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AKA – A long post full of links! Plus a giveaway.

Hey Everyone – How are you?

I keep telling people – We can’t complain… but we do!

I’m wondering – what’s keeping your spirits up these days?

For me, this is a time to comfort myself. I know that this period of time will go on much longer than we originally anticipated, so I need to look forward to small things throughout the day. I thought I’d share some things that are bringing me comfort these days. I rounded up a few products that I love and recipes that we’ve been making.

Morning Coffee
I have had this mug for about about year and I would rank it up there right next to the Vitamix. It makes me so happy every morning when I pour my coffee into this mug, knowing that it will stay super hot while I get distracted throughout my morning. I love this Peace Coffee, specifically the Birchwood blend. And while we’re on the topic of warm drinks, I have been all about this Tazo Lemon Tea.

Smoothie in a Bowl with Granola
My guy (the little one) has been really into smoothies in a bowl with Purely Elizabeth Granola. I make mine with oat milk, frozen banana, frozen berries, baby spinach, and almond butter. I usually have left over and store it in an insulated mug in the fridge and it’s surprisingly good the next day.

Scallion Pancakes
Does anyone get Bon Appetit? Their April issue was stacked full of recipes that I wanted to try. We had a hard time finding flour, so we ended up using gluten free flour and they were great. I will definitely be making these routinely. I even found some regular flour, so I’m curious how they’ll be different. Chef Confession: I am actually horrible at making pancakes. I either burn them or they’re gluey in the middle. Anyone have any tips for me?

Ugly Chocolate Chip Cookies
I think it’s funny that people have a surplus of ripe bananas these days – I’m seeing so much banana bread all over Instagram, and have of course made some myself. My favorite recipe is Angela’s from Oh She Glows. Here’s another use for those freckled bananas – My cookie recipe is probably my most popular recipe. A friend recently told me that her cookies didn’t come out right, so I rewrote it. To be honest, I never measure anything when I make these cookies, just go on consistency, but I hope it works out better for you all! And please don’t be afraid to let me know when something doesn’t work out for you.

Frontera Frozen Skillets
It can be hard to come up with meal ideas everyday, so I’ve been enjoying these skillets about once a week. We add some extra veggies (whatever is already in the refrigerator) and some beans and put it in a tortilla. Sometimes we have avocado, sometimes we don’t!

Apples and Peanut Butter
I thought I’d put something very simple on this list. I eat this almost everyday and still look forward to it. I love Honeycrisps with Santa Cruz Dark Roasted peanut butter, and a little sprinkle of sea salt on the top. Double points for the serving size of peanut butter making me laugh out loud. 2 Tablespoons?!?! Per slice, right?

Bjorn Qorn
And to go with my afternoon snack of apples and peanut butter, is this popcorn.

Lollipops
My kid needs a little coaxing to get in his stroller, and walks are a must for my mental health these days. I highly recommend a lollipop once a day.

What I’m Loving Unrelated to Food

• Little Fires Everywhere!!! So good! I read the book last year and loved it. I think Jon is annoyed that I keep whispering, “This was different in the book.” A friend and I talked about having a discussion about the show, but I think I’d just keep saying, “OMG, it’s so good,” and that doesn’t make for great conversation. 
  
• Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid – I zipped through this book and was sucked in from the first page. It had a lightness to it, while also having an important theme of race issues.
• My guy learning how to use his scooter. Favorite part is that he says, “Zoom,” after every stride.
• Reconnecting with friends. Okay, I have to admit that I can get a little overwhelmed with all of the video conferencing that’s happening right now, BUT I’m so grateful for everyone reconnecting. My high school friends and I have had a text chain for years, but we now talk almost everyday and have “happy hours” semi regularly now.

Our New Kitchen!
I feel incredibly lucky that we were able to finish the kitchen before this all happened. We are still missing a few things here and there (hello, third light??), but it’s been wonderful to have during this time when I am making all of our meals. I want to say I never complain about doing the dishes after not having a proper sink or dishwasher for so long, but that would be a huge lie.

Question:
What’s keeping your spirits up? I’m going to send a little care package of some of my favorite things to someone who answers this question. You can enter on the blog or in an Instagram post. Excited to hear from you!
Submissions for the giveaway will close on May 1 at 11:59pm

My husband and I had planned a kitchen remodel when we moved into our current house. We spent several months planning and designing. It was supposed to take 12 weeks. It’s been 7 months.

Our kitchen went from this:

To this:

When we took the plunge, we knew it would take longer than the estimated time. But we didn’t expect that we would have to reframe a good portion of our house. Or regrade our backyard. Or put a new roof on. Or… so many other things.

You see, we live in a house that’s about 100 years old. It was bound to have some issues. We’re happy we found them and can fix these problems. I think we’ve kept pretty calm throughout the entire process, with a few meltdowns. But overall, we’ve tried to keep the mentality of “the big picture.” It’s easy to sound like you’re complaining during these situations, so we tried to keep that in mind when talking about it.

I wanted to share our experience of renovating our home and some things that helped me.

• I made a simple kitchen. As you can see above – a microwave, an induction hot plate, coffee gear, and gallon water containers (it was handy to have water close to the kitchen, and I’d refill these every few days).
• We aimed to order out once a week, go out to dinner once a week, and do pasta once a week. We basically stuck to this. Breakfast and lunch were easy, dinner was a bit more challenging because of space, timing, and a 2 year old.
• You know what’s worse than doing dishes? Doing a days worth of dishes in a tiny bathroom sink. Our contractor put a laundry sink in one of our bathrooms that we weren’t using regularly. It was not glamorous, but SO helpful at the end of the day when we tackled the dishes.
• This is obvious for people who work outside of the home, but worth mentioning – Get out of the house every day. This should be a general rule for life, but it’s especially beneficial during a remodel.
• Take people up on their generosity. Whether a neighbor offers to throw a few things in their laundry that day, a friend offers their kitchen to do some meal prep, or someone invites you over for coffee – say, “Yes.” Our very generous friends offered their entire (babyproofed!!) home to us while they were away for 10 days. We felt uncomfortable accepting the offer for a good 15 minutes. It was like a vacation. Bonus that it was in our neighborhood.
• A note on being Green: It’s really hard during this time, but I think we did okay. I recommend buying compostable plates and silverware for the times when you absolutely cannot do another dish in that little sink!
• You don’t have to make every meal elegant, but you can make a beautiful meal out of something simple. That feels special during this time. See below.
• I feel like I’ve said, “Keep things in perspective,” 20 times, but it’s worth mentioning again. There are things that I will miss about the last 7 months – I love that we have a small space to live in. While I won’t miss our makeshift kitchen, I will miss the cozy evenings in our living room that we rarely used before.

I hope those tips are helpful, and if not – here are 3 easy meals that we depended on regularly…

Avocado toast with and egg and everything bagel seasoning.

Salad in a bag. Yes, not super sexy or ecological, but have you ever used a salad spinner when you don’t have a sink… or water? I made it my own by adding some extra (bagged) lettuce and beans.

Stir Fry – Whatever vegetables that were easy to wash and chop (sometimes that was a bagged mix from the grocery store), an easy sauce, and beans. Bonus points for times when I remember cashews! We’d also make a batch of rice in the Instant Pot and used it for a few meals. Oh and that’s another tip – if you have one, don’t pack away your Instant Pot. We used it several times a week.

I’m excited to show you the afters as soon as the project wraps up! Coming up next will be some tips for going through a renovation with a toddler.

Question: Have you ever gone through a renovation? Any tips to add to mine?

P.S. To keep things transparent, here’s a pic of how I actually photographed one meal… with our cooler and bag of ice outside our front door. And a toddler asking his mom what the heck she’s doing.