Flynn, God love him, woke me up at 6 am today with his not-so-charming-at-this-hour food beg. It consists of a series of weird noises that don’t even remotely resemble a meow. Seriously, I’ve woken up in a panic several times, scrambling mentally to figure out who left an owl or a tribble or a hyena in our hallway. Freaking actors, man. Even our cats are in the biz. In return for this performance, he gets a bath, courtesy of the squirt bottle we keep beside the bed just for these special occasions. A quirt in the butt of cold water is kind of like a bouquet of roses at the curtain call, right? Ok, not really. We “negotiate” like this until I finally surrender at 9:30 and just get up.

Hubby is up before me today, sequestered in his office pulling his tax stuff together. He’s having as much fun as that sounds like. While he types and cringes and wishes he were doing pretty much anything else on the planet, I play a game of paper ball chase with Sybilla and launch into my yoga for the day.

Meditation will have to wait, because I’ve decided to do a new video. This one is about my skincare regimen, so we’re using the natural light of our bathroom, with a little help. Hubby brings a light up from the studio to balance out the sunshine, and it looks like a pretty darn good set-up if I do say so myself. Since I don’t have “lines” to mess up, and I’m literally walking the camera through my morning routine, I don’t have hair and makeup to worry about either. Perfect!

Before you know it, the video is done (I only get one take unless I want to wash my face over and over) and the edit begins. I still don’t have a comprehensive plan to promote these videos, mind you – that’s why I’m taking the online class – but I sure am having fun making them.

And this whole no makeup thing is one trend I’d definitely like to continue.

Video wrapped, I help the hubby with a little of his tax gathering. Actually, I think I just poke the bear and make it worse, but I at least intend to be helping. Maybe we’ll just put that task off until tomorrow… (slinks away silently)

Later in the day, the hubby and I embark on a much less stressful adventure known to photographers as the Great V-Flat Fiasco. We’ve made them before, and this deceptively simple process can get a little wonky in a hurry. It’s really just two foam boards taped together like a book, but that diminishes the ease of mucking this up. For starters, one side of each board is white and the other is black, and creating a hinge that works both ways with three different sizes and colors of tape is the challenge. Since we’ve learned (the hard way) to watch an instruction video for every single step (every – single – step) we pull it off without a hitch this time. Huzzah! A new V-Flat for the hubby’s next shoot…whenever that may be.

Remember when I said mom-in-law was making some crazy online purchases? So, along with ordering cheese the size of her head, she also ordered some salmon steaks. That sounds great on the surface, but when we opened them, we found they were three filets large enough to feed our entire neighborhood. And that’s fine, except, you can’t thaw only one of them, so you have to figure out how the heck to cook three gigantic steaks at once. We should have simply grilled them – cedar planks like my brother does it! – and been happy with that. But this is quarantine time, and that means folks around here start to get really creative about their cooking (I’m making baking videos for crying out loud! It’s a world gone mad). The hubby decides to butter poach two of the cuts, and oven bake the other to be used on bagels for breakfast.

I’m making rice next to him on our gigantor stove, and as I’m staring over at this giant skillet of butter and oil, my stomach is already queasy. Then, he adds butter and garlic to the asparagus too, and my heart sinks. My body is not going to tolerate this well. I’ll have grumbly tummy for days, and breakouts on my face, and itchy skin and scalp… oy. But it tastes good and I eat it with grateful appreciation for food and the loving hands who made it…and deal with paying the price later.

We’re trying out a new show for dinner called The Fall. It’s a murder mystery/detective thing. Not really my jam, but we’ve found some great ones in the past, and mom-in-law really digs this kind of show, so we’re giving it a shot. The hubby and mom-in-law love it. I’m not completely sold, but at least I don’t hate it. Looks like we don’t have to worry about what to watch for a while, and that’s worth sitting through just about anything in my book. There’s nothing more tedious than sitting down with a hot dinner, only to channel surf for 20 minutes trying to find something engaging, and having a cold meal once you finally land on entertainment we can all agree on.

We do squeeze in a meditation before sleep - I’d nearly forgotten it for the day. But we use the guided breath meditation from the Oak app to ease away the day and settle in for sleep.

The Daily Deets:

Exercise – Yoga with Adrienne (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBu-pQG6sTY)

Meditation – Mindfullness (https://www.oakmeditation.com)

Healthy meal – Poached salmon, rice, and garlic butter asparagus spears.

Creative – Video on skincare (https://youtu.be/zTDhkIOHuFI)

Gratitudes:

1 – I am grateful for meditation right before bed

2 – I am grateful for good skin and good products I can share in a video

3 – I am grateful for my live-in camera crew 

4 – I am grateful for the fair exchange of time and energy today. I got a video, hubby got a v-flat. Parity rocks.

5 – I am grateful that Flynn is a forgiving kitty… but if he does that again, he’s getting another bath!