1.  Welcome to another Friday, corona style. Let’s get started.

2.  Every time I write that I feel like I should be hoisting a lime wedged Corona with a hearty Cheers!

3.  Use your imagination, folks.

4.  After falling off the wagon I’ve managed to climb back into the “yes, I cook every night” ring.

5.  In my defense a) nobody starved and b) cereal is a perfectly valid dinner choice.

6.  Anyway, I made Paula Deen’s green beans with potatoes to go with that fried chicken. Both were scrumptious.

7.  I came this close to losing the whole pot when I forgot to check on the liquid.

8.  Caught it just in the nick of time. Tragedy averted.

9.  Full disclosure: these are a whole project but totally worth the time.

10.  P.S. I skipped the salt pork and bacon grease because hello, I’m not trying to spike anyone’s blood pressure/cholesterol here. I just tossed the beans with a tablespoon of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt then called it a day on step two.

11.  This is one of those veggies everybody in my house loves which makes it flat out miraculous.

12.  Because I’m the best mom of all time I also made garlic parmesan knots for the kids this week.

13.  I may have also indulged and they were dee-diddly-icious.

14.  Note: It was impossible to find Pillsbury Breadsticks. I don’t know if they stopped making those or what but I eventually bought Pillsbury Refrigerated Pizza Dough and cut it into twelve strips. Bam! Problem solved.

15.  Go forth and get your grub on.

16.  Wait, I’ve got one last yummy suggestion for y’all. Roasted Chicken Bites.

17.  We ate this savory dish last night. The only downside was cleanup duty.

18.  Surely there’s a way to roast these things that doesn’t destroy my pans.

19.  The extended Safer at Home Phase 2 is set to be reevaluated in one week.

20.  Everyone’s talking about what’s next: what should open, what should stay closed.

21.  Not surprisingly the biggest conversations revolve around school openings next month.

22.  There’s lots of noise but it all boils down to this: it’s not what’s safe. It’s what’s safe enough.

23.  We all know it’s not safe to cluster our kids during a still-uncontrolled pandemic, but people have varying comfort levels with the risk.

24.  I’m grateful our school allows families to choose between a hybrid in-person/remote schedule and fully remote learning.

25.  We’re weighing options but I’ll tell you what – if my kids’ friends go back into the building and we start ours remote I’m gonna be mighty unpopular around this house.

26.  Shocker, right? ‘Cause kiddos always idolize their mamas.

27.  I’ve been trolling Hulu and discovered something disturbing. Some of those tv shows from Back In The Day really suck.

28.  How do they sucketh? Let me count the ways.

29.  Dawson’s Creek. All the teen angst and high school clichés a girl can handle without vomiting.

30.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Painful archetypes, terrible action scenes, and dialogue that sounds like it came straight out of a thirteen-year-old’s diary.

31.  Beverly Hills 90210. Classic fish out of water. Also, badly written fish out of water.

32.  So much terrible tv, so little time.

33.  Sounds like we should boot up Hamilton again.

34.  There is one other big thing happening this week. Something shocking. Something a little hard to believe.

35.  T-man turns sixteen today. SIXTEEN. There are no words, man.

36.  As of last week the DMV was still waiving the road test for level one licenses and to be honest I’m not really sure how I feel about that.

37.  I feel okay about T-man getting behind the wheel. Mostly. As okay as I can be about sending him out into the world alone.

38.  We’ve been pretty hardcore about his practice drive time so he’s got the mechanics down.

39.  But I can’t help thinking about the thousands – literally thousands – of young people across NC who can get a license right now without someone confirming they can indeed safely drive a car. This wouldn’t worry me except for three personal accounts I’ve heard of people fabricating driving hours.

40.  So basically 2020’s brought us Trump’s acquittal in an impeachment trial, a pandemic, countries across the world in lockdown, murder hornets, life via video calls, and now an odds-on chance the kid who bumps you at a stoplight got a Covid Times License. Go figure.