Tag: school closings

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STAY AT HOME DIARY: WEEK 4

Are you worried about your children missing a couple months of school?  This week, I downloaded  a great Kindle  book, “Educated.”  The  memoir seems very timely now, with all the school closings due to COVID-19.  Author Tara Westover  never attended elementary school or high school. She wasn’t even home schooled.  And yet, she graduated from Brigham Young University,  and received  a Ph.D from Trinity College in Cambridge, U.K.   Her older brother taught her to read, but she had to teach herself algebra before she could get into college.

Stay At Home diary: week 4 Read Educated
EDUCATED is a book you must read if your child’s school has closed. due to COVID-19.  Stay At Home Diary: Week 4

On Wednesday,  I weeded the flower beds. And tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, I’m going to transplant some Hosta. It’s great to be out in the fresh air, and digging in the dirt. .

My husband has agreed to let me trim his beard.  I’m letting my own short hair grow longer. I may come out of this with a new hair style.

It’s strange watching TV reporters social distancing and reporting from home.  They look so pale and their features appear distorted without the fancy make up and good lighting.  I bet they hate seeing themselves on TV.  Some of their home environments don’t look very snazzy.   Plain white venetian blinds? A microwave on top of your frig?  If it were me, I think I’d rig up a nicer background.   Some pretty curtains, maybe.  A  plant or two?   Anything but venetian blinds or a microwave oven.

Finally, got out some old cookbooks, looking for  recipes that don’t call for canned soup (Stores are completely out). Made Chicken Tetrazzini using white sauce as a base.  My husband doesn’t like mushrooms, so I substituted green peppers.  It was so good! Also, I didn’t add salt.  You can add salt and pepper to taste.

Now is the time to fix comfort foods like turkey tetrazinni
Stay At Home Diary: Week 4. Made Chicken Tetrazzini without canned soup

CHICKEN TETRAZZINI

1 pound thin spaghetti

½ cup butter or margarine

½ cup  flour

3   cups milk

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

2  cans (4 oz.) mushrooms, drained ( or a diced green pepper)

2 or 3 cups diced  chicken (or turkey)

½ cup grated parmesan cheese

Reheat oven to 350 degrees .  Lightly grease a baking dish.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add spaghetti, and cook for 10 minutes. Drain, and place in baking dish.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in flour, making a smooth paste. Mix in chicken broth and milk. Cook and stir until mixture comes to a boil and thickens. Mix sauce with spaghetti, cheddar cheese,  chicken, and mushrooms or peppers.. Top with parmesan cheese. Bake about 30 minutes in preheated oven  until temperature reaches 160 degrees or until surface is lightly browned,

It’s easy to cut the recipe in half if you’re  cooking for two.  Or, you can freeze the leftovers to enjoy when everything gets back to normal.  I hope that day is coming soon!

 

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A POLAR VORTEX ISN’T FOR WIMPS

If some old geezer tells you he walked to school in below freezing weather, he’s telling the truth.    We’ve been enduring the coldest weather that some younger people can ever remember, but according to records,  we’ve endured many colder days in the past couple of centuries.  But, here in Indiana, they’re not only closing schools, but banks, and city services, and of all things, the United States Post Office.  A Polar Vortex isn’t for wimps.

Should all city services be closed during a polar vortex?
MOST OCTOGENARIANS RECALL WALKING TO SCHOOL IN BELOW FREEZING WEATHER

During my school years,  our nation was half rural and half urban.  We were still coming out of the depression and World War II.  Times were tough, and if you had a job, you treasured it greatly.  The thought of staying home from work on below freezing days would not have been considered.

That tough philosophy extended to the children of those hard working parents.  In the winter, below freezing temperatures were often a fact of life.  Before getting dressed, we children would first put on long underwear,   and long wool socks.  We had “snow pants,”  which were loosely fitting woolen  pants lined with cotton flannel.  Along with those,  you wore a matching jacket, similarly lined.  I suppose those layers provided some extra protection.  Wool stocking caps, mittens, scarves over our faces, and boots completed our outer wear before we left for school.   Many families didn’t own a car, and so children walked to school.

My parents were Catholic, and we never missed a Sunday mass in the winter.  My husband was raised Protestant in rural  Nebraska, and his family always made it to Church on Sunday, no matter how cold it was.  He also  remembers getting up on many a below-freezing morning to milk cows before going to school.  In an unheated barn, no less.  He doesn’t remember ever suffering from frostbite.

This week in our Indiana city, all schools were closed for two days, at least.  I think that’s a good idea. But the post office?  Banks?  And trash collection?  Come on, these people are grownups with warm vehicles to get them where they are going. They have cell phones.  They don’t have to navigate icy interstates, and most main streets have been cleared by road crews.  It’s bad enough we just had to endure a government shutdown, and now this?  Come on,  Hoosiers, toughen up!   This isn’t Minnesota or Alaska.  Don’t let the polar vortex make a wimp out of you.