ZoomsGiving

It seems impossible to believe that one day I will look back on this posting and not be wearing a mask outside, hiding from a virus, and unable to hug my family and friends, but I know that will happen. It seems like there are some good options for vaccines out there, and they may be in my arm in another 6-8 months. I think I'm pretty low on the priority list for the shot - so I'm not expecting it soon. But at some point it's going to happen - and things will change back in many ways to how they were before. Except that I'm going to try to work from home two days a week :)

In the meantime, this year we celebrated Thanksgiving via zoom. It was my first time since college that I wasn't with my sister at Thanksgiving. I noticed that she baked an apple pie (what I always bring) and I did not. Since I've stopped eating meat, I did a vegetarian thanksgiving meal, which I have to say was delicious! I found this recipe for a vegetarian sheet pan thanksgiving which consisted of a butternut squash stuffed with wild rice mixed with onion, carrot, celery, feta cheese, cranberry sauce, rosemary, sage and a granny smith apple and then roast potatoes and roast brussels sprouts with cranberries. And, for dessert, a pastry with brie and cranberries that was yummy! I completely over made the amount of rice, but that's OK because rice freezes fine, and it was so good, I will definitely stuff more squash in the next few weeks. For the potatoes, they have you parboil them for 10 minutes, drain the water, put them back in the pan with the lid on to chuff them up, and then cover them with oil, salt and rosemary. And the squash is tied up with a string, just like a turkey! For the pastry, the recipe called for store bought puff pastry, but of course I decided to make my own. After all the great british baking show I've been watching, I decided to make a ruff puff, and it turned out quite well - with lots of layers in the pastry! And the brie and cranberries was so good - I forget about cranberries all the time, but I shouldn't, they are really easy to make. And, for the sprouts you didn't even need to add sugar, just add them with the sprouts, coat with oil and rosemary, and roast! I had a rose wine, and since I haven't really been drinking for some time, felt pretty drunk after a half bottle. I have to say, I didn't miss the turkey at all. 

My sister ordered premade stuff that she picked up. One of my nephews cooked a chicken, one cooked a pie and some other things - not sure what, but he likes cooking, and one made a box of stuffing in the microwave. That was a little sad. Oh, and my brother and his partner in London had a tofurkey earlier in the day. My other sister popped on for a while - it was her granddaughter's birthday, so we all made signs wishing her a happy birthday which she seemed to like. Mine had a unicorn pooping on it because, kids... It was fun zooming with everyone, we could still talk and such, my brother and nephew kept yelling things to order on my alexa (oh sigh), but not exactly the same. Well, next year hopefully.

I wanted to go for a nice post-Thanksgiving hike, as I've done so many other years, but given the covid rates, it didn't seem like a good idea. If you go to NH, you're supposed to isolate for two weeks (though I could drive further to Graylock and be fine, there is a certain randomness to this). I decided the mountains will still be there, and instead spent all day Friday doing a puzzle.

Today I was like "I have to get some exercise" so I went for a 45 minute walk, did a virtual yoga class (which actually got me sweating!) and then did some lifts. I did:

EMOM12:

First 6 minutes 3 front squats at 40 pounds

Second 6 minutes 3 presses - first three at 20 pounds, second three at 25.

I finally found some ninja material, so I made a ninja mask for parkour. And 3 for my instructors. I hope they like them :)