daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
We’re still unsure about the status of this season because of the COVID-19 situation, but Bay and I got a little dose of Dodgers goodness tonight by tuning into the Dodgers Zoom Party. It was nice of them to give their fans something to watch. Thank you!
Here are a few recent sketches I created on my iPad. I am reading “Rooftops of Tehran: A Novel” by Mahbod Seraji and this is what I imagine the character Zari to look like. For this sketch, I spent a bit more time than usual on the shading, and I am please with how it turned out. I feel like I’m improving bit-by-bit, and it might sound simple, but the more time spent, the better it becomes. I guess I am sometimes just lazy. Anyways, I also did a Sailor Moon photo as part of a drawing challenge that is going around, and then a couple more quick sketches. It’s almost always fun to make these, but I have to say, the sketch above is the most satisfying drawing I’ve done in a while. 😀
To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.
If you’re interested in my favorite sketching gear that I use, you can find a list here.
Tonight we made a huge batch of gyoza for dinner. It was all from scratch, including the gyoza skins. We even used nira from the garden (which has been coming back year for several years now). Each of us had a spot in the gyoza factory: I smashed the dough using a tortilla press, Bay used a rolling pin to make them thinner, Koa added the pork and cheese (yes, cheese!) filling and sealed them up. Mariko coordinated the whole operation, and helped roll out the skins and also put filling in.
It went by quickly and we had a little over a baking-sheet’s worth of gyoza ready for cooking on the hotplate, as seen in the photo. It was yummy! The shape of the gyoza varied depending on Koa’s skill level and also his whimsy, with a few looking like xiaolongbao even. They were all delicious, though! 🥟❤️😀
Rain has been in the forecast, but it held off until the evening. However, we did get a lot of beautiful clouds to look at. This photo is from our kitchen window.
We rarely get fast food, but tonight we didn’t plan anything for dinner at home and when Bay suggested we get something from McDonald’s, the idea sounded really attractive. I guess it is a connection to when life was more normal before COVID-19. We ordered our food online, then I went to pick it up. The restaurant’s dining room is closed, but the drive-thru was open and there were parking spaces designated for pick-up orders. I parked in space #3, clicked on the “I’m here” option in the app, and in a few minutes, the food was delivered out to the car. Very convenient!
I don’t know if it is because of the new process that the pandemic has forced on the McDonald’s, but the food wasn’t the freshest. Everything tasted as usual, though, and after Koa put his chicken nuggets in the toaster oven, he said they were good! I guess even though we don’t go to McDonald’s often, we have our usual preferences: Mariko likes the Filet-o-Fish, Bay will get a “fancy” chicken sandwich, Koa will get the chicken nuggets, and I’ll go for a burger or some sort. It’s definitely a comfort food, and once in a while, fast food can’t be too bad for you!
