Loooong Weekend

Alyssa’s school was scheduled to be off on Friday and Monday. Friday was a teacher in service day (not sure exactly what the “service” component is/ was but students did not attend school that day) and Monday was a day off in observation of President’s Day.

However, the break got off to an earlier start when school was canceled on Thursday due to snow and icy conditions on the roads. The day was canceled shortly before the two hour delay was set to expire; Alyssa was already up and had started getting ready for school. Thursday was the last of the district’s freebie snow days- any other days called off for inclement weather would be remote learning days for the students. By Thursday, a snowstorm for early the following week was predicted and the school sent out a reminder email that should the predicted bad weather arrive, any days called off due to it would be remote learning days.

So, how did we spend our Thursday- Monday long weekend (we did end up having school canceled on Tuesday but it was an online learning day since the district had used up its three snow days. So even though Alyssa was at home all day, she didn’t have a break from school)?

Well, lots of relaxing (reading, watching TV, social media for the girls), getting things done at home and getting decisions made about upcoming travel mostly. Throw in a visit by Jacob and celebrating Valentine’s Day and that’s all she wrote... except of course, me being me, I will write more :).

Thursday, Donnie and Abby went to work (Abby works in Donnie’s office on the days that she works and does online high school/ college classes) while Alyssa and I ended up at home due to school being canceled. I was scheduled to sub that day but obviously, I didn’t. Alyssa was already out of bed by the time school was cancaled so we had the whole day in front of us. We watched some TV (tried to get into a series on Netflix but failed in that endeavor), Alyssa chatted with her friends and I got some things done around the house- I wasn’t super productive but anything was better than what I would have gotten done had we had school. Jacob came home briefly on Thursday. His visit was less about him missing us and everything about some laundry issue at his apartment- he needed to use our washer and dryer. And, when he called to tell me he was coming, he mentioned a nice meal at home sounded really good... awe- if that didn’t tug on my heartstrings just a little (once home, dinner, which consisted of white bean turkey soup, didn’t sound quite so nice to him (he’s really not a soup fan but that’s what we were having for dinner)). After dinner, he and I went to Dorothy Lane Market to get a box of his favorite cookies- Laura’s sugar cookies. See, coming home does pay off :).

On Friday and Monday, since those were planned days off of school, I had made a number of appointments for the girls on those two days- hair, eye doctor, ortho, so we ran around on both of those days. It was good to get some of those appointments out of the way.

We low key celebrated Valentine’s Day on Sunday. We watched church online and then exchanged small gifts. We finalized plans for upcoming trip on Sunday. Of course we know the trip may not happen with the virus fears and whatnot so we are trying not get our hopes up too much. The plans were a long time in the making (I’m the worst decision maker and some of my vacillating on choices had a ripple effect so the plans took a long time to complete) so it is a relief to have them done. Fingers crossed that travel restrictions aren’t reinstated...

Photos of the looooong weekend are mostly food related, because uneventful long weekend 

Thursday evening- sugar cookies from DLM- sugar cookies have long been part of our Valentine’s holiday tradition but usually the tradition involves baking sugar cookies at home and decorating them. I was hoping to do that this year but 1) Abby doesn’t care to eat sweets, 2) sugar cookies are Alyssa’s least favorite cookie, 3) Jacob, my most enthusiastic sugar cookie eater doesn’t live at home. I was hoping that he and his girlfriend would be able to come home on Saturday for a few hours to decorate Valentine´s Day sugar cookies. Jacob said he had too much to do on Saturday (honestly, he probably had zero desire to come home to decorate cookies but didn’t want to tell me that :)). Anyway, since homemade sugar cookies/ decorating was a no go, I am glad that we (Jacob, Donnie and I) got to experience some delicious heart shaped sugar cookies- no mess in my kitchen to boot. I will likely have to wait until I have grandkids (my stars, how did I get so old to even contemplate this?) to decorate cookies with young ‘uns.

Friday- in between appointments, Alyssa and I convinced ourselves that we *needed* Steak n’ Shake for lunch. We couldn’t eat inside the restaurant so we brought it home and had a picnic in front of the fireplace.

On Saturday, Alyssa made some walnut chocolate chip banana bread using a recipe from the cookbook that she received last year for Christmas. The bread was really good.

Unfancy, but delicious Valentine’s Day dinner at Bibibop

Donnie bought some Bar Keepers Friend (I don’t know if I like the name or the product itself the better) when he went to Wal-Mart and told me it was my Valentine Day’s present. It wasn’t 😀.

We have a couple of home improvement plans, too. We solidified some of those plans over the weekend. I went to Sherwin Williams to look at paint colors.