quarantine clean up

we happen to have a scrap metal yard very close to our house.  this has come in handy countless times over the past nearly 10 years that we've lived in our house.  we have taken all sorts of things to the scrap metal yard from various home projects.  normally, we make trips to the scrap metal yard pretty regularly, but we have been so busy that we haven't gone in 2 years!  we had made piles of things in our basement and garage to take to the scrap metal yard "someday" but just never got around to it.  

on friday, we finally had the time so we collected everything that we've been holding on to for the past 2 years and loaded up the car.  we went to the scrap metal yard and unloaded it all which felt so good.  in total, we had 520 pound of metal!!!  normally we would have made a pretty penny off all of that, but since the price of metal is so low right now we got next to nothing.  regardless, we didn't care because we were just so happy to get it out of our way!

another quarantine house project checked off the list!

love, laurie

working remotely during quarantine

i mentioned last week that the university where i teach made the decision to move classes online for the rest of the semester, but in addition to that, the theatre where i work full time also has us working remotely from home for the time being.  it has been working out okay since the majority of what i've been working on can be done from anywhere with my laptop and internet access.

it has been really emotional to have to postpone and cancel all of our shows in march and april.  it has also kept me really busy to take care of all of the things that need to be done in order to reschedule a postponed show.  i spent months working on this year's theatre schedule and now we just keep rescheduling things and shifting things around.  we went from a schedule that was nice and evenly spaced out to a schedule where too many shows are shoved into a short period of time.  i'm just praying that shows in the month of may can stay as is and not need to be rescheduled!

working from home also means learning how to use facetime and skype to see my students and zoom to attend virtual meetings at work.  what crazy times we are living in right now!

love, laurie

quarantine project #5

today is friday and it has been one week since i've been quarantined.  i haven't left the house at all except to work outside in our yard or to take a walk in our neighborhood.  the only time ryan left was briefly for a few hours for work.  despite everything, morale remains high. :-)

we were thrilled that we were able to get some outside projects done last weekend when the weather was better, but it has been colder and wet outside most days this week.  we even had a touch of snow and ice one day this week!

so, we turned to some inside projects while it was raining/snowing.  we went around the house and washed every curtain in our house.  that's a project that doesn't happen as often as it should and some of our curtains were getting dusty.  it took several loads of laundry to clean them all, but it felt good to have all the curtains nice and clean.

after the curtains, we made some yummy tomato and arugula risotto for dinner which we had with mahi mahi.  yum!

 have a great (quarantined) weekend!

love, laurie

quarantine project #4

the university where i work announced over the weekend that they are moving classes online for the remainder of the semester . . . ugggggggggggg!!!

i mean, cooooooome on!  are we trying to kill teachers?

i sat down at the dining room table on sunday and spent hours revising my courses for the FOURTH time now.  good grief!  luckily, i had leko to help me out.

after dinner on sunday, we made an orange cranberry bundt cake with orange glaze.  it was so good and a nice treat after working so hard on recording countless virtual lectures for my students.

love, laurie

quarantine project #3

our third project during quarantine was to clean the back porch.  it gets so incredibly dirty over the winter and always needs a deep clean every spring.  it was so satisfying to have it so nice and clean.

the weather was nice enough on sunday that we were able to enjoy our nicely cleaned porch with leko, shrimp and grits for dinner, and two rounds of scrabble.  (if you're wondering, ryan won both rounds of scrabble and leko sat on the score notepad!)

love, laurie

quarantine project #2

the weather on saturday wasn't as warm as it was on friday, but it was still a beautiful day.  our second quarantine project was a big one!  (to be honest, i don't think we understood how much work this would be before we started!)

we started the morning off by trimming back many branches on a tree in our backyard.  after that, we tackled a large bush.

when we bought our house a decade ago, we inherited this ugly bush in the backyard.  it was much smaller 10 years ago, but it has grown significantly.  we really hate it and it just collects dead leaves and spiders.

we decided to cut it down . . . ha . . . ha . . . ha!

well, we did it and we were completely worn out!  after cutting down the whole bush, we were not too happy to find out that there were three stumps instead of one.  it was a humongous project to dig out all three stumps, but we did it!  (and we were absolutely filthy by the end of it!)

victory was ours over the bush and we're thrilled with the end result.  we look forward to planting grass later in the spring.

ryan snapped some pictures along the way . . .

love, laurie

quarantine project #1

friday was the first day of spring and the weather was glorious!  it was also day one of quarantine for us because it was the first day that we were both off work.  we made good use of our day off and cleaned out our entire garage and then washed both of our cars, inside and outside.  car washes were definitely necessary!

love, laurie

think spring!

happy first day of spring!  although the forecast is calling for the skies to be overcast and for some rain, it is also calling for temperatures to reach the 70s so i'm excited about that!

normally, rita's italian ice celebrates the first day of spring with free italian ice, but they are postponing it this year due to this stupid coronavirus.  we'll have to take a rain check on our italian ice, but i'm still glad it's spring now!

love, laurie

happy birthday!

happy birthday today to ryan's mom!  we had a fun time celebrating on saturday!

love, laurie

cat math to understand the coronavirus

if you're having trouble understanding this concept of "flattening the curve" for the coronavirus, this graphic of "cattening the curve" is helpful. 

the person who created this said:

"lots of science-y folks are presenting this graph.  but if there is one thing i have learned from being on the internet, it is this . . . data/graphs: not compelling to many.  kitties: compelling to many."

yeah, i agree!  more cat math please!

love, laurie

happy st. patrick's day!

since it's st. patty's day, we're dressed in green and we'll each have a slice of irish soda bread today.  we're not irish, but i think ryan has the "luck of the irish" in him because he has such a knack for finding four-leaf clovers.  he has found several over the years, and i have kept most of the ones that he found (by pressing them between two pieces of wax paper and letting them dry out.)

i've read that 1 in every 5,000 clovers has four leaves and that your odds of finding one are 1 in 10,000.  the four leaves represent hope, faith, love, and luck.

i love this picture because ryan found this particular four-leaf clover a few summers ago and i have it hanging on our refrigerator.  every time it catches my eye as i walk through the kitchen, i am reminded how lucky we are, and how lucky i am to have ryan as my "lucky charm."

here's a few of our favorite st. patrick's day recipes from over the years . . .
- irish soda bread scones
- rustic cast-iron skillet irish soda bread
- vegan irish soda bread (with dried cherries)
- shamrock cut-out sugar cookies

wishing you all the luck of the irish today!

happy st. patty's day!

love, laurie

birthday celebrations

we got together on saturday to celebrate ryan's mom's birthday (which is this thursday).  we made homemade pizza for lunch and had vanilla ice cream cake with peanut butter cups in the middle for dessert.

it was a nice birthday celebration with family!  a few pictures from saturday . . .

love, laurie

what a week!

these two words have been on repeat this week . . . "event canceled."

i went into this week thinking it would be a pretty calm one, but boy was i wrong!  the world's mass hysteria revolving around this stupid coronavirus impacted every one of our (many) jobs.  the theatres where ryan and i work had many shows canceled.  the resort where ryan works had numerous events canceled.  the university where i teach extended spring break and canceled classes.

this whole week was consumed with canceling shows, postponing events, and reworking class schedules / course calendars.  it has been exhausting to say the least.  this craziness is impacting the entertainment industry hard.  there are so many of us who work in live entertainment, and we don't get paid if our events are canceled. 

i'm hoping this all blows over soon and i hope the world just calms the heck down!

love, laurie

my little helper

my co-worker bought a pair of earrings when she was on vacation this past summer and the hook was about to break from using them so much.  i mentioned to her that i could fix them by replacing the hook, so she gave them to me to take home to repair for her.  leko absolutely loves whenever i make/fix jewelry.  as soon as i brought out my tools, he was right up on the couch, between my legs, to help/supervise me.  i snapped this picture to text to her to let her know that he was being a big help.  she thought he was pretty funny.

love, laurie

work shenanigans

my co-worker's family bought a game called "poop toss."  (it's the exact same concept of this old tossing game.)  she brought it into work and we played it, and found that we were pretty good at it.  when ryan arrived, she put it on ryan's head for him to try.  oh my goodness, i could not stop laughing because somehow he looked just like a monkey with that hat on his head.  i had tears in my eyes from laughing.  the moment was just too priceless to not photograph! 

i can't find the exact game that she has online, but this one is practically identical.

oh the shenanigans at work!

love, laurie

lazy

when something interesting comes on the tv, but you are too comfortable to move your body so instead you turn your neck around so much it's practically in the wrong direction!

love, laurie

"the celtic tenors"

on saturday we worked a show in our theatre called "the celtic tenors."  these incredible singers traveled all the way from ireland!  they were absolutely incredible and we loved the show.

here are a few of my snapshots from the show.  you can see all of my photos from the show on our theatre's facebook page here.

love, laurie

gerber daisy!

no one told this gerber daisy that ryan gave me years ago that it's an annual and not supposed to keep coming back!  this plant is so old, it's crazy, and it keeps blooming after several years!  my co-worker has a ruler next to it and she keeps measuring it.  earlier in the week it grew 2 full inches over night!

love, laurie