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My thoughts are obsessively overtaken with themes of gratitude. I am so grateful that my friends and family are healthy, that although I am no longer working due to the pandemic my husband is still employed and that we are able to take this road trip and get away from reality for a bit. This privilege does not ever escape my mind. Accepting these blessings from the universe without returning the favor is just not an option in my perspective. If you are healthy and employed, I hope that you are also giving back in whatever capacity you can. Mooching from the plentiful blessings life has brought my way, would be a self-centered and thoughtless way to live. Those who can help, should. It is our social responsibility to give back to our earth, to those in need, and to our communities. Below are lists of organizations my family has donated to along with ways we have dedicated our time to serve other humans over the past five months. Both helping others financially and with your time are equally important. I hope that the list below inspires you with some ideas of getting involved in the act of helping others. Volunteering: As many of you know, my family has participated in monthly community service events for the past four years, serving a variety of communities and organizations. During the Covid era, it is especially difficult to come up with ways to serve others when everything is shut down and new social distancing guidelines have been put in place. We had to brainstorm and came up with these ways to give back, with our time: 1- Last month I organized a big buddy/little buddy community comprised of a dozen teens who are matched with elementary school-aged kids for weekly zoom lessons to help with academic concepts or just have fun together. While my older son helps his little buddy with math concepts, my younger two children play games like freeze dance with their young, new friends. This has been a positive way for them to help other families entertain, and help, their kids while they struggle to work from home and keep their kids occupied. 2- We have an Instagram page called KindnessCult. My kids either played instruments for other kids to enjoy their music and they also held live, weekly Instagram storytimes for younger kids to enjoy. 3- We made beautiful cards for our UPS and FedEx drivers and left them on our porch thanking them for working during these trying times. Can you imagine if we couldn't get our Amazon deliveries? 4- My husband bought bouquets of flowers and gave them, along with cards we made, to the awesome cashiers at the grocery stores we shopped from regularly. We considered these employees as essential as hospital workers and we wanted to make sure they knew it! 5- We made notes and cards for essential workers thanking them for all their heroic work during these tumultuous times. 6- I called my local precinct in NYC and asked if we could donate money. I was told they cannot accept monetary donations but that having food/meals delivered would be a welcomed treat. 7- We sprinkled our local bay with inspirational and uplifting words that we drew on stones and rocks to hopefully bring smiles to other's faces as they passed by. Donating: Since our kids have been very little we encouraged them to donate 10% of any monetary gifts they have been given. About once to twice a year we gather the donations collected and decide which charities to give to. In addition, my husband and I support organizations that mean a lot to us. Here are the not-for-profits we have been supporting since the pandemic: 1- GreenPeace 2- Pandemic of Love 3- Chabad of Tribeca 4- Jewish Learning Institute 5- Animal Haven 6- Ocean Conservancy Please share with me how you and your family have been engaged in community service during the pandemic and what your favorite charities are. We need new ideas on our end too!

Challah. This bread conjures up so many emotions and memories. No matter where we are in the world, we have challah every Friday night. Since the pandemic erupted, and life slowing down, I have been able to bake challah weekly. When I think of challah, I think of happy children, a table filled with friends and family as we break the bread, little hands of my little helpers picking at the dough and helping me braid, Saturday morning traditions of french toast for breakfast, a kitchen overwhelmed by the aroma of freshly baked bread... Prior to the Covid era, I use to make large batches of challah and freeze them post-baking so that I only had to make them once a month. Nowadays, as I mentioned, I either bake weekly or make enough for two weeks. I know many are intimidated by baking their own challah but it really is not that difficult and if you bake large batches that you can enjoy in the weeks ahead it becomes a less daunting task. You can also make the dough the night before you bake it and let the first rising happen in the fridge overnight, which will save you two hours of rising time the next day. I like to try new challah recipes and always give them my own touch. I like the NY Times recipe along with Torey Avey's recipe. My kids, like most kids, love everything chocolate so chocolate chip challah is a must in my home. Rather than top the challah with chocolate chips, I incorporate them into the dough. I use Ghirardelli 65% dark chocolate chips, approximately 2 cups. I have also put cocoa powder into the flour mix or mixed Nutella into the dough. You can have fun with your own culinary expressions! White chocolate chip/peanut butter was a big hit with the family too. Last year I went to a women's challah making class and I learned of savory challah recipes like scallions and black sesame seeds and zatar. Really, you can't go wrong so feel free to experiment. Consider being creative with your egg wash too. I often add brown sugar to it or honey or maple syrup or agave. You get the point. Challah. May you all be blessed with challah in your lives. Give it a try, you won't regret it!

I can't believe our month in Hilton Head has come to an end. I will forever remember the colors of the island: green and blue. The lush landscaping surrounded by blue seas will be embedded in my memory always. Below I will share some of our itineraries over the month so that you can easily plan your stay here too! First, I'd like to highlight that living here the past four weeks has brought me to a place of mental stillness I have not enjoyed in many years. Unlike other vacations, this one required no planning. We truly mastered the art of "playing it by ear" and "figuring it out" along the way. Our daily one hour family reading blocks have allowed me to read more books than I have in the past year. My three weeks of detox at the start of the trip really allowed me to do some deep thinking and soul searching without trying to avoid some of the frustrations and pain masked by wine at the end of the day. I have also slowly come to realize which friendships are true friendships, noticing the plethora of text-based friendships I have compared to the few relationships where I actually have conversations with my friends. I have redefined the meaning of busy. New Yorkers are extremely busy, even during a pandemic and surprisingly even during a lockdown. I used to be busy too. Now I realize that I created this busyness in order to assimilate to the NYC lifestyle. I literally had conversations with friends focused on how busy we were, they often felt competitive; who is the busiest? Looking back now, this busyness was just as unimportant as the row of Valentino shoes that are now living in my closet unworn and untouched for the past five months. I have learned that life is so much better when I focus on the abundance of time that I do have and when I surround myself with people who are not too busy. Finally, as we are about to embark on the next leg of our road trip, I feel more certain that returning to NYC is not in the best interest of my family right now. It's been quite a journey this month. If I could track my thoughts over the last four weeks in miles, they would definitely outnumber our countless biking mileage. Also, worth noting is that when we first arrived on the island no one, and I mean no one, wore a mask besides the five of us. It was quite eerie seeing droves of people mask-less during the Covid outbreak. How did they miss the memo? People were out and about in large groups, without masks and not following social distancing guidelines. We were speechless. Over the last two weeks, we have seen a huge change in patterns. Now, I would estimate that 50-60% of folks wear a mask on the small path that leads to the beach, in public outdoor spaces, and on the bike paths. Living here has also been a huge contrast from the ubiquitous NYC far left/liberal talk. Hearing anti-democrat rhetoric among people you walk by has certainly caught my attention. I am not insinuating one is better than the other, I just appreciate a new perspective. Itinerary: We rented a house through BestNest by Beverly Serral, a rental service run by Beverly who lives part-time in NYC's West Village. The property is impeccably clean and very well stocked. We had all the cleaning supplies, toiletries, laundry and dishwasher pods, beach gear, and paper goods we could ever need for the entire month. Besides food, we did not have to buy a single item to keep the house running. I highly recommend renting through this company. Before arriving, we ordered bikes for the month from Hilton Head Outfitters. They delivered the bikes to our property before we arrived and they will pick them up on our check out date. Bikes are a must on the island. We calculated at least 150 miles of bike riding over the past month. Sea Pines, the gated community we are in, has 17 miles of bike trails itself. I think Hilton Head Island has 60 miles of bike trails. We rode these bikes twice daily. We rode to the beach, to the Stoney Baynard Ruins, to the golf courses, to Greenwood Nature Preserve Park, to the different neighborhoods, to get ice cream, to get smoothies, to search for alligators, to see the horses at the stable, to Sea Pines Forest Preserve. We just rode and rode and rode and honestly, never ran out of things to see! My husband and I grew up in South Florida where the summers are sweltering hot in August. We expected a hot and humid experience in South Carolina as well. Instead, the weather has proven to be just perfect. The island is well shaded by the oak trees keeping us cool at all hours of the day. The evening temperatures are just right and the days are not too humid. My favorite weather pattern here is the almost daily rain shower- mother nature calling everyone in for a quick siesta. We got caught in the rain on our bikes, on a boat, on a golf cart and with each shower, I felt exhilarated by the warm raindrops that showered our bodies with its' kisses. The rain disappears as quickly as it comes, hopefully, you'll be lucky enough to catch it! We frequented the private beach at Sea Pines. To avoid the crowds we tried to arrive by 9:30 am, which is mostly low tide yielding large stretches of sand and ample space to social distance. The water is beyond refreshing, a perfect temperature especially for folks like me that hate cold waters! A couple of times we visited South Beach in the evening to enjoy the sunset and a different landscape. This last week jellyfish decided to hit the beach and unfortunately, my husband, daughter, and older son each got stung on different occasions. Regardless, we prevailed and kept answering the ocean's beckoning to come into her waters. (The first two pictures below show a less crowded beach early in the morning. The one to the left is what it looked like by 11:30 am, time to go! Below are pictures of South Beach.) Just recently I began to feel comfortable ordering take out. On Saturday nights we ordered food from either Truffles or Chow Daddy because we loved their selection and quality. Over the last two weeks, we began a tradition of running one mile as a family to Lowcountry Produce Market & Cafe to order smoothies. Every Wednesday after dinner we rode over to Salty Dog for the best ice cream I have ever had. It is so good that I grabbed my own scoop each time rather than just snatching a bite from my kids. Besides these places, we really didn't experiment with much food-wise but we absolutely loved everything we had at all of these spots. In previous posts, I mentioned day trips to Savannah, Dafuskie Island, and Old Bluffton. Another favorite adventure was a visit to Pinckney Island, about a twenty-minute drive from Hilton Head. We hiked four miles throughout this natural preserve. Although we didn't spot any gators we did see dozens of different bird species and even deer! Pinckney is a wonderful hiking spot and a great way to connect with nature and your fellow walking partners. I should mention that Hilton Head Island is chock full of wildlife. On a regular basis, we would spot alligators, a plethora of bird variations, deer (I had no idea there would be deer here!), and dolphins. Yes! Dolphins in the wild! One morning we were at the beach and we saw a pod swimming 100 feet from the shore! When you're out on a boat you will see dolphins as often as you will spot birds. To me, this is drawn to the island in itself! (First row of pictures are of Pickney. Others are of wildlife we spotted in Sea Pines on Hilton Head Island). After watching "The Big Year" on a family movie night we thought it would be fun to head over to The Audubon Newhall Preserve, break up into teams and see who can photograph the most types of bird species. Although we failed miserably at spotting birds (the winning team photographed only three birds) we succeeded at finding huge spiders in webs, turtles, fish, and water snakes. Initially, I was afraid to be left alone with my daughter because we read about the massive alligators that live in the pond and roam around, but once I talked myself out of being a scaredy-cat we had a blast walking the different trails in search of wildlife. The coolest part of this experience was the cacophonous singing of the birds. We knew they were all around us but just couldn't quite spot them in the towering trees. Another memorable excursion was a private boat ride to Vanishing Island with Dolphin Tours Hilton Head. Our captain led us to sea alongside dancing dolphins until we arrived at Vanishing Island, an island in the middle of the ocean that only appears during low tide. As soon as we hopped off the boat we knew we were in for a real treat. The first twenty feet or so of sand were filled with starfish. I have never seen starfish move before. They wiggle and move like octopuses as they search for their way back into the water. The sand bar was also filled with sand dollars that the kids loved collecting along the way (we made sure they only picked up the dead ones and only brought two home with them). We were literally standing on a sandbar in the middle of the ocean! Instead of eating our lunch on the boat ride back, we decide to have it picnic style, on the sand bar because when would we ever have the chance again to have lunch surrounded by starfish in the middle of the sea? This is a must-do when visiting Hilton Head Island. Regardless of the multitude of activities the island offers, some of the best moments were spent at home. Every day, after lunch me and the kids spend one hour reading. It is fun to be at a point where we can all share and switch off on the books we are enjoying. After reading they spent thirty minutes of workbook activity time. On Friday and Saturday evenings we continued our family movie night tradition, which we implemented when we were in Long Island at the start of the pandemic. Another fun home activity has been journal writing. Before starting our road trip I bought a journal for each of the kiddos and they write an entry every day. Although they don't believe me now, I know they will one day love looking back at these entries. This blog is my own journal capturing our memories, adventures, struggles, challenges, and evolution during this pandemic. Pool time was also a favorite home activity. Personally, my favorite pool memories were the days my daughter and I swam alone and pretended to swim like mermaids, or played lifeguard, or teacher- she seriously taught me how to do so many things! For example, thanks to her I learned how to do a headstand against the pool wall. This is not so easy since our bodies are buoyant! Of course, the countless meals we have eaten at home together are one of the things I am most grateful for during this pandemic. Since mid-March, we have sat at the dining room table together for three meals a day and miraculously have never run out of things to talk about. Overall, I think we had a great balance of indoor and outdoor time ensuring we were active while having enough downtime at home, which nothing can ever compete with. With all that Hilton Head offers, you can easily spend a month getting lost on the island and in your thoughts. Enjoy!

Old Town Bluffton, approximately thirty minutes off the shore, is such a sweet coastal town. Its charming character is preserved through its' architecture and a mix of old and new retail shops and antique shops. There is even a Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop! Each Thursday it holds a farmer's market from 12:00 pm-3:00 pm. Unlike other markets we have been to where farmers line up their tables in one central area, this market is spread throughout the main street in different nooks and sections which ensures that you spot the many art galleries and unusual stores as you farm stand hop. Coming from NYC I couldn't help but compare the experience to shopping at the Union Square Greenmarket. Although NYC's market has a much larger selection, it is also very dauntingly flooded with people. In my twenty-two years living in Manhattan, I have never bought more than one item from one stand during a visit because I found the crowd too overwhelming. I certainly have never made a plan to go to the market, I only stopped by when I was in the neighborhood. How easy today's experience was, despite the thirty-minute drive. Drive. Park. Stroll the village. Have lunch (make sure waitress wipes down table first and I wipe every glass, plate rim, and silverware handle with alcohol swabs). Stop at farm stands. Select the beautifully harvested berries. Smile. Be on your way. Living on Hilton Head Island for the past month has really opened up a whole new, stress-free way of living. Unlike other summers where we travel abroad and move around a lot, we have really settled here and have been taking in a much more relaxed lifestyle.

Savannah is just one of those cities that oozes Southern charm. This was my third visit to this charming city in Georgia, and hopefully not my last, because I truly love this town more each time I stop by. Its location serves as a perfect day trip from Hilton Head Island, only a 45-minute drive away. Considering the soaring summer temperatures, we planned to arrive early to beat the heat as much as possible and left by 3:00 pm when temperatures peak. This visit was extra special because for once, my husband actually planned the itinerary which is something that I always have done in our past adventures. I loved being led by him around town to check out the spots he deemed visit-worthy. He executed a pretty impressive itinerary and my children and I have forgiven him for the imperfect planning and the never-ending walk in the heat "to the river" (i.e River Street). We have given him a pass, just this once! We started our route at the Mikve Israel Synagogue, the third oldest Jewish congregation in the US, built-in 1733. Conde Nast names it as one of the 15 most beautiful synagogues in the world. Surprisingly, there are 400 families in the congregation today. I had no idea there was a Jewish community in Savannah! We continued our walk towards Forsyth Park, one of the most romantic parks I've ever been to (not surprising since it is inspired by French park landscaping designs). As you walk towards the iconic fountain you are surrounded by oak trees draped in Spanish moss and quickly become enveloped by floral fragrances and lush landscaping. It's just a little piece of shaded heaven. The Historic District is where we seemed to get tripped up. The walk there from Forsyth Park was not shaded, nor scenic. We were disappointed when we finally arrived to find a less impressive architectural style and a lack of greenery. Since we are trying to be as conscientious as possible during Covid, we did not check out any of the museums that cover the area. The sun was pounding down so we decided to walk "to the river" which put us at another hour of trekking through the heat, but we made it, finally! The last time we visited Savannah was on St. Patrick's Day and River Street was packed with people celebrating. It was a stark contrast to see how bare the crowd was this time around. Our kids were not fond of this area- too hot and lots of homeless people- but when I found online stories of the ghosts from the past who like to visit, they quickly came around. Since River Street is a bunch of shops and restaurants, and we were unable to enjoy either due to Covid, we didn't get to enjoy the area as much as we normally would. Next, we walked over to Emmet Park to grab a shaded spot in the grass and to refuel and re-energize with our takeout lunch from B Matthew Eatery followed by ice cream at Leopold's. My almond buttercream scoop was dee-lish and just what I needed to keep me cool as we continued to walk the city. On our drive to Savannah, I read the kids stories of its haunted past and common ghost sightings. They were mesmerized by all the tales and eye witness accounts of these tortured spirits lurking around. When we stopped by The Davenport House and Sorrel Weed House they already knew all about its haunted past and were glued to the buildings asking questions and imaging the distressed deaths around the love triangle in the Sorrel Weed House. Our oldest son wanted to visit Chippewa Square to find the famous bench scene shot at the beginning of "Forrest Gump". We walked around in circles trying to find it until I finally found an article on google informing us that the bench was an added prop in the movie and cannot be found in the park. Oops! We got to see a beautiful bride and her wedding party instead. There is so much history in Savannah, the architecture and landscaping takes me away to another era, the people exude southern hospitality, I just love it! Despite this Covid Era, most people were still walking around unmasked, except in stores/restaurants. Leopold's did a good job allowing no more than 12 customers into the parlor at a time. We never leave the house without our masks, Purell and wipes. I wipe down every spoon, ice cream cup, take out container, water bottle, etc... At first, it was daunting to frantically wipe everything down so I didn't see the purpose of dining out but now that we have gotten used to this new normal it has really opened up a whole new world for us as we can begin to enjoy take out meals, ice cream treats, restaurants, etc... In fact, in this magical city, my kids hit some swings in a park for the first time in months (yes, I wiped down the swing seats and metal chains too, ha!) Savannah broke me into this new willingness to enjoy these small outings and for that, I love her, even more, the third time around.

One of the new traditions we began during the pandemic is "family movie nights" on Fridays and Saturdays. Our kids look forward to these nights and quickly fall into their routine of pouring a glass of milk and filling a plate with homemade desserts and grabbing a blanket as they run to claim their spots. It's always a struggle for us to find movies that appeal to all three of our kids which are also appropriate for their age levels. Our almost 14-year-old thinks he is old enough to watch most movies. We disagree. However, we will watch movies like "Platoon" with him when the younger two are already in bed. At this point, we have succumbed to movies with bad language but even with this exception, it is extremely difficult to find great movies that don't have sex scenes. I often wonder WHY the decision is made to even throw in these scenes when they have nothing to do with the movie! For example, my husband and I really liked "Come Hell or High Water". Our oldest could have totally watched it except that the three-second, pointless sex scene in the movie killed any hope for him to watch this film. Are we too prude? In seventh grade, he had friends who watched Game of Thrones. Personally, I thought that was ridiculous. Do some parents really not monitor what their kids watch? Are we too strict? I don't know... and I honestly don't really care what choices others make for their kids' viewing pleasures but we will stick to our guidelines for now. I am sure there are parents out there who won't agree with our allowance of movie screenings with bad language for a ten-year-old and that is ok too! We use Common Sense Media as a guide to our decision makings and often hold the remote control closely to quickly skip over scenes we don't want them to be exposed to yet. For example, our kids absolutely love Jim Carey movies but unfortunately, they are ridden with sex. "Cable Guy" is pretty harmless except for a couple of scenes where the sexy talk is a bit overwhelming for our taste but we just skipped over them and still got to enjoy a funny flick. In fact, they loved this movie so much we watched it twice! I hope the list below helps some of you who are looking for some good movies that are appropriate for younger kids albeit the bad language and some violence. I highly recommend reading the Common Sense Media reviews closely so that you are well prepared to hit fast forward on that remote! · Green Book · Trolls World Tour · Scoob · The Upside · Father of the Bride · Hunger Games, all of them · Dark Waters · Contagion · Zoolander · JoJo Rabbit · Dumb and Dumber · Tropic Thunder · Stand By Me · Encounters of the Third Kind · Mrs. Doubtfire · Monty Python and the Holy Grail · Indiana Jones 1-3 · The Dark Night · Knives Out · Clue · The Matrix · Gravity · Three Amigos · Captain Phillips · The Pursuit of Happyness · Cinderella Man · The Imitation Games · Onward · Big Daddy · That Thing You Do · School of Rock · Rockaway · Napolean Dynamite · Concussion · Unbreakable · War of the Worlds · Signs · Dead Poet Society (did not complete) · Cable Guy · Shaun of the Dead · The Big Year · Blinded by the Light · Rise of the Planet of the Apes · Ace Ventura, Pet Detective · Titanic · Dodge Ball: A True Underdog Story · The Wizard of Lies · Field of Dreams · Good Morning Vietnam · Free Solo · What Dreams May Come · Ford v Ferrari · Captain Marvel · Planes, Trains & Automobiles · A Beautiful Mind · 127 Hours · Interstellar · Oceans 11 · Twilight · Tenet · Lincoln (only made it through half) · The Phenomenon · Soul · WW84 ·Hamilton ·Fire in the Sky If you have any films that your family has really enjoyed, please share them. We have several months ahead of where it is just the five of us and need as much entertainment as we can get!

These tasty treats always get my juices flowing for a few reasons: they are delicious, they are freezer friendly so I make a large batch and freeze half, and the ingredient combinations are endless. For this recipe, I used Barefoot Contessa's apricot rugelach recipe. I love the bite-size cookies the recipe yields allowing me to pop them in my mouth throughout the day! I saved the extra sugar and cinnamon mixture used for sprinkling and combined it with the leftover filling and used it in my french toast batter the following morning. Also, I used pecans instead of walnuts. Next time, I will make chocolate almond rugelach to please my chocoholic daughter, or perhaps Nutella with hazelnuts, or maybe raspberry with walnuts, or white chocolate cream with macadamia, or chocolate coffee, or .... see, the possibilities are endless!

We spent the day on Dafuskie Island today. It's a small island, with roughly 400 inhabitants, which you can only get to by boat. No grocery stores, no high school, no bridges to the mainland. On a private taxi, it takes 25 minutes to get to from Bluffton or 60 minutes on the public ferry. Regardless of the form of transportation, you are almost guaranteed to see several dolphins along the way! When we arrived we were greeted by the golf cart rental company representative- a 17-year-old young man who was raised on the island. My family was immediately mesmerized by the idea of growing up on such an isolated island only 8 square miles small. Driving around in a golf cart is the chosen method of transportation and five hours was enough to see the entire island, stop for lunch, and swim in the sea for an hour. We started off by exploring the island. Most of the houses we passed were either abandoned or needed major upgrading. However, there were many private communities we could not enter that looked really well maintained and boasted large homes on the water. After an hour of driving through lush, tropical landscapes and pretty desolate "neighborhoods" we stopped for lunch at Lucy Belle's, one of the island's three restaurants. We snatched an outdoor table under a gigantic oak tree dripping in Spanish moss. Lovely. This was our first time eating at a restaurant since the pandemic. I was well prepared with alcohol wipes and wiped everything down meticulously. Lucy Belle's is unpretentious, offers outdoor seating only, and serves its' meals on paper plates with plastic utensils. The food though... oh was the food delicious! I had the Caribbean grouper, perfectly blackened and grilled. We left satisfied, energized, and ready to hit the gravel road again. This time we stopped at Iron Fish Gallery, an outdoor welding studio opened by a man who moved to the island at the age of 24 when he had an epiphany to become a welder. This gallery is a real treat filled with quirky art, mainly of sea life. We also stopped at a farm and met the owner who moved to Dafuskie twenty years ago. She said she visited the island, fell in love with it, and purchased the property the very same day. I love meeting people who not only have callings but actually follow them. Next, we stopped at the Bloody Point Lighthouse, which isn't an actual lighthouse, and were surprised to find a vineyard there. We quickly hopped off our cart to buy a bottle of Daufuskie wine but were quickly disappointed to learn they were all sold out. Next, we went to the cemetery and left as quickly as we arrived. I actually like cemeteries but this one gave me intense goosebumps and a fleeting feeling. Finally, we went to the beach. The water glistened like glitter calling us in and embraced us with the most ideal water temperature we could have hoped for on a hot, summer day. There were barely any people on the shore with us, maybe 30 at most. We stayed immersed in the water for almost an hour as fish swam by bumping into us. The day ended with a ubiquitous tropical shower as we headed back to the dock to return to the mainland. Our take away from the island was WOW. How do people manage on an island with no hospital, no grocery store (Instacart delivers!), three restaurants, and really nothing to do. Dafuskie is a great day trip and maybe even a great place of residency for those who want complete isolation and a life "off the grid". I always love finding the spots few hear of and exploring them. The only way to learn about our beautiful world is to seek those places that are so different from our own lives. It is the only way to learn about the many, many possibilities that are available to us. If we don't explore, how will we find our true calling?

Homemade cookies have become staples in our Quarantined Kitchen. We have baked endless dozens of cookies to dip in milk during our family movie nights (new Covid-19 ritual!). My ultimate favorite, cannot-get-enough-of-cookie, is.... white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. Oh my gosh are these darn delicious! I have tried many recipes for this variety and my favorite has been from sallysbakingaddiction.com I do not add cornstarch to the recipe as directed and I also add extra white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts because you can never have too many! Enjoy!

We are two weeks into our month-long stay on Hilton Head Island, SC; this being our first stop on our road trip. The experience has been slightly confusing since this stop is a combination of summer vacation and also the commencement of a long road trip ahead. Perfecting the art of beach bumming, endless bike rides and splash-filled swims in the pool have definitely captured the essence of summer. Yet, knowing that I do not know what comes next has propelled me into recklessly abandoning any planning or looking ahead and instead of striving to learn to focus on each day one at a time. This is day seventeen of detox (no alcohol or caffeine) allowing me to embrace boredom rather than worry about what comes next with a glass of vino in my hand. When I get bored I pick up a book or stare at my children's feet longing for the days they fit in the palm of my hand. I have listened intently to my daughter crunching on cheerios while she reads and I have noticed subtle changes I would have normally missed as my eleven-year-old son enters puberty. It has only been two weeks since we hit the road but really it has been almost five months since Covid-19 thrust us out of our complacent, blinded, rigid and scripted lives. I can't remember the last time I had absolutely nothing to do and nothing planned in the upcoming months. In fact, I am pretty certain that stillness was never a reality for me. For now, I am content staring at the sea and listening to the laughter of my children, the chirps of the birds, the crashing of the waves, the chatter of nearby families, and most importantly, the voices inside me that I have quieted for too long.

It amazes me how many people I know do not respond to their text messages. The fact that the technology era has placed a wedge between people as most prefer to text than to pick up the phone and say "hello" is no new news but the fact that people completely ignore a text is mind-boggling to me. Some people ignore them outright for days at a time. Then there are those who engage in a text conversation and disappear midway through. I imagine physically engaging in a conversation with someone and just walking away while they are speaking and never coming back to close out the conversation. Or having someone walk up to me and share a thought or ask me a question and just staring at them, saying nothing. These examples, to me, are the equivalent of ignoring or not responding to a text. If we would not behave this way in a face-to-face conversation then why do we feel it is acceptable to do so via text? Have we really all gotten so self-centered that we cannot take a minute to show common decency and respond to someone? Have we truly convinced ourselves that we are justified in our busyness to basically outright ignore someone? Even when I was working full time while raising children, I always made it a point to respond to each and every text. I feel confident that no one has ever felt ignored by me. Yes, I used to get really offended when this would happen to me. When the Covid era started I felt so optimistic that things would change, that people would change. After all, how can we not be more sensitive in our communication with others when death is lurking all around us? Nowadays I no longer get offended it just downright confuses me. I can't relate to seeing responding as an option. I see it in my social circle and I see it happening in my children's circle. Now that they have phones they too are bewildered when their friends don't respond. Ironically, it is the very same children who have parents guilty of text evasion that do not respond themselves. Could this possibly be genetic? Here is a tip for those of you who have good intentions but poor organizational skills: at the end of the day, before going to sleep, check your text messages and respond to everyone you were not able to respond to earlier in the day. Just take the two minutes to respond.

When you are self-isolating with the same four people for months at a time, you need to come up with fun and tasty activities to get through the days. My daughter suggested cake pops topped with sprinkles so cake pops with sprinkles we made! We opted for Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix for the batter (just bake as instructed on the box). We melted Ghirardelli white chocolate chips for the coating. Since we didn't have the foam block at our temporary Covid era housing, and I have found myself to be more frugal these days and less willing to buy things unnecessarily, we used empty egg cartons that I cut slits into to hold up the sticks until the chocolate coating dried up. Once the cake is baked and cooled break it up into crumbs and roll it into balls. Insert a lollipop stick into a cake ball, dip into melted chocolate, and top with sprinkles. Note * We tried to be creative and split the batter into two batches: all chocolate batter and chocolate batter mixed with peanut butter. The peanut butter mixture was too dry....oh well, you win some you lose some! These are super easy and fun to make - the combinations are endless!