One Month Back at Home.

As of today, we’ve been back at home for one whole month. In this blog post I will talk about how the family is dealing with quarantine. What it’s like being at home with your family? Is it annoying? Is it enjoyable? It’s nice to be around family most of the time but sometimes it’s annoying. I enjoy going on bike rides and playing outside with my family. It’s an experience that can be a rose or a thorn. 

Mom with Coronavirus: Doing Much Better

I’m sure many of you are wondering how my mom is doing I can tell you that she is doing a lot better. As of last Sunday, we were allowed to give her hugs and sit at the same dinner table. She still has a little tightness in her chest and a little of shortness of breath, but her blood oxygen is back to normal and she is starting to feel better. To replace the work that she does, we (all the kids) have had to do a ton of extra chores. I don’t mind some of them but some are really annoying and it makes me appreciate the work that she does. We’ve had to cook for her, clean up for her, scoop her food, and more. It’s nice to have her back doing all those things with us!

Family Life Stuck at Home

We are not a perfect family and we do have occasional arguments. It’s mainly Piper and Alexander who do most of the fighting. But, a few days ago Piper and my Dad were having a argument and I stepped in because it was a stupid argument and I wanted it to stop. Eventually it did, but I wanted revenge on my annoying Dad. I hid behind the door for the office with a balloon and a pencil and right when he walked by, I popped it. It was hilarious and it was great revenge. 

Another thing we’ve been doing is family band. We’ve practiced for two nights and learned two songs, and they are What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction and Hotel California by the Eagles. Usually Piper will play piano or drums, dad will play piano or drums, I’ll play electric bass, and Alexander will play electric guitar. I can’t wait to see what we play next. 

What are we doing for school?

As many of you know, in-person school is closed for the rest of the year, but unlike most schools, we have online classes. Similar to normal school, classes start at 8 and end at 3:30. I’m not a big fan of online school because sometimes when I look at a screen for a long time, I get a headache, and the teachers don’t give us many breaks and I definitely prefer normal school instead of online school.

What is quarantine like for me? What have I been doing in my free time? Here’s a list!

Usually, when I’m constantly juggling school, three select sports, and whatever else I’m doing, I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, but now I have all the time in the world. I’ve always wished that I had down time, but now I realized I’m happier when kept busy. Although I do occasionally get bored, I have been able to explore new interests.

During all my down time, I’ve been able to learn some skills. .. but more on that below. I’m also currently working on doing the splits and holding a headstand and handstand. Some skills take days to learn but others take a couple hours. Learning new things keeps me busy and are cool to show people. If you have any suggestions please shoot me an email or put it in the comments. I need new ideas.

Here’s my favorite new quarantine skills:

1. Baking/cooking – Am I The Next Gordon Ramsay?

I’m into baking shows. I love watching people bake delicious desserts and get praised for their hard work. Watching those shows really inspires me to try it myself because it looks fun. I enjoy making these desserts becuase they are delicious and I can’t wait to share all my desserts with my family and friends.   

The first food I made on my own during quarantine were homemade crepes. I prepped the batter on a school night and let them rest overnight. The next morning I woke up early and cooked them. The first two crepes I tried to cook went horribly. When I tried to flip them, they broke and they fell apart. After my “practice crepes” I started getting the hang of it, and I made a few nice ones. Unfortunately, I didn’t have Nutella to put on my crepes, so I used strawberries instead and they were delicious. I ended up finishing them just as school started so I ate them while I was in class, which I wasn’t supposed to do, but my teachers didn’t know.

Next, I made vanilla cupcakes with a grapefruit frosting. I used a vanilla buttercream recipe but replaced the vanilla extract with leftover juice and zest from the grapefruit I ate that morning. I ended up having a lot of leftover frosting even after I put a mountain of it on my cupcakes so I squirted the rest into mouth. They were delicious but I made the mistake of putting too much frosting on my cupcakes

I also made blueberry cobbler, but this time it was with Piper. We divided up the work and made a delicious dairy free gluten free cobbler. We used almond flour and almond milk. Unfortunately, when it was finally cooked and ready to be eaten we didn’t have vanilla ice cream to go with it and used mint chocolate chip instead. 

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Another thing I made was pizza. I had premade dough, thanks to the Shields, but still cooked it and put toppings on it. I rolled up the dough and flipped it into the air just like they do it professionally. I made my crust extra thick and added a ton of extra cheese.  The pizza was almost as good as deep dish pizza, which I love, and I would enjoy making it again.

My mom was hungry for banana bread, so I used a recipe that Cassie sent me. I used some over ripe bananas and had to squish them with my hands. It was disgusting. This was also gluten and dairy free. I almost overcooked it because it was quite brown on the outside but it was cooked nicely on the inside. The banana bread tasted delicious and it was gone in a few days.

Lastly, I made snickerdoodle with my cousin Mason. He wasn’t at my house, but we used a skype call to share our recipes and show each other the cookies. They were some of the best snickerdoodles I’ve ever had. Alexander even said, “these are better that the bakery’s treats.” I think that I’m going to try to do more cooking with Mason and I can’t wait to see what we make next.

I’ve been restricted to one dessert a week because I’m not allowed to have that much sugar. I think I’m going to start a bit more cooking rather than baking. Thank you to the people that have brought us food, we really appreciate it. 

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2. New Stupid-Human-Tricks: Spinning a Basketball, Car Noises & Backflips!

The first skill that I got really good at was spinning a basketball on my finger. Unlike most people, I’m allowed to dribble a basketball inside the house (haven’t broken anything yet) and I’ve always wanted to be able to spin it on my finger and I figured that I had a lot of time to practice it so after about a week I was able to keep it on my finger for a long time. When I first started I got quite frustrated but the better I got at it, I got more confident. A few days ago when I was sitting on my couch watching a tv show called Lego Masters, I was able to keep the ball up for a long time and that was the first time I got really good at it. I’ve been continuing to practice and am quite good at it now.

A few days ago I was watching a YouTube video about skills to learn when you’re bored and their was this completely random skill. You could make a car engine sound with a empty bottle. I wanted to try it and it turned out to be very fun. All you have to do is get an empty soda bottle, bend it without breaking it about 2/3 of the way up. Then you just make a car engine noise with your mouth into the bottle and the bottle will echo and make it sound more real. This is a fun skill you can do to make someone smile and have fun. DISCLAIMER: if someone continuously makes these noises, I warned you.

One thing that I’ve finally accomplished that I’ve always wanted to do is do a backflip on the trampoline. I’ve been able to do a front flip and front handspring on the trampoline but haven’t quite got the guts to do a backflip.

Finally after a few YouTube video tutorials and warm ups I tried it and I did it. I felt amazing and was so happy. Once I got more confident I even did it without bouncing. I was on the trampoline with Alexander, which is rare because I don’t remember the last time he came out with me, and taught him how to do it. He did it successfully but he also had a pretty big fall. He fell on his neck and got a bad bloody nose but he was fine. Backflips were so fun and I can’t wait to continue to do them in the future.

I’ve also been practicing my juggling!

I’ve been able to juggle for a while but I wanted to learn a few more tricks and be able to do them consistently, and that’s what I practiced. I’ve been practicing throwing the balls behind my back and under my legs while juggling. I’ve also been working on juggling with a partner, Alexander and being able to throw the balls back and fourth while juggling. In the future I hope to be able to juggle with four balls. Learning these new skills has been a lot of fun and kept me busy so if you need something to do, try one of these.

3. Making Coronavirus Masks!

Piper and I decided we would also help people by making masks for our family and others.  A family friend gave us a kit to get us going, and we borrowed a sewing machine from Lorrie. Each time we made a mask, we started out by sewing two pieces of fabric inside-out and then flip them right-side in. Next, we iron it and we put in “pin folds”. And last, we use a sewing machine to sew around the outside of the mask twice.

We just started doing this yesterday, so we’ve only made two masks so far… but it’s been fun and I’m planning to continue to make more!  

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