Quarantine: February 2021
What do you do when it’s your birthday but you can’t leave the house, you can’t have friends over, and everything is buried under two feet of snow? You order a cake through the mail and sit in your pajamas eating it slice by beautiful slice while you drink Brandy Alexanders and watch Broadway musicals.
Here is a cutaway of the Milk Bar Birthday Cake (we got the 6” mini cake). Milk Bar has many fabulous cakes and treats you can have delivered right to your porch, for any special occasion or even just anytime you need sprinkles and way too much frosting in your life.
Our signature Birthday cocktail of 2021 is the classic Brandy Alexander. It’s comprised of cognac, crème de cacao, and cream (or your favorite non-dairy creamer). Traditionally it’s garnished with nutmeg, but I went with pumpkin pie spice because it’s extra fancy. Also I have a whole jar of it and really need excuses to use it more than once every November.
And as it turns out, I did get a birthday party after all. In Animal Crossing.
You know you’ve been in quarantine too long when you get emotional at a virtual cat surprising you with a birthday party inside a video game. What can I say, Tangy was my first neighbor in Animal Crossing City Folk back in 2008 and she was such a ray of sunshine in a very dark time in my life. We’ve been inseparable since, through New Leaf, Pocket Camp, and now in New Horizons. I know this is weird. I really do. But this game is my happy place and way cheaper than therapy.
When I die, upload my consciousness into Animal Crossing.
Back to reality. The world is frozen, the sky is gray, and everything lies sleeping under a heavy blanket of ice.
With the Christmas decorations put away, the house feels very bland, so I scoured Etsy and found this gorgeous wreath to brighten up our door. It’s stunning and now I think I need a wreath for every month of the year. Not only are the beautiful and colorful, they help create boundaries between months, which are truly blurring together now. And they give me something to look forward to.
We’re also bringing green into the house with this awesome hydroponic space farm that Mike gifted me for Christmas. We are growing basil, parsley, mint, thyme, and dill. You really cannot beat fresh herbs, especially in the middle of winter, and now we have a ready supply in the kitchen.
On the subject of herbs, we Marie Kondo’d our spice drawer. The drawer was chaos, all the different bottles of different sizes made it impossible to organize or find what you’re looking for. So I ordered a box of uniform-sized spice jars (square, so they don’t roll around) that came with spice jar labels.
And we redid the whole drawer. If you’re looking for a small project to ward off boredom, this is just the thing.
I cannot tell you how soothing it is now to open the spice drawer and see exactly where everything is at a glance. We did run out of jars towards to end, but more are on the way and it will soon be perfect.
Time for a bird update! The snow might be piling up but Mike, official groundskeeper and bird whisperer, keeps the feeders stocked. The moon bird feeder is especially pretty right now and the nuthatches sometimes just chill there when the snow comes down really heavy.
And our Hairy Woodpecker makes frequent stops in the yard now. We’ve even caught him on the feeders a few times.
Hopefully next month the snow will melt and we’ll seen blue skies and grass again. I miss the grass. I miss leaves and flowers. And I really miss spending time outdoors, laying by the pool, with a cold drink and the sunshine beaming down upon me. It’s just not the same in February.
