A Song for this Last Day of April

This is the last day of a very long April following a very long hard winter.

I want to share April On the Ground with everyone. It tells us about looking forward to the new season, to being outside and no longer facing the storm. He says that it comes with newfound understanding. Hopefully, as we come to the other side of this time of isolation and fear, we too can say we have learned something about ourselves and about our world.

I really like Justin Hines and his music.
Justin Hines is an extremely gifted musician who was born with a rare genetic disorder that affects his mobility causing him to need a power wheelchair. He has now stopped performing due to continued failing health and breathing issues. Justin's songs are sensitive and often inspiring. He has done a lot around the world to fundraise for different charities and has a foundation of his own. I was lucky to see him perform in Winnipeg many years ago when he helped raise money for The Independent Living Association of Manitoba




April on the Ground  - Justin Hines

It's nice to know,
I've seen the seasons in their glory,
Each one brings a different morning,
to my door,

But still somehow,
I'm looking forward to a sunrise,
Where I don't have to face a storm,
to go outside,
Yeah that would be nice,

And here at last,
With a new found understanding,
All the baggage not with standing,
It means no more.

And all is well,
Well I'm looking into friendly eyes,
And I'll hold the hands that keep me warm,
An hang on tight, That's my plan,
Yeah that's my plan,

'Cause its a fine time for April on the ground,
I've never been one for the cold,
And I'd say good-bye to walkways lined in white and not get down,
'Cause its a fine time for April on the ground,

Miles away,
There's a man that's sad an lonely,
His favourite saying is "If Only",
While on his knees,

And he bids farewell,
To a hardened woman he created,
Its been years in the making,
'Cause she's on her way,
I think I heard them say,
Yeah I heard them say,

Its a fine time for April on the ground,
I've never been one for the cold,
And I'd say good-bye to walkways lined in white and not get down,
'Cause its a fine time for April on the ground,

Its a fine time for April on the ground,
Well I never did get use to the cold,
And I'd say good-bye to walkways lined in white and not get down,
Oh its a fine time for April on the ground,
Yeah an its a fine time for April on the ground,
Well I've never been one for the cold, Alright,
And I'd say good-bye to walkways lined in white and not get down, not get down,

'Cause its a fine time for April on the ground,
Its a fine time for April on the ground,
Its a fine time for April on the ground,

Making Sourdougn Bread is Easy?

My daughter Emily and I began a couple of sourdough starters yesterday. I have used sourdough in the past, and Elizabeth, our eldest daughter, has kept her own starter alive for almost two years now. I'm already dreaming about all the wonderful things we can try baking in the next tew weeks.

I looked up Sourdough on Wikipedia, just in case you are not sure what makes it special.

Sourdough bread is made by the fermentation of dough using naturally occurring lactobacilli and yeasts. Sourdough Bread has a more sour taste and better inherent keeping qualities than bread made with baker's yeast, due to the lactic acid produced by lactobacilli.

Sourdough seems like the COVID 19 project of the month according to social media, so we decided to join in too. Emily wanted to try the "Wild Method" to make a starter. That means you use flour of some sort and add water and wait to see if wild yeast that is naturally occurring on the flour or maybe even in the air can start to grow. That is how you develop a local sourdough kind of like San Francisco sourdough because of the specific wild yeasts and lactobacilli in that environment. I wanted to go with the lazy method of adding a package of yeast, so I knew how much was in there and can expect faster results.  We are trying both ways.

My first sourdough ever began with a starter gifted to me around 1981 when I was a new mommy and all into healthy foods for baby and family. My starter came with the name Herman. There have been a few more Hermans since then who met unfortunate ends, but I am more than ready to try again with "Herman the 5th". I asked my daughters what they wanted to name their starters, but they seem to think that naming them is unnecessary and perhaps a touch odd.  Oh well.

There are tons of different Pinterest links on how to do sourdough starters, so you can easily find directions that will work for you, but the following is what we did for Day 1.

We carefully cleaned our glass containers.  It needs to be a container that is made of glass, ceramic or plastic. A lid is a good idea, but if not, you will need something like plastic wrap or waxed fabric to cover it over with.

Emily placed about a cup of warm water and a cup of regular flour in her jar and then put it in a warm spot covered loosely.

My jar was bigger than Emily's, so I doubled it up and used 2 cups of lukewarm water and added one packet of quick rise yeast that I had stored in my freezer. I let that sit and soften for about 10 minutes then gradually added ½ cup whole wheat flour and 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour. I stirred this around until it was kind of thick like a pancake batter. Cover the jar tightly and put my "Herman" starter on the counter next to the "Wild One."

Tomorrow, Day 2, calls for us to remove half of our starter mix and dispose of it. We will then add half of the original amount of flour and water. I will then add a cup of flour and a cup of lukewarm water, mix thoroughly and cover and put it back on the counter until Day 3!

I will keep you updated on our progress.


Have you ever had a sourdough starter?

How about Bread Baking? Is baking bread a skill you have mastered or maybe you have fond memories of your grandma baking a loaf for dinner?

Here Comes the Sun

The warmth of the past couple of weeks has caused the snow to melt here in Winnipeg. The grass is getting greener and there are birds returning and bunnies hopping all over the place. Spring has finally reached Manitoba!

The sun is peeking out intermittently today and my daughter decided that she would take a break from her work and take the dog out to play in our backyard. She said getting dressed, putting on her shoes and leaving the house to get some sun made her feel happier and a lot more ready to get to focus on work again. I teased her when she came back in by playing  Here Comes the Sun by The Beetles.

I love that song. To me, it says to hang on, it has been a long difficult period but that this too shall pass.

The first online handle I had was the nickname  Rainy Gal because it seemed like every time I went camping it rained. I first got dial-up internet around 1998. Things were very innocent back then and I became part of an online "web design and shared learning group" where we linked webpages in our private websites to form a "mouse village".  Yes, really a bunch of adults. There were people there with varied knowledge and info and I learned about initial set up of pages, graphic design, animation, and HTML and even learned some javascript skills.

Together we designed graphics and animations and had our mice do little activities like telling stories and creating new digital furniture and clothes for them and had them do magic tricks. They even got to go camping. We had little digital prizes and certificates for our mice and our fellow creators. We really learned a lot from and about each other.

One of the big online things back then was to program webpages to automatically open with little music clips. This was all before YouTube existed. I had about 20 mousey pages all with different rain or cloud themed songs that I coordinated with the graphics and page content.  One of my favourite pages had the song Here Comes the Sun playing and I placed a sun animation and added my little mice family creations, all animated to jump up and down in the sunshine.

 It was a happy time.

Perhaps this fairly recent Abby Road release will get this hopeful song stuck in your head.

Here comes the Sun

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun

And I say it's all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes…

Update Time

It has been a fairly stressful nine days since I last wrote, but I didn't want to go much longer without an update. I kind of left things with a cliff hanger last time I posted. 

I know there are lots of people facing much worse challenges, and I am trying to just keep calm. I am painting for relaxation, I am doing mindful meditation, trying to keep to a regular routine. I am trying to leave home at home and being positive and happy at work for the residents and then go home and leave my work concerns at work.

My middle (adult) daughter is doing much better now after her respiratory infection, but there were some ups and downs. She had seemed better from last Friday, or so and then she started getting even shorter of breath again and coughing increased. She was sitting at her desk studying when she felt dizzy and passed out, hitting her head and found herself wondering how she wound up on the floor. We immediately called her doctor for an over the phone appointment. Her head wasn't hurt badly, but passing out is never a good sign.

 It looks like she developed a secondary infection. She may have bronchitis or pneumonia, so she was put her on an antibiotic, a different kind of inhaler, and she was given strict instructions to watch that she isn't getting dehydrated and to have frequent small meals. She seemed much better now and is continuing to improve. 

In the middle of all this, I got a call that workplace health and safety were waiving the rest of my 14-day quarantine, so I am back at work. I usually only work 26 hours biweekly, but I will be picking up a couple of extra shifts now.

My daughter that lives in Regina called about 5 days ago... to tell us that she had to take her beloved German Sheppard, Oliver, into the emergency vet clinic. He had to have immediate surgery with a very poor expectation of success. It was touch and go from hour to hour. The operation took more than twice as long as expected, and they removed a section of his colon and straightened out his intestines. He made it through surgery, and the next couple of days was constant slow recovery at home, but he is still not out of the woods. It is just "wait and see" for another day. She is having a little quality time with him cuddling. I wish I was there to cuddle her.

There have been a few other tension creating situations this week. You don't really want to read about how my washing machine leaked all over the floor and has now given up on us, do you?

I went to work yesterday evening for a few hours, and it was not easy, but I know that I am making a difference. It was hard to change gears for work at first, but the problems of my day went away once I focused on being present for my residents and bringing them comfort.

.

I plan to Keep Calm, Wash my Hands and hopefully we will soon find a way to get a new washing machine so I can wash my clothes too.

It Got Stressful at My Home

We are all concerned about COVID 19 and what it means to each of us. 

Indeed you should be concerned because this is changing how we work and play, how we raise our children, our cleaning habits, our health, economics and relationships.

This past week, one of our adult children that live with us became very sick with a respiratory illness. We don't know for sure what is wrong because she doesn't fall under the guidelines for testing. She would need to show that she had travelled recently, that she was around someone else with COVID 19 in the past couple of weeks, attended a large event, or is a health care worker. She was directed to get to the hospital if she became unable to catch her breath or speak in sentences.

Now, this was a good set of questions when our city had no cases or when we were early on and could track every contact that one affected person had, but we are long past that, and now people are picking up the virus through community contacts. It reflects the shortage of testing kits in the city and not necessarily the need to be tested. How would she know if she was in contact with someone with COVID 19? It's not like anyone else has been tested that she might have bumped into at her physio appointment or at the Grocery store because those people probably weren't on a plane either.

I am worried about my daughter. I was in a crazy cleaning and bleaching frenzy all while trying to pull off a fun and meaningful Easter weekend, because what else was there to do? No medication to administer for this disease, no sitting around cuddling my sick and potentially contagious daughter. I was watching to see if her breathing was getting more difficult and prepared to rush to the hospital.

She is on day 8 now, and she did not reach a point where we were scared enough to try and get her to the emergency department. Some of her symptoms have let up, but she still is not breathing well and is lethargic, but one positive sign is that she is starting to cheer up a bit and act more like herself.

I work as a front line health care worker, so I was told by the health department that because a household member is sick with a respiratory illness, I could not go to work for 14 days. I do agree with this quarantine because I would never want to risk the health of our residents or my coworkers. I don't know if my daughter has a cold, flu, or COVID 19. I do know that I don't want to risk bringing any serious illnesses to work.

I have mainly been feeling upset because of how helpless and powerless I feel. 

I know a lot about different aspects of this kind of crisis through my work as a Microbiologist and my years of working for the Department of Infectious Diseases at our University Medical College. I am not in a position to use my knowledge right now. I moved on to a different kind of job that I take great joy in, but it doesn't mean my interest or knowledge of my previous field went away.

I feel helpless at home, trying to protect my family.

I feel helpless watching groups of kids saunter by my house with those essential Slurpees in their hands.

I feel helpless when I see people gathered in parking lots, chatting before lining up to going inside and get groceries. 

I feel helpless when I see my coworkers learning how to wear protective garments and adjusting to how their work has changed.

I feel helpless when I watch politicians making risky decisions that I might not agree with.

I feel helpless watching family members who are students struggling with the changing online learning method that is not really the best fit for them.

I feel helpless knowing there are so many lonely people living with depression, anxiety and fear.

I think, for the most part, I am an optimist and rather on the practical side. I am realistic about what a significant impact this pandemic will have on us as individuals and upon our world. 

I keep thinking about the Serenity Prayer, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference."

 I will try to make a plan and then carry on; however, if my plan isn't working, I will have to accept that and adjust to our changing circumstances. I have to find the courage and do the work I need to do and help when I can. I need to care for my family when they need care and I will accept help gratefully should I need it. I need the wisdom to know what my limits are and believe me, that can be extra challenging for me some days.

I am going to keep cleaning and disinfecting my house and even my groceries, and I'm staying in place when possible and I will try to make sure everyone is eating nutritious food. I'm working on projects that make me happy, and some that might even help my family and others. There are a ton of online group activities and even credit courses that I am participating in online, and of course, there is facetime chatting with friends. Most of all, I will treasure this extra time with my family.

Basically, I am still doing the best I can to be Leading a Healthy Life.

photo credit Pixabay

There is Muffin Batter in my Fridge!

I worked this past weekend, and when I came home on Sunday night, I basically retreated to my room immediately after dinner because I was feeling completely drained and pretty stiff and sore. I had no energy left for anything. That night my daughter, Emily, made up the 6 Week Refrigerator Muffin batter, and I never even realized that she was doing it. Monday morning, I woke up to the wonderful smell of baking drifting down the hall. I was so surprised and happy that she made them for us, and it lifted my spirits. It was such a thoughtful, and yummy breakfast served along with some juice.

Years ago, when my kids were babies, I used to make a lot of basic food like yogurt, bread, ice cream and jams. One of our most useful and favourite recipes was the one for 6 Week Refrigerator Muffins. It is a pretty basic muffin recipe but made easier by using raisin bran cereal and buttermilk. The muffin batter fits in a plastic ice cream pail, and you can simply scoop out as much as you need for fresh hot muffins when you have a guest or just want a treat. I was a little suspicious back then that it wouldn't be good for 6 whole weeks, and I still can't answer that question because the stuff never lasts that long in our fridge without getting baked! 

During this period of social (physical) distancing, many of us have more time to bake and learn new skills. Still, we are finding that stress and uncertainty kind of sneak up on us, and focusing and being productive can become challenging from time to time. We want to make things fun, we want to eat healthily, but that can be hard to coordinate when shopping is challenging, and our family's daily routine is so disrupted. No one should feel bad about having off days when you just don't care if the dinner plan suddenly turns into a sandwich. Nor should they worry about trying to keep up with the elaborate activities friends are sharing on Instagram. 

(yes grin - I absolutely plan to put this pic of Jasper Dog looking lovingly at muffins on Instagram)

This batter has been a shortcut for me. It is a way of doing something one day to have something special and easy to use on another day when maybe life isn't going as planned.
It doesn't have to be my muffin recipe (though I bet you really would like it) It might be a frozen meal that someone else can pop in the microwave. Perhaps it could be forgetting about the dirty dishes and cuddling up and watching a feel-good movie with someone you love.

Just let go. Have some nice surprises ready for when you really need them and most of all, be kind to yourself.

Here ya go. The muffin recipe.

6-Week Raisin Bran Refrigerator Muffins

 Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 3 cups sugar 
• 4 cups buttermilk
• 6 cups bran flake cereal 

• 5 cup all-purpose flour 
• 5 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup oil

Method:

• Beat the sugar and eggs in your very large mixing bowl 
• stir in buttermilk, cereal flour, baking soda, salt and oil and mix  
• put in a storage container with a lid and keep in the fridge for up to 6 weeks

•  to bake anytime:pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees 
• put scoops of the batter into greased muffin 
• Bake for 15 to 20 minutes depending on the size of your muffin or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center. 

Notes:

It is essential to use the buttermilk, soda and sugar and oil as directed in order for it to last in your fridge.

The traditional cereal is a raisin bran style cereal, but there are now a lot of other bran flake style cereals out there with goodies like dried strawberries or almonds that I think would be a delicious option.