2020 Is Already Something Else

What Has My Family Been Eating?

I think everyone had had enough of 2019 and we all were hoping that 2020 would bring better things. But so far, to me, 2020 is being extra. And because of this EXTRA-ness, I haven’t been cooking anything super exciting. We’ve been eating pumpkin baked oatmeal, banana baked oatmeal, and energy balls as fast as I can make them. A triple batch of the energy balls lasts 2-3 days! A single batch of baked oatmeal might last 3 days, if I’m lucky.

I made beans and rice with Beyond Brats and that was really good! Last night we had Salad Bar Stir-fry. I made a frittata with chickpea flour (recipe was in Thrive magazine) and it was okay.

EF-1 Tornado

But this month has been a month, and that was just in the first week. On February 6, we had a tornado. Tornadoes are super-rare here, but I’d been watching the weather forecasts and thankfully, when the alarms went off, I came inside. I had the kids join me in the hallway, still not expecting anything to actually happen. When I got up to go put my Invisalign trays back in and I *heard* it. I told the kids to get in the bathtub just as the lights went out. I haven’t been that scared for our lives in a long time! We could hear the trees falling outside but thankfully nothing big fell on the house. The basketball goal missed my car by inches. Lots of trees were blown over, several blocking roads in the neighborhood. And the roads not blocked by trees were flooding.

The power flickered but stayed on that day, but it kept flickering in the night and finally died around 6:30 Friday morning. They didn’t expect to get the power back on for 3 days, so I went to the store for snacks and firewood (the colder front came after the tornadoes). We had takeout for lunch and dinner. Thankfully, during Thai dinner, the power came back on. But then we lost power again on Tuesday the 11th. The neighbors have cleaned their trees off of our trees, so now we can clean up, too.

I don’t know about you, but I am not enjoying Climate Change. We’ve barely had a winter this year and it’s ridiculous how warm it’s been.

But Back To Food!

But back to food – I got the latest Thrive Magazine and I’m planning to try a few recipes from there. I had skipped the Misfits Markets box delivery lately, but I’ve used up everything except one lone red onion and I’m ready for SURPRISE produce. I’ve been ordering staples from Thrive Market. We went to Earth Fare one last time and that was sad. I really liked Earth Fare a lot because they had lots of vegan and gluten-free options. The shelves were almost empty and I didn’t recognize anyone working there. Earth Fare is the last place I went before I went into labor with my first kiddo. We’d go there after swim lessons. I got a flat tire once in their parking lot, lol! I’ll miss that store.

Charity Crafting

We’ve also been painting house and before we did our bedroom, I went through all of my crafting supplies (a lot went to Goodwill) and I set aside a bin of yarn for charity crafting. I’ve been a little obsessed with crocheting and knitting hats and squares for Warm Up America.

Social Media Update

I haven’t used Facebook in years because I think it’s evil, but I had, until a couple of weeks ago, used Instagram. I found that of all the social media platforms out there, Instagram is the worst at directing blog traffic. You can’t post clickable links and so hardly anyone was coming here from Instagram.

I also got fed up with TikTok and the things that were showing up on my “for you page”. Quite often, I couldn’t scroll away fast enough.

Finally, twitter. I admit I was spending too much time on there. But I got fed up with the vegan community there always trying to out-vegan each other. I’m not a “sanctivegan” and I got tired of seeing people being torn apart because they weren’t vegan enough.

But I still have Pinterest and I think Pinterest is great for blogging, not to mention getting new recipe ideas!