What We're Doing

Well, I don't think you'll be surprised to learn that we finished another puzzle. That got me to thinking: with everyone doing puzzles these days, who the heck invented it? Of course, since I want to know everything, I looked it up. 

The origin of jigsaw puzzles go back to the 1760s when European mapmakers pasted maps onto wood and cut them into small pieces. John Spilsbury, an engraver and mapmaker, is credited with inventing the first jigsaw puzzle in 1767. The dissected map has been a successful educational toy ever since.

This one is from the front page of the New York Times newspaper on the day we married, August 21,1971. The puzzle was fun and not as hard as you might think, but the news was boring.

We're still out walking (me), biking and hiking (him). One morning, I came home to this.

My garden people are social distancing so they each drove their own car. Of course, the yard needs a complete overhaul at this time of year. It took 7 of them ALL day. Plus they came back the next day for about another hour---weeding, thinning, mulching, planting, fertilizing---and pulling tons of poison ivy out of the ground cover (English ivy) and hauling away all the debris. It's always worth it. Everything looks so beautiful when they are finished. 

On one of Butch's hikes, he encountered this in the woods:

 So darn cute! I hope no one steals it!

We went and got flowers for the patio.

 And new cushions for the patio furniture.

After shopping for flowers, we drove through Taco Bell on the way home. I wanted a taco salad. The clerk said that they no longer had taco salads. What? I just had one....several years ago---seems like yesterday! We don't go to Taco Bell very often. In fact, because I want to know everything, I asked Siri when Taco Bell discontinued the taco salad. Turns out it was April of 2018! Well, I guess it has been a long time since I ordered one! Darn. I didn't know how much I was going to miss it. Now I really want one.

Yesterday, Stephanie, Nicky, Mindy, Justin and Mitchell came over for our first pool day of the season. The pool is way too cold yet, but this guy just had to jump in!

It was cold, but apparently, not too cold. After a little while, he jumped in again! The rest of us enjoyed some fun and sun. 

I'm just about finished with this:

There's still about 3 hours worth of the background to do. It's so subtle that you can barely see it. I'm calling this my Carona Virus project since I did just about all of it during this time of "stay-at-home."

I'm anxious to get started on this one next. It will be so much fun to stitch. It's going to be a surprise for someone in the family. I probably shouldn't have said that because there's at least one person in the family that is going to "hound" me to tell them!!

That's about it for our week, but Sandy, Stephanie and Mindy have been busy.

Sandy painted this old table that used to be Greg's nightstand. Now it's Elizabeth's desk/make-up table. 

It turned out so cute. Elizabeth loves it. She said her back was hurting from "going to school" in bed!! This is working out much better.

Stephanie came up with an awesome plan for her and Nicky. They love to travel. Since their travel has been curtailed at the moment, she decided that they were going to spend a day in Paris!

She started with a broccoli quiche. As everyone knows, Steph is not the greatest cook. She's a good sport about letting us tease her about it. She made the quiche and then realized she was supposed to "cook" the broccoli. She put it in frozen. It looks pretty thick for a quiche. I told her that she might have to cook it longer.

It ended up turning out just fine and was delicious. She had some kind of fancy croissant on the side with fresh fruit. 

For lunch, they had a picnic in their theater room with French wine while watching Casablanca. She didn't know that it was set in Morocco! Still, it was during the French rule, so I guess that counts. I thought that was a fun and creative idea.

Mindy and Justin cooked together---which they do a lot. But this time they remembered to wear their matching aprons that Sandy gave them for their wedding shower.

They made homemade bolognese sauce, garlic bread and "zoodles"---zuchinni and acorn squash "noodles." They have some sort of machine that makes them. They have all the gadgets. They brought us some when they came to the pool. We're going to have it for dinner tonight.

So, it looks like everyone is holding up just fine during this pandemic. Slowly things are starting to open up around here. In fact, we're planning on having our first official gathering with food---here for Mother's Day next Sunday. It falls on Morgan's birthday, so we'll be celebrating that at the same time. But we do have a bit of a problem.

We're a family of 8 locally! Hmmm, I guess we'll find out....