Though we’ve had several days off throughout this service year, the last few days have been intentionally dedicated to focusing on us and things we needed or wanted to do.

Thursday we worked for Evan’s mom at a photography gig, helping take pictures of middle school athletes. Though we’ve both been looking for work from home and virtual jobs neither of us has found the right fit so it was good to spend a day working despite our love for volunteering.

Friday we slept in for a while before making a large St. Patrick’s Day dinner for Evan’s family. Corned beef, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, and Irish Soda bread. Though I’ve grown up eating the meal pretty much every year, I had never cooked it before and it wasn’t a tradition for Evan’s family so I loved doing it.

On Saturday, Evan and I celebrated our sixth anniversary. Despite being together six years, this is only the third year we’ve spent in person. After taking Evan’s car to get the tires changed, we set out for our day. We got lunch at an all-you-can-eat sushi place, wandered through the Museum of Contemporary Art for awhile. Then we followed Atlas Obscura (a super cool website to direct you to places you’ve ever heard of in your hometown) to a park filled with giant metal dinosaur sculptures. After wandering there we went back to the house and made dinner together. Evan made dumpling dough and wrapped them after I helped him make the filling. I baked a coconut orange tea cake and Evan helped with the whipped coconut orange cheesecake dip.  We shared the cake and dumplings with orange spice tea while watching “The Pale Blue Eye” because we’re both Edgar Allen Poe nerds.

This morning we visited with one of Evan’s high school friends and afterwards we went to the zoo since we didn’t have enough time to do that Saturday. We learned a lot about animal conservation and the work the zoo is doing with their different species and their gardening program. After the zoo trip we came back to the house and watched some movies.

This next week, we’ve got some projects lined up and will also be figuring out what car to take as we plan our return to Blacksburg.