Like many, we are all staying at home and following the shelter-in-place order. We’ve been sheltering in place since March 15th (even though the orders weren’t enacted until March 17th) and now the orders have been extended to May 3rd.

My husband, who is an adjunct at a community college in the East Bay (and has now transition to online distance learning) but also works at Whole Foods, has been working a lot. While that makes me nervous - I’m thankful that he’s able to work and that his shift starts at midnight and is only out with the general public for about 30 minutes. Unfortunately - I haven’t really been able to earn any income during this time and have lost a great deal of commercial contracts. I’m learning to pivot and offer what I can as a non-essential business without breaking the shelter in place orders (product photography from home, writing more, helping my community in other ways and helping my clients navigate this storm - together)

These days and weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions and limiting beliefs. But I take it day by day. Baking and cooking a lot. The house is clean one minute and then not. The kids are playing well with each other then are at each other’s throats.

Some days - each room is filled with the sounds of a zoom meeting - from a second grader, a minecraft play on discord from my 10 year old, to an adjunct professor. Some days are great and I enjoy the sun hitting my face and drinking coffee in our kitchen nook area, watering my plants and being with my family. Other days (and quite frankly more days than I care to admit), I’m unfocused and struggle to get through the day. I wake up in the middle of night/early morning with anxiety and half of a panic attack - just not sure what to do.

This uncertainty is really challenging. Being at home is not since I work from home often and am naturally a home body. My daughter was definitely heartbroken when hearing there won’t be school at all this year (you can see her sadness in the photos below - this was around when we told her she wouldn’t be going back at all this year). My son on the other hand? He was elated. Each time we say we will be seeing our friends, like for a happy hour or like yesterday - for Easter, my daughter beaming with a smile all excited and then breaking the news that - no, it will still be online and not in person. That smile fizzles.

I miss my clients. I miss photographing happy & joyous occasions. I miss documenting hugs among family & friends celebrating. My heart breaks for each of my couples who have had to modify their plans or even cancel their wedding, at least for now with no set date in mind. It’s not at all what any of them thought to have to plan ahead for. But I hope to be a resource for those who need it - if you need to modify your plans or just have someone to vent or chat with. Please reach out! I know that together - we can get through this.

Anyway, here are snippets of life at our house during these times.

Day 19

Day 28 - Easter & Our 11th Anniversary

I was going to title this another way but decided that was probably not a good idea.

When we first got married 11 years ago - it was also on Easter. We had the small ceremony in our little hobbit house in Oakland with a few of our friends. And much like this day, 11 years ago - I was also baking and cooking - but more like a mad woman because I had the brilliant idea of making a main course (a large roasted chicken with a side of veggies and salad too), canning the jams I had made the previous day for favors and decorating my plain cake that I bought from a bakery in Chinatown (I’m not that mad - I wasn’t about to bake a cake - cause I am not a baker! But did work at one in my 20’s).

Anyway - I didn’t actually bake anything this day - because honestly, I’m sorta all baked/cooked out.

Since my group of close friends planned an Easter zoom party, I decided to dress nicely and get out of my usual uniform. I forced, I mean asked my family if we could also take a family photo - not super successful but that’s how it goes. I last minute decided that if I found my pack of plastic eggs that I had bought ages ago - I’d give in to the internet’s pressure to hold an egg hunt (because there was no way I was going to use real eggs) - but alas we had no candy in the house. But I had coins and did find a pack of almond roca’s left over from the beginning of the year (don’t judge!). The kids - weren’t as enthused as I would have liked but what can you do. I thought they would fight over the money. No, they fought over who found the ones that had the actual prize of “candy”.

Anyway..here’s some photos.

Here’s what I’ve been baking:

• Dutch oven bread - *adapted from this recipe (I let it rise a little longer)

• Sour Cream & Onion biscuits (but I used plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream and actually had some chopped up leeks left over from a dish previously so I used that instead)

• ”Buttermilk” biscuits - adapted from the recipe above - (no actual buttermilk but I still had some plain Greek yogurt and it worked out well the last time so I used that. I also reduced the amount of butter to just one stick!) but then Bon Appétit came out with a new, plain recipe - (haven’t tried it though!)

• Bagels - adapted from this recipe with insight from this youtuber.

• Sourdough Bread (thanks to a starter a photographer friend gave me)

• Sandwich Bread - adapted from the same youtuber (one of my faves so far and I’ve made it a few times now)

• Banana Bread - adapted from this recipe (I add a little more bananas and more of an egg because we don’t have large eggs)

How about you? What have you been baking, making, cooking or creating? OR if nothing is what you are doing - that is great too!! Sometimes it’s great to just not do anything and let it all just sink in. (one of the links is for a free phone wallpaper by the awesome Jen of itsjenmade -Thanks Jen!)

*So a note on when I say adapted. What I mean is, I didn’t follow the recipe to a T and that um, I don’t have a scale and try and convert to cups or teaspoons/tablespoons.. and that sometimes when something doesn’t look right (dough too wet, dough to dry?) I eyeball it and add things..I’ve never been great at following recipes when I cook and baking is quite hard when you don’t follow completely because there is a science to it and you can’t say replace one thing for the other when you don’t have one item in the recipe- like you can’t replace baking soda for one that calls for baking powder. And in bread baking - temperature really matters! Anyway I could go on about this..

I hope you are all safe and well. Sending love and lots of air hugs. For more information on the pandemic and shelter in place guidelines, please visit the CDC or your local public health site.

I’ll be posting some other resources tomorrow