We try to keep a balance of indoor and outdoor activities with our kids. Outside, we’ve taken to doing scavenger hunts with our kids — all things you’d find outside walking around our area. Inside, we’ve aimed to change up their play stations often with a focus on activities like games and crafts. I also tend to spend more time experimenting in the kitchen during the winter months.

Baking bread has long been a family tradition that I grew up with and am now carrying on — it’s been pretty therapeutic, so I find that I’m spending more time doing this.

I bought the recipe cards at 26 Market and have been using them to write down recipes we do at home ad lib. My partner is an amazing cook and runs The Moonlight Inn restaurant at Victoria Beach during the summer as a side hustle and I’m also not a bad cook (terrible baker). I’ve worked in restaurant kitchens all throughout university and before starting at 26 — food is a big part of my life.

My partner is a photographer and we hope to make a cookbook that is entirely photo-based. We’d like to photograph the recipe cards with raw ingredients styled around them. I love styling and plating. It’s kind of like our personal Covid cookbook with all original recipes!

This is a fun project that we’re excited about because it combines our professional and personal lives. I have an insane passion for editorial design and he is truly a talented photographer.

To cope with a COVID-19 winter, I’ve been trying out new recipes in the kitchen — primarily focused on plant-based dishes and baked goods. Cooking with my boyfriend is actually one of my favourite things to do, and we can spend hours cooking in the kitchen, so it’s a really great thing to do when we need a break from checking the news.

My go-to recipes are usually roasted vegetables and tofu stir-fry, but a new and notable dish I’ve recently made was quinoa and lentil cabbage rolls. They were pretty good for the most part, but I have some perfecting to do.

Baked goods is a must because of my sweet tooth! Things I’ve made so far: lemon poppyseed loaf, banana bread, blueberry peach crumble, and blueberry coffee cake.

And to help stay positive, I’ve decided to take part in a virtual sketch club with a few of my friends who were in the Environmental Design program with me. Every week, there’s a new theme or subject and we all find some time to sketch/illustrate something to share in our group chat on Sundays.

I’m planning to work on some personal projects and draw more in my free time. I’m also trying to find time to get back into some old hobbies — particularly making block prints.

I’ve also been hoarding a bunch of puzzles and have a miniature garden set that’s supposed to take about 40-70 hours to complete, so I’ve been pretty excited to start that!

Something I’ve really been to trying to focus on is making things by hand to cut down on my screen time since we’re already spending so much time staring at our computers, which is kind of what led me to hoard puzzles and pick up that mini garden. Listening to Christmas tunes always brightens my mood in the winter, too.

Biking has always been an outlet for me to relieve stress and when we were in the thick of the pandemic in March/April, I bought a new bike — my first non-fixed gear bike. I bought it with the intention of using it on all types of terrain in all types of weather.

Since then, I’ve logged over 1,500km on the new bike and I don’t plan on keeping it locked up all winter. I recently picked up some winter bike tires that have held up really well so far, even in thick snow, so I’m going to see how she fares on some of the fat bike trails in Manitoba.

Apart from biking, other ways I plan on keeping sane are running D&D games for my friends online, working on my photography and illustration skills, and helping my partner bake her way through Claire Saffitz’s cookbook, Dessert Person.