Online Birthday!
I rewrote the Birthday song accordingly:
Happy Birthday to you, we are cooking on Zoom.
My wifi's all janky and I burnt all my food.
Biography of a nobody day 52. February 21st 2021.
I got SO much done today- including as mentioned above an online Birthday! (Not mine) Today's diary entry is a bunch of pretty random subjects, so if you prefer my more focussed blog entries perhaps consider checking out this post referencing my latest counselling session?
Alarms...
I set my alarms for 9... ish. I say alarms as I find trying to get my body clock back to normal and I am struggling with getting back to getting up early...
Who am I kidding, I am not a morning person. I never have been. I set between 3 to 6 alarms with 5 to 10-minute intervals to try and wake me up. They don't wake me up. I even try tricking my body by setting my alarm tone the same as my ringtone (FF7 battle fanfare... obviously). My subconscious sleepy brain can tell the difference and wakes up to a call but not an alarm. I know it is my fault- but I am struggling.
Weirdly, all Alex needs to do is stir in her room and I wake up, sit up and feel the need to check on her. Either way, when Bee can hear my alarm from the kitchen and I cant hear it 5 inches from my face - there is likely something I need to tell myself internally about the need to wake up.
Working on the garden...
I did eventually peel myself out of bed when Alex came running up the stairs to tell me I was being lazy. I think around 10am? Bee also brought me a morning coffee up and we all sat in bed and chatted for 30 minutes. I did have a reason to be up and about though- at 1pm we have a family and friend zoom call and cooking session as per last week, and this time it is my friend's Birthday! Before that call I need to fix our garden... it is starting to become overgrown.
The main issue with our garden becoming overgrown is that during the first lockdown we decided to make it low maintenance. That meant fake grass, pebbles and stones, evergreen trees and some planters. We did however do all of that on a very tight budget. I managed to get some end of roll sections of fake grass and we bough some in need of TLC plants for cheap- the whole conversion from the garden of nightmares to low maintenance dream cost us around £200.
How then... is my garden overgrowing. Well, it seems that in my haste to enjoy the sunshine in my newly converted garden I did not dig up all of the roots and bulbs of annoying plants. Those plants, mainly daffodils, were now attempting to grow under the fake grass and the plastic below that. Now my nice and flat low maintenance garden has become a mountainous range.
We needed some ingredients for the cooking session later so Bee walked off to the shop whilst I got Alex and Rusty ready to 'assist' me in the garden. My front garden leads directly onto the road and there is no fence- so I brought our puppy pen outside (we use it to keep Rusty on the tiles in the kitchen when we are out- I will link it at the bottom of the page- it is super handy) then I sorted Alex a beach bucket and spade out so she could 'help' me.
I proceeded to roll up the fake grass, then roll up all of the plastic and dig up all of the bulbs. I was keeping an eye on Rusty and Alex, who were winding each other up as usual, but I was making good progress. What I didn't notice at first was that whenever I dug up bulbs, Alex was secretly pocketing them and replanting them somewhere else when she thought I wasn't looking. She was also sneaking Rusty worms. Great. How is this 3-year-old so clever?
Regardless of the consistent 'aid' from Alex, I managed to get the soil rolled and the rest of the garden back how it should be by the time Bee arrived home with the shopping.
I really miss mowing! My garden just isn't big enough to warrant a lawnmower at the minute. Maybe when I have built my dream home I will have a massive garden for Alex and Rusty to play in!
A birthday Zoom call...
This week's zoom call was slightly less organised yet ultimately even more fun than last weeks.
This week we decided to make another Chinese classic- Rice noodle rolls. It is almost like rice jelly in the shape of a pancake wrapped around... stuff. Usually pork and/or prawns plus veg like spring onion. It was one of my favourites in Hong-Kong so I was well excited to give it a go... Should be easy right?
We followed, attempted to follow, this awesome video by the youtube channel LoudNoodle.
Alex decided she would help Bee and Me but got bored after 10 minutes when she couldn't include 'unicorn sprinkles' so she entertained Rusty whilst I managed to burn something that I am supposed to be steaming.
Basically, we tried to steam the noodle roll pancakes, but when it came to rolling the pancake around the mixture for the middle they always broke apart, no matter how long we steamed for. So I decided to try and fry the mixture instead. This was slightly better... but the mixture stuck to the bottom of the pan no matter what I tried. Eventually, we gave up with the 'roll' or 'pancake' elements and just chucked our mixture in the pan with the noodle roll mixture and made a scrambled version. It still tasted great but it did not look like it should have.
Obviously, it was also my friends birthday, so there was lots of singing, dancing and being numptys. It was great. WARNING... The following picture contains nothing important.
This is your normal Zoom screenshot nowadays. You are either pixelated, not properly in the shot or blurry and anyone over the age of 40 is always far too close to the camera.
The rest of our day...
Bee and I thought it would be nice to take Alex and Rusty to the park for a bit of a run around since Alex goes back to her Mums tomorrow for the rest of the week. Since it had rained like mad after we came back inside earlier there were plenty of muddy puddles for Alex to jump in then accidentally drag Rusty through.
They were both soaked and filthy by the time we got home. I showered Rusty, then myself, then I ran a bath for Alex. Bee decided she wanted to make us dumplings and sushi for dinner so she was busied herself with that whilst I got the rest of us clean, dry and prepped for a quiet evening in PJ's.
We decided to follow on from the other night's Harry Potter film, the philosopher stone, and watch the Chamber of Secrets. We figured we would turn the film off after about 30/40mins because it would go past the fun bits with the car that Alex would enjoy- I don't want her to watch anything scary. She has barely put her little wand down since watching the first film on Thursday night.
Bee and I put Alex to bed with a story and then we finished off the film together. We both have quite a busy day tomorrow, plus an early morning- so I am finishing this post then going to sleep... It is about 11:50 now... I really want to do some exercise. Maybe something quick then I will go to bed.
Thanks for reading!
If you are interested in the puppy pen we use for Rusty, we think it is pretty ace, then follow the link below. It is an affiliate link- so if you do buy it I would earn a small percentage of Amazon's profit as commission. Don't feel like you need to use the link though and to double confirm you know:
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.