anymore due to the pandemic, I'd rather spend more money supporting a small local business, rather than more money on musty spices where the cost really goes towards the bottle. The first time I ordered from them, I got stuff I'd never had before. This time I got stuff to refill spices I already have but am running low on. I also got a great deal on their cookbook that was half-off. There are several recipes I can make now with the recipes I have on hand. I'm really excited to try them out!

This brings me to an idea I had last night. No promises, but I had an idea on another food blog project. One recipe from each of my cookbooks. Test it, eat it, promote the cookbook. I think it sounds fun, and this would actually be a good time for a project like this, but I do have to be careful with expenses and access to stores and ingredients and availability, etc. It warrants some thought and planning, but this could be a fun one...

I went out on a walk again today and my foot is still doing really well. It starts to cramp up towards the end though. Not the base of my big toe, which was where most of the injury was, but the base of the middle toes. It goes away almost immediately once I get back and take my shoes off, so that's good. I've started walking down the three stairs out of the front door to the cement, but not up them afterwards. I have to be careful with my knees still, and probably always will, but I would like to get to the point where I could walk up and down a few stairs when I need to. Here is today's walk picture:

This really doesn't do it justice if you see it in person. In the sun, it's even more stunning, and the red flowers in the right hand corner have started to fade just from last week, so I wanted to get this shot before any of them fade any more. Flowers are so fleeting in their beauty this time of year. There are a lot of shots I want to get over the days, but I might focus on flowers for a while just because I know they won't last long this time of year.

Tonight was leftovers, but I finally managed to make the applesauce muffins I have been putting off for a week. They are very tasty! The applesauce just sort of disappears into the muffin, but it's got a great texture. It has cooled off enough around here that we could use the oven again so I felt it was an ok time to make the muffins. It was worth the time and effort!

Well, we finished out Psych last night, and I cannot recommend it highly enough, especially during a pandemic. Laughing from start to finish through eight seasons of shenanigans. Now that we've finished the MCU rewatch, on the weekends, we're going to start with Twin Peaks since it's been a couple years since we last watched. But that show is too creepy to watch at night, so during the week we'll be doing a Charmed rewatch. It's on Netflix, so we're just watching through that, even though we own it all on dvd. Sadly, the song during the opening credits isn't on this version. They use the music from the final season after they lost the rights to the song. It really adds to the flavor of the show, but I don't feel like digging up the dvds when I can just watch it on Netflix. I will never not love this show...

STFAH: Day 50

Today was a nice day. I did my new usual routine with a few good things thrown in.

I finished the last of my vanilla black tea teabags today. This was a bottle I'd brought home from work the day I ran downtown after moving to bring home anything edible from work since I didn't know when I'd be returning. It's my favorite tea but it's in teabags made of microplastic, so I have to cut them open and pour it into a tea steeper to be a little healthier. I have another bottle, but I don't know that I'll keep buying this kind when I use it up because of the extra work it takes. There are a lot of other options out there.

I had a great online chat with one of my friends(thanks for talking, Heather!) and got my antiracism book in the mail today so I can start reading it tomorrow. I went out on a walk today because my foot is getting better. I used up some wilty produce to turn into a pasta sauce for dinner tonight and leftovers tomorrow. Filled and ran the dishwasher and took out garbage and recycling. I had to bring the compost back in cuz some jerkface decided that mattresses are recyclable and dumped them in front of the recycle bins, thus blocking the compost container. So, back that came. Hopefully they'll get rid of the mattresses soon so we can use the compost bin again!

I ordered a book from Mahoganybooks.com last week. They're in Washington, DC, and the largest Black-owned bookstore in the country.

I heard about this book last week and looked into it and decided that bypassing Amazon and supporting a Black-owned business instead was a better way to use my money. It arrived in record time and they emailed me a coupon for another purchase, so I'll definitely keep using this store for my antiracism work.

My walking is getting better each day and this week I'm finally going to attempt daily walks. I decided that I'll take one picture a day on my walk and put it here to remember the walk. Here's today's picture:

This is the amazing front yard at the start of my walk and I have a deep love of palm trees. Palm trees are part of my soul, I think, and I have always been drawn to them. This was a good first picture because I look at this yard and it makes me smile.

Today's Alphabet Movie letter was Y, and I watched the 2005 remake of Yours, Mine, and Ours.

I thought this was the one with Steve Martin, but it turns out that was the remake of Cheaper By the Dozen. I am a huge fan of the original Yours, Mine, and Ours, with Lucille Ball, and never felt compelled to watch this one. It's cute, not anything terribly offensive as far as remakes goes, but I will always prefer the original. I do like that they came up with a way to make the story more multicultural, so I did appreciate that. It's a cute family movie, so if you're looking for a movie for family night with the kids, this is a good option. Tomorrow is Z, the last day! I'm sad this is coming to an end and I'll keep up with the new movies for sure, but it might not be alphabetical. Some of the letters are just too hard to find a movie to watch. We'll see though...

Tonight we're finishing out our Psych rewatch and I'm honestly really sad. It's such a good show and it has helped keep my spirits up during this time. We're planning on moving onto a Charmed(original) rewatch next, which is another all-time fave of mine, so that'll be nice.

And now it's raining and has cooled off a lot! If it's raining tomorrow still, I'll walk with my umbrella. It'll be great!