For me personally this week was pretty nice because I felt it was probably the first “normal” work week since this all began. In the previous eight weeks a core group of us have implemented a citywide COVID leave plan, a federal emergency sick leave plan, numerous changes to our timesheet program for both the new leave codes and other information for “tracking purposes only”. It’s been crazy and at times quite frustrating. Trying to communicate via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, emails, etc when when all of us are trying to work remotely at least a few days a week. Getting efficient and effective communication has been difficult at times. I will be the first to admit to having some frustrations about trying to get a point across to more than one person via email.

I’ve also been able to actually do some of my normal work that was pushed to the side for the past two months. Unfortunately some of the new projects and initiatives that I wished to start may either be delayed or just dead in the water for now.

Oregon has started to slowly reopen towards the end of this week. Unfortunately I think that in 3-4 weeks we will get another surge in cases and that things will have to revert again for some time. My personal feelings are that people are going to just forget about personal distancing and as restaurants and bars start to reopen those places will become incubators for transmission. Now remember I’m not a doctor or epidemiologist, I’m just an accountant. I guess we shall see how the next few weeks pan out.

Mia and I have also finally gotten the chance to turn our attention to some home projects. Many of these were planned for last year but the Great Laundry Flood of 2019 screwed all that up. Those house repairs are FINALLY all done!

We removed all the bark mulch from around the fence line and installed some landscaping fabric/weed barrier and some edging too.

We got a little smart with the stone purchase. I only needed about 1.25-1.5 cubic yards of stone. The smallest amount I could get a quote on was 2 cubic yards. That would have been way more than we needed. Instead we hit up Home Depot and for the base layer used a basic river stone. For the top layer we are using some colored stone that is slightly larger.

We’ve got to get around another 30(!) bags of the colored stone to finish off the project. I hope to swing into Home Depot a couple times during the week and pick up 10 or so bags at a whack. I pass it if I drive to work and right now the weather is looking like that could be a possibility instead of biking. Worst case is another trip next weekend to stand in line (again).

I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to bake this weekend. After a quiche, pumpkin bars, bread pudding and a pecan pie over the past few weeks I was kind of at a loss for what was tickling my fancy.

I had an additional pie crust left over from last weekend. I also wanted to clean out some of the freezer. Back in 2017 we picked about 15lbs of blueberries at one of the local farms. We froze at least 10 of that lot and have used them for various things since then. We had maybe 3.5 cups left and I was determined to use those up.

I found this recipe for Blueberry & Sour Cream pie. I have had a sour cream based pie at some point in my life but can’t remember when or where. This recipe was very easy. I did doctor it up a bit by adding some cinnamon and vanilla to the batter. I also added some cinnamon and nutmeg to the crumble topping.

The verdict? Not bad. I’d probably cut back on the sugar in the crumble by about a third to maybe a half. Maybe add some oats or chopped nuts instead. I just ate a piece warm and it was good. The recipe mentions that it is good both warm or cold. I’ll find out the cold part tomorrow.

That is about it for now. Thanks for reading.

-Pete