Of Snakes and Cakes

Wednesday, April 1, 2020.
Quarantine Day 17

We slept in this morning because we stayed up late last night. First, everyone except Levi played a game of Mexican train dominoes that definitely went past bedtime. Then Greg and I stayed up until midnight to grab a Walmart grocery order slot. So, morning came early. It's ok though.... today was a cereal day. ;)

We have been slowly reading through Purpose Driven Life as a family. We didn't get much reading done this morning, but had a great, fairly extensive, discussion about today's topic, so that's good.

It's strange how these days seem to really get away from us. Time keeps marching on. I'm not sure what all I did with the rest of my morning. The older kids were all working on school. I think there was some laundry started. Who knows.

I impulsively decided today would be a good time to use my Valentine's day gift and have a fire and roast hot dogs. We haven't used it as much as I thought we would, mostly because 1-it's been winter, and 2-it's always so ding-dang windy here! That was something we did NOT anticipate when we moved. Brooklyn has decided NWA stands for north WINDY Arkansas, not North West. I think she may be right.

I'll tell you one thing, those breezes always get our fire going nicely. No blowing or fanning required! We're pretty pleased with our success of only using 1 match for every fire we've started. We got a nice blaze going fairly quickly, and had those hot dogs going in no time. Tyler brought out everything we needed, all on his own. It's so nice to have kids that know how to do stuff - and do it!

 After lunch we weren't in a hurry to get back inside. We played around on YouTube, listening to snippets of all the songs we could think of with a color word in the title. 
(Green Onions, Green Eyed Lady, Brown Eyed Girl, Purple Rain, Love Ran Red, plus others)

Alan and Brooklyn got started weeding the raised garden boxes on the side of the house. I had started to reach in and work on it a few days ago, when it occurred to me there could very likely be snakes in it, so I told the kids right then that if they decided to weed it (because you never know what kids will decide to do), that they be sure and use a tool because of said potential snakes.
Well it's a good thing. Greg and I were still in the back yard, on the other side of the fence, and Brooklyn came breezing through the house back to us to tell us Alan found a snake! However.... it being April Fool's Day, and me not wanting to be made a fool of.... I didn't believe her at first. 

She finally convinced me she was serious, and things really got interesting! In the end, Alan had to scoop it up with the hoe and carry it to the sidewalk to kill it. I'm very thankful he was wearing boots for all of this!

I spent quite a while working on getting kids Bible lessons ready for our church to send out via email and facebook, since we won't be meeting. The last two weeks I sent a Sunday lesson, but since next week is Easter week we're going to provide a lesson per day. 

The kids continued on with the weeding/rebuilding project, and Alan even began working to replace some of the corner posts that were rotting. Greg got out his circle saw and helped with that. At some point Alan discovered a second snake. This one was also beheaded at the sidewalk, but instead of being left for the birds, it was dissected. Alan did the work, Daniel and Levi watched the whole thing, Brooklyn was thoroughly disgusted, and Dale and Tyler were inside on the computer and willingly missed the whole thing.

Later I broke up a fight over saltine crackers between the youngest two. Quarantine rationing gettin' serious y'all.

Greg and I went for our daily walk/run. And see, this is what I'm talking about when I say these days get away from us: we didn't set out until 6:00! What the heck?!  We usually stay in our neighborhood, but every once in a while we cross the highway into the neighborhood across the way. As we got ready to cross, I commented that people really must be staying home more, because the traffic wasn't bad at all for 5:00! Except.... it was 6:00. Yeah. I'm ok.

Meanwhile, Dale was at home making tater tot casserole and cleaning the kitchen as he went. I told him he was my favorite child, for sure, and he told me that was why he was doing it, haha!

We ended the day with hooking up the computer to the tv to see our power point slides of song lyrics we have used for our church services. Greg played guitar and Alan his little drum box and we spent just a little while worshiping together.  We aren't always so spiritual.... remember the dominoes, right? And we've seen a lot of movies lately. But singing to Jesus was definitely what we all needed, and I have a feeling we'll be doing it again soon!

Actually, that didn't end the day, because then we gathered around the table for fresh-from-the-oven chocolate cake. The recipe is called "crazy cake" or "depression cake". I thought it was called depression cake because it's from the Great Depression and doesn't use any milk or eggs, but it may be because you mix the dry ingredients and make three holes, or 'depressions' and then add the liquids to each one. I don't know. I do know if you searched Pinterest for "depression cake" they ask if you are ok and put a suicide prevention hotline at the top of the page. I'm just making cake, Pinterest. Calm down.

Love to all!