Monthly Archives: December 2020

Family Zoom Time (or Thanksgiving After Thanksgiving)

Posted on December 3, 2020 | Comments Off on Family Zoom Time (or Thanksgiving After Thanksgiving)

On Thanksgiving Day, I spent the day alone. I knew this was going to be how I spent the day. While I didn’t love it, I had accepted that would be my holiday and made it the best that I could. Cooking gave me something to focus on and I’m glad I wasn’t too focused on missing my family. But there was no way not to miss everyone. When you do something every year of your life, it’s weird to not have it happen.

About a month ago, my family started to discuss what we could do as a family for Thanksgiving since we wouldn’t be together. We had decided to do a Zoom hangout and had to plan when everyone would be available. Not everyone was going to be free on Thanksgiving Day, so we planned the Zoom to be on the Saturday after. I knew that I would only have an hour before I had to run the Netflix Party group that I have, but we were planning on trying to keep it under an hour. So it would work out perfectly for me!

On Saturday, I decided to try to look a little nicer than normal. I put makeup on and moved my computer to a place in my house that has better lighting. Even though my family wouldn’t care if I was backlit, I wanted to try to look nice. This was us trying to celebrate, so I should make an effort. And I logged into Zoom a few minutes before we were supposed to be on there and a few other people from my family had already joined in.

Once we were all there, it was almost everyone in my family. One of my cousins was working so he couldn’t be there. But everyone else was able to be online. And that included everyone showing off their pets (we have a few cats and a few dogs in the family). I tried to get a good screenshot of the family, and I think this one is cute. But the pets weren’t in this particular shot.

For a lot of my family, this was their first time getting to see Rory outside of pictures posted online. And occasionally, he seemed to be really into what was happening on screen and I think he recognized my voice and my parents’ voices. I’m still sad I didn’t get to see him again in person a few weeks ago, but I know I’ll get to see him again in a few months.

This was the first time we were all on a Zoom together. We tried to use the time to catch up on what everyone has been up to. That’s usually what we do when we are together at Thanksgiving, so that seemed normal. And a lot of people did have things to update us about. One of my cousins moved and bought a new house. Another cousin moved right before the pandemic and she was telling us about what they’ve been doing to their house and her kids were telling us about online school. And of course, Ross and Krystle had updates on Rory and Krystle’s pregnancy. I didn’t have much to update everyone on since I’m not doing much. But I liked hearing everyone else and feeling connected to my family. That was something I missed from my Thanksgiving and I’m glad I didn’t miss it completely.

I wish I didn’t have a time constraint, but I really did have to log off after an hour. I stayed on as long as I could, but I had to leave before everyone else did. But they all knew that I was running a Netflix Party so they understood. And from what my parents told me, everyone else logged off only a minute or two later. They were just all saying goodbye to each other.

I am very grateful for technology because it allowed us to be together virtually. It’s not as good as being together in person, but it’s better than having nothing at all. I can’t imagine what this time would be like if we couldn’t be together on Zoom. I can’t imagine how I’d be dealing with things if I didn’t have my virtual hangouts. But at the same time, I hope this is the only time we have to do Thanksgiving this way. I want to believe that by next Thanksgiving, it will be safe to travel and be together. I know we will be ok if we had to do another virtual Thanksgiving next year, but I’m hoping this was a one-time thing.

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Cooking My First Thanksgiving Dinner (or Having More Success Than Expected)

Posted on December 2, 2020 | Comments Off on Cooking My First Thanksgiving Dinner (or Having More Success Than Expected)

I got to have a little taste of Thanksgiving with some of the food my parents brought me when they came to see me a few weeks ago. I had missed an early Thanksgiving dinner with my family, and I was really grateful for the leftovers they had for me. But that was a few weeks ago and I wanted to have something special on Thanksgiving Day.

I’ve always been with my family. It’s our big gathering each year and the food is part of the tradition. And while I like almost everything that my family makes (except cranberry sauce in both the homemade and can forms), I knew that if I wanted to make some Thanksgiving food myself that I wasn’t going to make most of it. I had to decide what was most important to me and then go from there. So I thought about what I like and what seemed easiest to do in my little kitchen. And I decided I would do sweet potatoes, green beans, and something with turkey.

I wasn’t expecting to find a lot of turkey options at the store. First, by the time I was shopping, it was close to Thanksgiving. And second, I didn’t want something huge. I was hoping I could find a turkey breast or half turkey breast. But if I couldn’t find that, I knew I could find turkey meatballs and thought that would work too.

But to my surprise, when I went to the store, there was 1 half turkey breast left! So I grabbed it without thinking too much about how to prepare it. I figured it would only require the basics that I knew I had at home, and I could always go to the store again to get spices if I really needed them. Once I got all my groceries home, then I started to figure out how to make them.

The sweet potatoes and green beans were pretty easy. I baked the sweet potatoes the day before and prepared the base (everything but the pecans and marshmallows) and put it in the fridge. And I knew I would do the green beans the day of and it only required me to steam the beans and cook some bacon and onions. But for the turkey, I did a lot of research and found some pretty basic roasting recipes. So I combined those ideas and used that.

Preparing the turkey started the night before. I did a dry brine with salt, pepper, sugar, and garlic powder; and I let it sit uncovered on a platter in my fridge overnight. That was easy enough to do and I tried to stay confident that I could cook it without screwing it up. But I also kept in mind that I was only cooking for myself so if I did screw it up, I could eat a microwave burrito or something.

On Thanksgiving Day, I didn’t have to start anything until a few hours before I wanted to eat. I took the turkey out of the fridge and started to heat up my oven. I put some carrots and onions on a sheet tray to be like a little rack to hold the turkey up. And I added some olive oil to brown the skin. Then into the oven it went and I set a timer to check on it about 45 minutes later (I based the time on what it said online). 45 minutes later, it wasn’t at temperature yet so I let it keep cooking. And I started to get the sides together. I knew I wanted the sweet potatoes to go in while the turkey was resting. And I started to cook the bacon and onions since that would take time.

I was optimistic that I would be done around the same time for everything, but it didn’t work that way. I was pretty off with the timing, but this was the first time I had cooked anything like this. But it was all done at a decent time and I think that I did a pretty good job with my first Thanksgiving meal.

It wasn’t a ton of food, but it was still a lot and it lasted me for several meals. And it came out pretty great. There were a few things I would change if I made this again. The turkey was juicy, but a little salty so I think I needed to use a little less salt in my dry brine. And I forgot to add an acid to the beans, which I think they really could have used. But everything was still really delicious and tasted like Thanksgiving to me! I didn’t make gravy since I didn’t think I needed it. And I didn’t, but I still missed it. Same with stuffing. I missed it but I wasn’t going to make a ton of stuffing just for me.

It was weird eating Thanksgiving food alone, but I’m hopeful that this will be the only year I have to do that. I missed my family and all the stuff we usually do together, but at least I got some food that reminded me of Thanksgiving so I didn’t feel like I skipped the holiday completely. And I did have some family time over Thanksgiving weekend. But I’ll be writing about that tomorrow!

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Another Thing Vertigo Screwed Up For Me (or Wrapping Up My 2020 Challenges)

Posted on December 1, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Thing Vertigo Screwed Up For Me (or Wrapping Up My 2020 Challenges)

I can’t believe 2020 is almost over. This was the year that none of us were expecting. I went into the year really hopeful about what I could get done. And so many things just couldn’t happen because of the pandemic. It’s been hard to not be down about this, but I’m trying.

And November almost felt like a mini-2020 with how tough the month was for me. I started the month strong and then only a few days in I was brought down by extreme vertigo. I’m almost completely recovered from vertigo, but it’s still a little bit there. But a majority of the month was affected by it. And that includes my monthly challenge.

I really wanted to get a lot done on the new book that I wanted to write. I had an idea that I wanted to put to paper and I was so excited to see what I could do. And before I was hit with vertigo, I was doing great. I was hitting all my writing targets and I thought I would at least get to the final word target for the month (I didn’t think that would necessarily be the full book, but a great milestone no matter what).

As soon as I got sick, I had to stop writing. I wasn’t able to sit up, let alone sit at a computer. And once that happened, I got out of the groove of writing. It sucked and I tried to get back into it and it just wasn’t happening. I don’t know if I stopped being interested in writing the book or if I just was in a funk. Either way, I just didn’t do much more than what I did before I had vertigo.

But it wasn’t a complete fail. I did start the book. I did get quite a few chapters done. I wrote character bios for many of the characters in the book. I created an outline of chapters going forward. I have a plan for when I am ready to get back into writing it. Just because I didn’t get to my goal last month doesn’t mean I can’t go back to it and write. Maybe I’ll be inspired in a week or two. Maybe it won’t be for a while. But it’s there for me when I’m ready to get back to it.

To close out 2020, I wasn’t sure what I wanted my challenge to be. I know I’m in a bit of a funk still. This year wasn’t my year. This year felt stagnant and I don’t know what I could have done to change that and still feel safe. And I’m ready for next year to be here because I want to believe it will be better. I know just a new year won’t change everything, but I’m hopeful there will be a vaccine that works and is available to all in 2021, and that will allow us to start doing things again.

So my challenge for December is to get myself ready for 2021. I want to believe it will be a much better year than this year was. I want to make sure that I am in a good place to enjoy life again when I can. I want my house to feel organized for when I need to find things so I can leave. I want to work harder in my workouts to get ready for when I can be back in the studio. I want to feel ready to live my life again and not be trapped in my house.

Just like many challenges this year, this one is a bit abstract. But I just want to feel like I’m ending one year and starting another both mentally and physically. I think a lot of people feel this way too. And I just have to find the ways that it can be done for me.

I do think this challenge will be good for me because it will keep me in a mindset of moving forward and planning ahead. I will be thinking of a post-pandemic world and what I want to do. I need to keep thinking that way and not focusing on what I’m only doing now.

And hopefully, with however I prep for 2021, I am ready for the new year and what things it may bring to me.

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