Bleak Week 2021

Normally we celebrate Bleak Week in the 3rd or 4th week of January but since we were otherwise occupied with feeling awful and being contagious and being too grumpy to celebrate anything at all, we put it off. Turns out that celebrating in the 1st week of February isn't such a bad idea. We were feeling actually not as bleak, since we knew we had made it through January already!

Here's what we did:

Monday: Shrimp cocktail and fresh flowers from Costco made our first day fun. Plus, I brought home surprise desserts from Gourmandise Bakery which we ate together while sitting in a circle on the living room floor, forks in hand. The hazelnut cheesecake was not what I had hoped for but the raspberry napoleon, tiramisu, creme brûlée and chocolate mousse were fabulous.

Tuesday: Dancing and singing to loud music. Too loud for Emma. Also we played a few rounds of apples to apples - I think on this night but it might have been another night. I can't remember! But we had all the belly-laughing I was hoping for.

Wednesday: we baked treats and delivered them to a couple of families in the neighborhood.

Thursday: Out to dinner to the kids' new favorite spot, the Korean BBQ Ombu. We didn't get as many weird experimental tastes (no tongue this time) and we learned that the giant shrimp are not worth it (too hard to peel). But the bulgogi? So worth it. Worth two orders actually. And Chase went for a whole mackerel that I was not very interested in. It's so fun though. 

 

 

Friday: pizza and a movie for the kids while Troy and I went out for Greek food with friends. 

Saturday: Crystal Hot Springs, and we got the Burnetts to join us again, to our delight. If we had not already had Covid we would have been very nervous. It was absolutely jam-packed. But the hot water was magically soothing. Plus we always end up back at the Burnett's place for tasty food and a little hanging out. 

Oh and also here are some other happy things -

Emma had a school assignment to do a report on Medieval Food and she had to make a model of a Medieval feast. She did such a great job! Fun fun details that she worked so hard to get just right:

Also, I started working on my aunty-sweater with my Christmas yarn and it is fabulously satisfying. I call it my aunty-sweater because my dear Aunt Rosanne bought me the pattern a year ago when she was here with my dad as he was sick. It was really nice of her. The sweater is occasionally intimidating and yes I've had to go back a few inches from time to time to get things right, but overall very fun and I love it. Yes, of course it's sage green, like everything else in our house.

Here's the back, partially finished:

Bleak week was definitely a success this year. We had more to celebrate like being done with January and being done with Covid. The light is returning, the air is warming, we are going to make it.