Work break week 1 wrap
Catching up on Wednesday-Sunday (days 5,6,7,9)
Wednesday, day 5
Wednesday was a bit more industrious and cozy of a day, spent indoors at Rona’s place with the kitties. I helped water some plants that were languishing and tidied up the dust and the lines of diatomaceous earth bordering the plants as defense against a previous ant infestation. I washed a chunk of dishes and organized my tasks on Asana. I started in on some decluttering by going through the dense thicket of coats in our closet and trying to purge. I gathered gift-wrapping materials to take back to Tim’s place to wrap the gifts that I had delivered there. Inbetween the tidying chores I snuggled with the fuzzy cats.
Thursday, day 6
I had a slow start to the morning. I did manage to wrap a chunk of gifts, which was one of the bigger items on my list that I wanted to cross off. I ate some chunks of bread with cold leftover curry sauce. Afterwards, I played some Pokemon Shield and I started gathering recipes to cook during this break. I’m hoping to get back into meal prep and planning so that I can cook a little bit more when I start working again.
My boyfriend let me know he was concerned about having extra folks over on Saturday due to omicron and his imminent visit to his unvaccinated mom and her friends, so I called my sister to negotiate uninviting folks we originally thought we could have over. Tim came back and I threw together a quick passable seafood pasta with a bag of frozen seafood we’ve had in the freezer for years. I had a short call with a friend after dinner and we watched an episode of Succession and caught up with The Bachelorette (fantasy suites episode).
I punted on some digital errands.
Friday, day 7
It was a little sunnier Friday morning and I had a cozy, relaxing start. I put on double layers of sweaters, including a pastel tie-dye sweater and drank some tea. I think I sketched out some ideas for a personal project and then did some light yoga followed by core strength yoga. It’s been one of my goals to resume the core strength yoga program, so that was nice. Afterwards, I tried out an instagram dumpling cooking hack for a quick lunch (used a little too much oil, but was otherwise satisfied by the trial) and followed up by cooking some black beans for bean and rice bowls to test out some meal prep. I also gathered ingredients in advance to make chai.
I spaced for a while while grinding around a tablespoon of coriander seeds into more powder for the next time I needed ground coriander, using a mortar and pestle. That stuff is time-consuming, and I don’t know how my boyfriend does it each time he makes daal or kitchaari. Afterwards, I played pokemon on the switch for about an hour and a half before a scheduled call with some work girlfriends. I started dinner mid-call with some groceries my boyfriend picked up for me, but it still took until 7:30 to finish because I unwisely put the brown rice on “GABA” setting for the rice cooker. I ultimately needed to switch to stove-top cooking to finish it sooner. I also steamed some kabocha pumpkin with a dashi broth in the instant pot.
Originally I was thinking of going to the Grove outdoors holiday party, but my sister was spooked by omicron and another coworker friend didn’t want to brave the outdoors, so I opted to forgo it this time. We finished Succession by watching the season finale and then watched a little bit of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Saturday, day 8
I had my boyfriend open his Christmas gifts, since Saturday was the last day he’d be in town before flying out to see his mom for Christmas. He seemed to appreciate the milk chocolate bombs and the Parachute towels I bought him. The nice Japanese pens I bought however he said were just a replacement for his nice Japanese pens I had lost earlier, and didn’t count as a gift.
Afterwards, I made home-made chai with some of the ingredients I had put together the previous day. My boyfriend was not feeling so well and my sister was apparently doom-scrolling content about “Omicron, economics n climate change”, so I tried to listen to my boyfriend talk about the ills of social media first and then called my sister to chat about some things she had on her mind. I tried to help out with some tidying chores and pick up some covid tests, as well as a Chinese fresh fruit and whipped cream cake for my and my sister’s pre-birthday celebration while my sister ruminated to me about people, including myself, not taking omicron seriously over text.
Rona brought over Trader Joe’s mulled wine and I tried to put together a cheese board with some nice cheeses Tim picked up from Birite while he packed for his flight the next day. We lit some beeswax candles at Rona’s request and I reused some of the chai spices and added some lemon zest and slices to jazz up the mulled wine. Tim made us broccoli pasta, salad and sausage and we ended up watching Swan Song, a sci-fi movie about terminal illness and cloning which I’d recommend. Somehow the cloning topic felt thematic when celebrating the birthday of twins. :D We had the Chinese cake and Rona was appropriately pleased. I gave her a birthday present to take home so we could open it together on Christmas Eve. It was a nice evening after a somewhat tense and stressful day.
Sunday, day 9
I started the morning with some Pokemon Shield and then by 10 rolled out of bed to start on cleaning up the mess in the kitchen and folding clothes. I realized a lot of the groceries I had my boyfriend purchase after brainstorming things I could cook would actually sit in the fridge for a while since I’m planning on staying at my sister’s for most of the week, so I packed them into a bag to bring to my sister’s place before we headed out together to Union City to see a college friend.
It was a little tight but we made it out in time to meet our college friend by 2 p.m. We ate some Korean food which our friend ordered in since Rona did not want to eat at a restaurant with omicron circling about. The trip to Union City only takes about an hour and 10 minutes by Bart if you string the legs together, but we missed a train and weren’t able to match up the legs super well, so it took us until about 7:30 to get home after leaving around 5 p.m.
Rona made us more mulled wine to recover from the time spent in December outdoors, and we called another college friend to do our weekly video chat and Netflix chill. We watched two episodes of Arcane, which I’m enjoying.