And here we find ourselves in the last weekend of August. David and I packed up the kids at the start of the week to take a quick 3-day trip to Vermont (both celebrating our anniversary and getting a much-needed change of scenery). I’d just been there with my sisters and felt the wide-open spaces and chance to get more exposure to nature were sufficiently safe from a social-distancing perspective. We went canoeing, saw a handful of the famous covered bridges, bubbling rivers and deep gorges, and wrapped up with a visit to a nature center.
We came back to full to-do lists and long nights getting the work done to get back on track. It feels like there’s so little wiggle room in schedules that vacations aren’t necessarily time off, but simply time away with the work just condensed into a shorter timeline.
And then there’s the way it’s been a week for everyone else in the wider world.
As my semester starts up again this coming week, I’ll be trying to carve out productive time, creative time, rest, and family time. The days will come and go, somehow it’ll all get done. Flexibility’s the name of the game it seems.
What I’ve Been Reading & Enjoying Recently:
Speaking of balancing work and family roles: Whether a husband identifies as a breadwinner depends on whether he respects his wife’s career
Inviting students back and then blaming them for acting like teenagers doesn’t seem like a great idea: Are colleges going to blame the students for Covid spikes?
Gifs that parents have posted about how they are feeling about the fall.
This comic on Cup of Jo made me laugh out loud. The lunch one feels like it’s striking a chord for a lot of the folks I work with in my nutrition practice, so we’ve set up a few group support sessions coming up this fall, if that sounds like something you’d like to check out.
This thread on Twitter.
A much more light-hearted account to follow on Instagram.
A California Response Plan that actually matches the scale of the problem.
And pretty much completely unrelated, some decorating ideas I’ve been considering for the kitchen.
What I’ve Been Cooking This Week:
Sunday: Grilled cheese & tomato soup
Monday: Pan-seared salmon, roasted beets & goat cheese (at The Foundry restaurant in Vermont)
Tuesday: Outdoor brewery nosh
Wednesday: Rustic quiche and roasted cauliflower
Thursday: Linguine with Frenched green beans and parsley pesto
Friday: Leftovers
Saturday: Skirt steak with golden garlic butter and Israeli cous cous (and while the steak was very good, neither David nor I felt the recipe was a winner)
Coming up this week:
- At Charlotte’s request, we will be having waffles for dinner very soon
- Za’tar chicken with peaches from the Open Kitchen cookbook (which I need to make before peach season ends!)
- Cassoulet (because Fall is almost here)
