Ellie's Life

Before Little Buddy was born, we would rent a canoe and go fishing and floating at least a couple times each summer. Since babies and canoes don’t exactly go together, it has been a few years since we have been able to enjoy this activity.

The other day, we had childcare and a free day, so we decided to take a trip down memory lane and rent a canoe for a five-mile trip. It was sunny and about 90 degrees, so just about perfect weather. We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grabbed sunscreen and water, and headed to the river.

The trip took about three hours, and I’m proud to say that I paddled most of it. Mr. Handsome hadn’t been fishing in months, so I let him sit in the back with his pole while I guided the way.

There were a few points where I may or may not have let out a few screams and begged Mr. Handsome to grab his paddle to help me avoid hitting a rock. Thankfully, we never did tip the canoe, although there were times when I felt like we definitely would, like when my husband decided to hang both legs over one side. I quickly requested that he not do that.

The scenery was beautiful, but the best part of the trip was spending time just the two of us. We adore our son, and we both look forward to the day when he is old enough to canoe with us, but sometimes it’s good to just be alone and do an activity together.

After canoeing, we cleaned up at home and were able to extend our date day with dinner at a nice restaurant.

Over the past year, we have really missed being able to visit farmers markets. My heart goes out to the small businesses who have missed out on the weekly revenue stream. The Nashville area has a bunch of farmers and artisans markets, and they are a great way to spend a Saturday morning with the family.

A lot of those events are opening up again, which has us feeling very grateful. This morning, we started with a trip to a coffee shop for iced lattes. I took the safe route and chose a standard decaf latte with no syrup or flavors.

For some reason, Mr. Handsome, who usually likes to stick to what he knows is good, was in a mood to try new things. He became interested in the special of the day, a beach-themed coconut latte made with coconut milk. “Those flavors don’t seem to go together in a latte, but these barista experts surely know what they’re doing,” he stated, as he ordered a medium.

“Mr. Handsome, you don’t like coconuts or coconut milk, so of course you won’t like them in a latte,” I cautioned. “You might just want a regular latte.”

“You only live once!” exclaimed Mr. Handsome. “Fire up the coconut latte.”

As we walked over to the farmers market, Mr. Handsome took his first sip of the latte, and his expression became sour. “Life is too short for coconut lattes,” he grimaced.

The farmers market was lovely. One of the vendors had miniature goats that were only a few weeks old. Little Buddy loved watching them, although he was convinced they were dogs. No matter what I said, I couldn’t convince him that they weren’t.

I ended up buying some farm fresh eggs (which were on sale for buy one dozen get another dozen free) and fresh carrots. Mr. Handsome bought a hand thrown pottery coffee mug. The frugal side of me quietly reminded him that we still have all 16 mugs that came with our wedding gift dish set, but he said he had fallen in love with this mug and just had to have it. I asked him if there’s any chance it will end up at the back of the cabinet like his other of favorite coffee mug, and he assured me that it wouldn’t. I’ll let you know what happens.

I hope everyone else has had a great Saturday. What have you readers been up to on this beautiful day?

What’s your favorite book?

When it comes to reading, my priorities are the Bible, devotional books (my current one is “New Morning Mercies” by Paul David Tripp), and books about parenting or marriage.

What’s your favorite music style?

In the car, I’ve always listened to contemporary Christian music, although that is slowly being overridden by Little Buddy’s toddler songs. I enjoy country music, as well.

Would you like to have a pet? Which animal?

I’m not much of an animal person. Years ago, I had birds and hamsters as pets, but I’m not a huge fan of bigger animals. Truthfully, I am quite afraid of dogs. Both Mr. Handsome and I are moderately allergic to furry creatures, as well. Growing up, he had outdoor dogs, and I had no dogs. If our children really want a dog when they are older, we might agree, but we would build it a heated home outdoors.

What’s your favorite dish/meal?

I’ve always had a hard time answering that question because it really depends on my mood, but I am pretty much always up for Italian food. I love fancy noodle dishes, and I have a special place in my heart for Cracker Barrel.

How many languages do you speak?

Just English, unfortunately. I studied French for six years and German for one, but I have forgotten a lot. Mr. Handsome learned Spanish in school, but he hardly remembers anything. I would love for our children to be fluent in a second language.

Will you homeschool your son?

We do plan on homeschooling, and we are looking forward to it. I recently purchased a preschool curriculum for two-year-olds.

Would you like to have a career/job outside the home?

From the time I was little, I have desired to be a full-time wife and mother, and that desire hasn’t changed. I really enjoy being able to blog from home, but my first priority during the day is taking care of my son.

What’s your favorite holiday?

Easter

If you named all of your kids using the same initial, what would it be?

We definitely couldn’t handle that. Coming up with baby names that we both like is a challenge, and I think it would be impossible if we had to stick to one letter.

Like a big portion of the United States, we have been stuck in our house for the better part of a week now. We have had several heavy snowfalls, as well as ice. Ice storms in the South are bad news. In my opinion, ice is much more dangerous than snow. At least snow provides a little traction on the road, but if you start sliding on ice, there is almost nothing you can do.

We have been hit with the double whammy of a sheet of ice with layers of snow on top. So you can’t see the ice, but it’s still causing travel to be treacherous.

Our temperatures have been below freezing since last Saturday, and it looks like we won’t see anything above 32 until this coming Saturday. Nashville doesn’t own many salt trucks because our snow usually melts within a day, so the city will continue to be a mess until the weekend. Up until yesterday, it was so cold that the salt being put on the roads wasn’t effectively melting any ice. The public works and metro police have repeatedly asked residents to say off the roads unless absolutely necessary.

With that in mind, we have not left the house since Sunday. Now I know that some of you have basically not left the house for almost a year due to the virus, which is very impressive. We are going a little stir crazy. It’s amazing how simple tasks such as picking up groceries or doing drive-thru coffee can break up the routine. And being stuck inside is even harder when you know that everything is closed and there’s literally nowhere you can go.

We also realized during all of this that we don’t own a snow shovel. Like I said, anything beyond a dusting is pretty much unheard of around these parts. We are now to the point where we can’t see the grass, with more snow expected this afternoon. After the first snowfall, I went out with a shovel meant for digging holes in the dirt and used it to remove a big pile of snow from in front of our door so we could open it.

This has been Little Buddy’s first chance to see significant snow accumulation, so it has been fun to take him for walks around the yard. He is very much enjoying it. He also had his first opportunity to sled with Mr. Handsome. We used a boogie board, which is meant for the ocean, but it did the job.

Speaking of Mr. Handsome, his office has been closed all week, so he has been doing lots of woodworking and house projects. He is making some things for Little Buddy that I am looking forward to sharing with you. Being snowed in has been a special time because we have been able to eat breakfast and drink coffee (well, milk for Little Buddy) together as a family. Usually during the work week, everyone is just running around trying to get the day started.

How many of you are snowed in, and what have you been doing to kill the time?

As we approach Election Day in the United States, we would like to put out a call to prayer for our nation. While there has been a lot of controversy surrounding this election, Christians can have perfect peace as we rest in the truth that God is in control.

Since the beginning of time, God has known the outcome. Whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump is voted in as president, God will still be on the throne, and Jesus will still be Lord. Christians who profess Christ as Lord and Savior know that this earth is not their home and that there is a wonderful paradise awaiting when they depart from this world.

No matter who wins in tomorrow’s election, we can place our full trust in God and know with perfect certainty that He holds our tomorrow. He will not be “responding” to the outcome, but He already has a plan in place that will ultimately be for our good.

Mr. Handsome and I enjoyed reading your comments about his haircut. I think it’s looking better as it grows out a little, and a little bit of facial hair is making him look older. I do miss his old haircut, though, and I’m grateful that he considers my opinion to be of utmost importance.

On another note, I wanted to share a photo of a cake I baked this weekend. As far as appearance goes, it was a complete and utter fail, but if you’re going on taste alone, it was a smashing success.

I was in a rush because we were headed out to our friends’ house for dinner. (Please no comments telling us that we are terrible people for leaving the driveway. We do support the wearing of masks in public places, and we have gone to great lengths to protect our family, but it makes me sad to see people on both ends of the spectrum being so critical of each other.)

I used a new gluten-free mix (Almond Flour Chocolate Muffin and Cake by SimpleMills). As you can tell from all the recipes on my blog, I don’t usually use mixes. In fact, this might have been one of the first times I have baked a cake that wasn’t from scratch.

But I needed a quick dessert, and this mix checks all my boxes. The ingredients are simple: almond flour, organic coconut sugar, cocoa, arrowroot, organic coconut flour, baking soda, and sea salt…that’s it. The total sugar content is lower that 99.9% of the desserts I’ve had, and it’s free of gluten, soy, corn, and dairy. What could be better? I know I’ll get at least one reader asking if this is a sponsored post for SimpleMills, so I want to add a disclaimer: This is in no way a sponsored post. I “simply” want to share one of my favorite products. See what I did there?

Now back to my saga. As I was trying to get the baked cake out of the pan, I made the mistake of not scouring the edges with a knife. Like I said, I was in a huge hurry. Unfortunately, only half the cake fell out onto the cooling rack. After a brief moment of panic, I decided to just put it all back in the pan and leave it. I had used a pie plate so it looked plenty fancy.

Due to my mistake, the cake no longer had a smooth top. My plan was to whip up some homemade buttercream frosting for the top, but I quickly decided that making enough frosting to fully cover the mistake would have added way too much fat and sugar.

I stuck toothpicks in the top of the cake so it wouldn’t stick to the plastic wrap, and we jumped in the car, disaster cake and all. To my surprise, our friends love the SimpleMills mixes, and they thought the cake was delicious. And quite honestly, they were right. So I would say my mission was a success. What do you think?

The other day, Mr. Handsome and I were talking about our annual photo book, which I had just started making. “Shouldn’t we just skip this year?” questioned Mr. Handsome. “We can pretend it never happened.” I assured him that, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, we still have plenty of memorable photos worth looking back at.

We recently took a vacation to the Florida panhandle. It really was the perfect “pandemic trip.” Locals consider the panhandle to be more of an extension of Alabama, and the number of COVID-19 cases did not mimic the rest of Florida. At least while we were there, the case count was very low.

We rented a tiny condo with a small kitchen and balcony. The beach was across the street, and there was plenty of space to “social distance” while enjoying the salty air. We didn’t even have to use the public bathrooms. While we were there, a hurricane was hitting a nearby state, so the dangerous riptide prevented us from being able to swim. Even though we were expecting to spend most of the time inside, the rain was not nearly as frequent as forecasted, and we even had some periods of sun.

The “beach ambassadors” were very careful to inform everyone that the double red flag meant that swimming was prohibited. Unfortunately, Little Buddy did not understand any of that, and he desperately wanted to go in the water. We let him walk to the edge, but if we had let go of his hand, he would have gone straight in. That’s just the kind of kid he is.

My niece, on the other hand, is terrified of water and starts bawling when her feet hit the sand, whether she’s at the ocean or a lake. I find it very interesting to hear about the different reactions that kids have to certain situations.

Our vacation only lasted a few days because Mr. Handsome had to return to work. We were able to go biking one day, with Little Buddy in a trailer. Thankfully, it was during his naptime, so he fell asleep. For the short time that he was awake, he was not thrilled to be strapped in.

We found one restaurant with outdoor seating that served fresh fish, and we ate there three times. And that was about all we did. A very laid, back, relaxing vacation.