Safe In The Car Too

I know I am safer at home. I am trying to do my part by staying home almost all the time, but today I did venture out. At last, in Durham, Hair salons were allowed to open two days ago. My darling hairdresser Suzanne called last week to give me an appointment to get my hair cut for this morning. You would have thought it was Christmas.

She owns the salon and I have been very worried about her business being closed for so long. Weeks ago when I was supposed to have a haircut I put my haircut money and tip in a ziplock bag. Then again last month on the date of my regular Appointment. So today when she was finally able to see me I gave her the bag of money for all my haircuts. It is important to me that she is able to stay in business.

I felt very safe getting my haircut with her. I waited in my car to be called in for my appointment. Everyone was required to wear a cloth mask the whole time. Only half the stylists can work at one time so there were very few people there. I had to answer some screening questions and have my temperature taken before I could continue. I had my hair washed and cut with my mask on and it wasn’t an issue.

Suzanne is working seven days a week from 8-2 so other stylists can come in on a shift 2-8. It is a lot of logistics to reschedule all of us who had already made our appointments for a whole year. I asked her how long she thought it would take her to catch up and she figured six weeks. Of course that was catch up with getting everyone’s hair done, not earning what she lost.

After the adventure of going out in the world for a haircut I came home and did some work and then Shay got very antsy. Having to supervise Russ on Zoom calls all day can get monotonous. As she was wiggling with me by the steps to the garage I asked her if she wanted to go in the car. She sprinted down the steps and bound out to the car. I could barley get the door open before she jumped in and assumed her position on the center console.

So Shay and I just drove around a bit. She looked out the window and smiled. Two teenage girls pulled up beside us and waved at Shay. She threw back her head toward them.

We know we are safer at home, but today it felt like we were also safe in our car. It was just nice to see a different part of the world, even if it was less than a mile from home.

We Need Hope

Hope is something I hold dearly. I was born an optimist and have honed those skills of ignoring the bad and elevating the good. There is a fine line between being a Pollyanna and just seeing the good more than the bad. This does not mean I stick my head in the sand when confronted with something unpleasant. I am more likely to call out the bad to challenge it.

This weekend Russ and I had the pleasure of meeting our friends M & S’s first baby boy A. There is nothing like having a baby in a Pandemic to take your mind off what is going on in the world. Although we certainly couldn’t get close to the darling boy, we were able to bring him a quilt and a casserole for his parents. There is nothing more hopeful than a new baby. Not to put any pressure on him, but he could grow up to be a great President or spiritual leader.

Tomorrow I am going to be a guest on My friend Carl Johnson’s Facebook Live show Optimistic Opportunities. I used to work with Carl at Durham Magazine and he is a highly optimistic person as he has spent his life in sales. I am not sure exactly sure what we will talk about, but neither of us have ever had trouble talking to each other.

Carter has recently had a huge dose of hope. She started a running campaign three days ago to help raise money for things connected to George Floyd and equal Justice. In three days she has raised over $1,300 and some big pledges based on how far she runs. This has bowled her over because the money has come $5 -$10 a time from poor college students and some bigger amounts from kind adults, some she hardly knows. It has been a big bag of hope to her that there is good in the world. I am thrilled that this is the lesson she is getting from this.

For now I am going to stay on the sunny side that all these protests will help improve our country. I am hopeful Covid-19 will teach us some lessons on how to be better humans and I am Optimistic that we will survive and thrive again.

Everyone Deserves Equal Justice

The police reaction on George Floyd trying to buy cigarettes with counterfeit money was to send four officers who eventually threw him to the ground and one large police officer kept a knee on his neck for eight minutes until he was dead. It was an over show of force for the crime, even if he didn’t die.

45 calling protests over George Floyd’s death “act of domestic terror” that may have him call in the military to stop them is an even bigger over reaction. Our military is to protect our country not fight our own citizens. 45’s lack of compassion, leadership and any heart whatsoever is making an already terrible situation so much worse. Gassing peaceful demonstrators is not the American way.

True leaders take responsibility when times get tough. We have someone who has shown no ability to say,”I hear you, I feel for you, I understand you, I hurt for you, I want to make it better.”

Not acknowledging bad things, except if they are being done to him is his modus operandi. That will never change. I am tired of narcissistic leaders. Please, please look for new leaders who have some kind of heart. Who understand that having teams of smart people with them is important, who make plans and contingency plans and contingencies for their contingencies, who understand that making things good for most is good for each individuals. If any are oppressed it is bad for all.

Of course looting and destruction of property is bad, but if no leaders sit down work with protestors things will never get worked out. All people deserve equal justice. I fear under 45 we will not have any dialogue and frustrations will just continue.

Carter Channels Her Frustration For Good

Watching what is happening in America is difficult for us all. I don’t have any answers besides voting when my adult child asks me how we can fix things. For a twenty something this is no where near enough action and for a fifty something I agree with her. I am frustrated too. I can only imagine that as white people of privilege if we feel frustrated that it is only one millionth of what African Americans are feeling. I can never put myself in their shoes, but I still have empathy and wants things to be better.

Late last night Carter posted something on Instagram that is her way of helping. She has decided to raise money for Black Lives Matter by running every weekday at 5:30. Running is not something anyone in our family is very good at. Carter started running last week just for her mental and physical health. As she felt that it was helping her she decided to use it as a platform to help others. You can watch her late night deceleration on Facebook at Carter Lange if you are friends with her.

Orchid Children

I am the care taker of many orchids. I am not an orchidist, just a baby sitter. My collection of about thirty plants started about twenty years ago. Russ found that giving me an orchid from Family Garden was a fool proof gift. Turns out our sun room is an ideal spot for the plants with cold nights and hot days. The gift Russ would give each year last many many years with little or no care from me.

At most I splash a bit of water in each pot about once a week. I have never fertilized or repotted a single plant. Every once once in a while I throw a dead brown leaf away and only twice have I ever given up and thrown a whole plant away.

It amazes me how these plants thrive and produce so many gorgeous flowers for so long, year after year.

I liken raising orchids to raising children. They come out the way they are going to be. I can’t change them. I do a minimal amount to keep them alive and still they thrive. If I do to much I would smother them. Best to let them find their own way and then they flourish.

At some point they seem to be dormant and then suddenly they blossom with unexpected beauty. Their success brings joy for it is all their own. I am just a witness.

Just Slip Out

Being President can not be as much fun as 45 thought it was going to be. He can’t just say whatever he wants on a Twitter now no matter what kind of executive order he puts out. It’s not a royal order, just an executive order.

He can’t claim that having him as president is the best thing that ever happened to citizen’s pocket books. As someone who likes to claim he has control over things as big as the economy he has finally learned that any President does not make or break the economy.

Being President is a 24 hour, seven day a week job. You can’t go out and play golf while things are falling apart and not take flack for it. Vacations are also looked down upon during a crisis, no matter how badly you need a vacation.

If there is a pandemic you can’t have large rallies to try and get your fix of blind adoration to keep you going. You have to stay locked at home like everyone else in the country.

With as bad as things are I am waiting for 45 to say, “I’m not having any fun being President. I think I am going to stop. I am too rich to keep doing this job.” Any excuse to stop is all I am looking for. 45 deserves to have fun as long as he is not President.

I know that going to Mar-a-lago without Jeffery Epstein won’t be as fun. We haven’t heard from Rudy in a while, maybe he can rustle up the same kind of fun 45 likes. Princess 45 has not been about so she can’t be having any fun either. Maybe she can pull her best Veruca Salt impression and say, “Daddy, I’m tired of people being mean to me and my husband. Let’s leave this horrible Washington DC and go to Florida full time.”

Something has got to push him over the edge to drop out. The fear of losing the election should be enough to get him not to run. Then he can say he won 100% of the elections he ran for and that is the best record he will ever have.

Come on 45. You know you hate your job. You are old enough that you can retire and no one will say anything. Hey you are still young enough that you have time to get a couple of new wives. That is so much more fun for you than what you are doing now. You know you hate it. It’s fine to go, really.

My First Quarantine Nap

If last year you described to me the scenario we are living in now and asked me what I thought my days would be like I might have said, “I bet I’ll take up napping.” It couldn’t have been farther from the reality.

Today for the first time in twelve weeks I took a nap. It wasn’t any twenty minute cat nap, but a full on three hour zonk out and boy did it feel good. I had gotten up early to go to the Dentist this morning to get the rough part of a crown done. I had cracked a molar that had a very old silver filling it. It took a while to diagnose it, but once my dentist did we got right on fixing in.

So I had a large amount of novocaine and he went about scanning my teeth for a new crown to cover the old tooth, removing the old filling and making room for the crown. He made me a temporary crown and sent me on my way until next week when he will have my new, permanent crown to swap out. I left the office numb on the right side from my temple to my chin.

As I was feeling nothing I did two errands to drop off needlepoint to be finished and going to the fish market in Carrboro. By the time I got home I was still a numb as I was two hours before. I had a smoothie for lunch not feeling able to chew and not drool. Then the numbing agent wore off and my jaw started hurting from the morning activities. I took an aleve and lay down on my bed. Big mistake. I awoke at six PM.

I felt much better, except for the guilt of having slept the day away. I did get up and cook soft shell crabs for dinner so that I could appear not to be a total slug, but everyone in the house knew I was one.

I am certain that my sleeping schedule is going to be messed up now, but I am surprised that with so little that actually has to get done that I had not taken up napping before now.

I Like Live Performance

I don’t know how video bloggers do it. Today I had to video tape myself as the lector for church. I have no problem standing in front of 250 people reading some weird scripture. In fact the stranger the better. But having to video tape myself doing the same thing is horrible.

Since our church is run by sane, science loving, smart people we not not clamoring to get back into the sanctuary together. Online church has been quite successful. The pastors have been doing most of the heavy lifting, but now regular folks, who normally lector every Sunday, have been asked to do it on video.

The issues with video are, first you have to set it up. Since I am on this Sunday and it is Pentecost I filmed myself in my red dining room. If that is a reference that goes over your Christian education level don’t worry about it.

Our church volunteer Tim Vann, who puts all the videos together into one YouTube sent me instructions and said that using the back camera of my IPhone was best. The only problem with that is the button is on the front and the only way to know if I am even in the screen was to do it the less optimal way.

I had to erect a large structure on the dining room table to have the camera at a good height to film. Then I had to create a secondary structure to hold my iPad which acted as my teleprompter.

I had a lot to read and it does not work on video if you are looking down at paper the whole time, so I made my script into 30 point font so I could read it without glasses. The script was then six pages long so I had to scroll as I read, all the while trying to look more at the camera that was video taping than at the script on my iPad. It was not that easy.

Now let’s add some of the words I was reading like Cappadocia, Phrygia and Pamphylia. Not ones that roll off the tongue. I practiced without video taping like I normally would do for a live church service. Then I set the camera up and once I figured out I was in the middle of the screen I tried the Call to worship. That should have been the easy part since it was short and familiar. It took five times before I got it right.

Then I went to the lessons. I did the whole six minutes in one shot. I think I mispronounced a word or two, but I was not going to reshoot it because I figured I would always mispronounce something. Watching it back was horrific. I now understand why some actors like to do stage work and not film. At least with stage you have feed back from an audience and anything you do wrong is not immortalized. I can tell you I will never become a video blogger.

Happy Birthday Mask

There is only one thing to get a friend who is celebrating a birthday, a new mask that matches her wardrobe. Since tomorrow is Christy Barnes’ Birthday that is exactly what I did. We had a little social distancing lunch outdoors on the terrace today, which was a gift to me. It was nice to cook for entertaining, even if it was just for a couple. I miss throwing parties.

Time with friends is more precious after twelve weeks staying apart. When this social distancing started I never thought that May birthdays would not get to be celebrated in our normal ladies who lunch outings. Now I don’t envision going out to eat lunch for the rest of the year.

I am basically writing 2020 off as the year of learning to embrace the idea of becoming an introvert. As impossible as that seems I think it might be easier than what it is going to be like for all the real introverts when we are allowed to gather again. Perhaps they might claim the need to social distance forever.

Besides missing seeing local friends I am also missing travel. Usually at this point in the year I would be making plans to get in the car and visit people all around the country. Although I don’t have to live by a child’s school schedule I still consider “summer vacation” the best time of the year. I use summer as the excuse why I can’t go to meetings or do anything productive. Now I just pine for a good meeting.

In the meantime we have to celebrate the best way we can. So if you know Christy wish her a happy birthday tomorrow. I hope she only has need of that new mask for a short period of time. I really don’t want to be making Christmas masks this year.

Adding To Our Family

When you are staying home all the time you really notice when even the littlest thing changes. If a sprout of clover comes up between the cracks in the front porch I pull it before a shamrock has a chance. I see dead limbs on trees that I want to cut out where I usually wouldn’t have seen them before.

The big news at our house is soon there might be five new mouths to feed. A pair of parents have built a tiny nest in the space behind the top of our porch light and our wall. It is the very safest place to lay five tiny blue eggs. We have a big hawk who lives in the tallest pine behind our deck. Since the tiny nest is covered by the porch roof, no predatory eyes can see it while flying over. Since it is six feet off the ground so slithering snake will climb straight up the brick wall to steal the precious eggs.

The only problem with turning our front porch into a maternity ward is that the parents fly away every time we open the front door. That flying away is what alerted us to the nest in the first place. It is too high for any of us to see in, but Russ and Carter are tall enough to hold the phone up to shoot a photo.

The first time we did it two days ago we saw just a group of eggs, but couldn’t tell the number. Today Russ got this shot clearly showing the five of them. We are guessing sparrows, but are not 100% sure since we haven’t gotten a good look at the parents. We are trying to not use that door much so they can stay and keep those babies warm, but we will be checking at least once a day to see when they hatch.

Waiting for baby birds is so much more exciting than looking for weeds growing out of cracks. I will keep you posted as to the increase in our family size. Please no gifts, we have plenty of worms.

No Hugs, No Kisses

It has been so many months since I have seen either of my parents. They have been doing a good job of staying at the farm. Today we took a socially distancing trip up to the farm to get my eyes on them. My mother also wanted to receive the quilt I made for her and have had sitting here for over a month.

I am happy to report they are both healthy. It does a heart good to get to spend a little time with their only Grandchild, but no hugs, nor kisses.

My Dad made a yummy lunch of poached salmon we enjoyed together. Carter went swimming with her grandmother and Russ, Shay and I enjoyed the sunshine.

My mother loved her quilt so we completed the mission of delivery with positive results. It was a safe, but needed visit. Staying away is hard, but necessary.

Annus Horribilis

The thing about sheltering in place is I have only paid attention to what is going on right around me. At first I watched the local and national news, then that got too depressing and I only read a few online news stories. I basically stopped listening to news because it was bad and I couldn’t do anything about it.

Not knowing bad news somehow made me feel like it wasn’t that close to me. Then my mother called yesterday to tell me my Uncle’s house burned down. He is fine along with his son, daughter-in-law and six month old baby who live with him, but the house and everything they owned are gone. Since they live in a rural part of Pennsylvania it took fire engines 30 minutes to get to them. It was too late.

The thing about this Pandemic is that it is so horrible you forget about regular horrible stuff that still happens. My poor Uncle just lost his wife, my mother’s sister, last summer and now his house. As Queen Elizabeth put it the year Windsor burned, “This is an annus horribilis”

We are all having a horrible year, but some people are having it worse than others and it makes me feel helpless. So please pray for my Uncle and Cousins. It isn’t going to bring back their house and give them a place to live, but they need some miracle.

Since I had already given up the news, now I am also going to have to stop answering the phone and reading email to avoid bad news.

Plant Some Sage Tomorrow

At last a beautiful sunny day. We got over four inches of rain the four previous days. I was worried my garden might float away, but it survived. This morning I got up and weeded and planted the new yellow squash, cantaloupe and zucchini plants I purchased on a Tuesday. I also transplanted four germaniums into bigger pots and out them on our side terrace.

As I was feeling very happy with my terrace I decided to do the dirtiest job of cleaning the lip of the table under the glass top. I am not going to describe it to you, but trust me it is not a fun job. After doing that and cleaning the glass top Russ and I enjoyed our dinner there tonight.

It was perfect with no humidity and no bugs which I found amazing after so much rain.

If you haven’t planted anything in your garden or pots this year I am going to suggest starting a sage plant. Sage is a perennial so once you get it started you will have it for years to come. It is an easy plant to grow and there is nothing like fresh sage.

Tonight I made a butternut squash risotto and the star of it was the fried sage leaves. The risotto was an oven method which is so much easier than regular stove top risotto. The butternut squash cooked in the oven at the same time as the risotto and is added after you finish cooking the rice for five minutes on the stove top where you add the wine and the last bit of stock and the Parmesan cheese.

To fry sage leave just put a touch of oil in a small fry pan and get it very hot. I cut the sage leaves with a scissor right into the hot oil and let it cook until they are crispy in less than a minute. Drain it on paper towel and sprinkle in into your risotto.

Once you have had fried fresh sage you are going to want it all the time. Try it on your soft scrambled eggs in the morning or on a little crostini of Pâté. Hurry, go plant one and let me know ho would use it.

Ego Will Kill

I am more and more amazed by Church leaders who are fighting their Governors to allow them to open up their places of worship to hold in person services. Thankfully our church is led by smart pastors who understand that gathering as a group puts people in danger, especially if we are singing.

A friend of mine in California posted something about 1,200 churches out there suing to get to have services. Then it struck me, it is not about people needing to get into a church building to be together to hear the word. We can all do that over the Internet. It is about ego of those pastors who need to preach to live people.

Well preaching to them live might be one of the last things they do. It is the most selfish thing to offer them a chance to come to church. Most people are sick of being home alone and would like nothing more than to go to see their church friends. They probably think that if their pastor says it is all right, then it is. But your pastor is not a Doctor and he may preach the word of God, but he might not be listening to it.

God is not saying you have to go to church or temple to worship. God made smart Doctors. You should listen to them first. You are not protected from catching a virus just because you are praying in church and you believe in some higher power. Stay home and pray.

If you do go to church and you get sick and die when you get to St. Peter and ask him, “How could you let this happen to me?” I bet he is going to say, “You took medical advice from a pastor. I gave you Dr. Fauci, don’t blame me if you didn’t listen to the expert I provide.”

Happy Birthday Shay Shay

It seems like Our sweet puppy Shay Shay has always been part of our family, but in actuality it has just been nine years. But how could our sweet baby be nine years old? I call her our puppy, but in dog years she is clearly middle aged, something I am unwilling to accept.

Sadly is it has been a terribly cold and rainy day so she did not get to strut her stuff out on a neighborhood walk with a birthday hat on. I am sure she is thrilled not to have to wear a hat, but misses seeing her friends.

Shay did make an appearance on one of Carter’s Zoom work meetings, but she missed her regular church Ways and Means Zoom meeting. Oh, to be in such demand.

Outside of visiting Carter’s meeting she spent her birthday supervising Russ at working her bunny room office, a day like the last sixty for her.

So happy birthday to our best dog ever. Thanks for bringing a smile to all our faces everyday for the last nine years. We hope we have at least another nine years with your sweet face.

Rain, Rain, Rain

It’s 56° and rainy today. Did anyone tell mother nature that it is May 19? It is going to be like this the rest of the week. It is one thing to stay home when it is sunny and beautiful, but it gets a little tiresome when you also have to stay inside because it is so miserable out.

Since I still have room in my vegetable garden I thought I might want to fill it up. I thought today would be the perfect day to look for some starter plants since no one else wants to shop for plants in the cold and rain. I was right. I went to For Garden’s Sake and they had a fabulous collection of vegetables and herbs and no other customers. It was easy to social distance and get some squash and cantaloupe. While I was at it I got a few hot pink geraniums.

Now all these plants are sitting in the garage awaiting a break in the rain so I can plant them. Looks like it won’t be until Friday. Two more full days of rain night and day might wash my garden away.

Please don’t let all this rain flood people out of their homes. We can’t handle more natural disasters during the mother of all pandemic disasters. So stay safe out there. Make sure your outdoor drains are not blocked by leaves and debris. If you have a basement that could potentially get water in it make sure your sup-pumps are working. And always remember not to drive through standing water. Just your public message for the week.

When Your World Shrinks

As most of us have shrunk our world to be just our homes I am wondering what others have found to focus on. I have developed an obsession with getting my shower floor tiles and grout sparkling white. It is a ridiculous thing to care about, but yet I still have spent hours figuring out the absolutely best ways to clean every part of the shower.

I have removed the clear silicone at the glass wall and replaced it. I have tried many different cleaners and home remedies to whiten old grout and finally with the last application of Clorox to cloth strips that sat on the grout for hours I have turned my old shower into dazzling white reminiscent of Lyle Wagner’s smile on the Carol Burnett Show.

It is not just my shower that has occupied hours of my time. I have five sheet pans from my catering days. I bought them from my Sysco rep in 1988 when they were on sale for $5 a piece. They are the best pans and have served me well. If I could replace them with new ones for $5 each I would do it, but similar ones of suchheavy duty quality now go for $85 each.

These pans get daily use year after year and have not been sparkling clean since I got married. What better way to while away hours stuck at home than by trying to restore these pans to their original gleam?

Many pintrest sights tout a baking soda and hydrogen peroxide recipe to do just this job I want done. So I tried that. They said time was the secret. I’m not sure if they meant decades because after many nights I have been unable to completely clean these pans. The thing that worked best was a Brillo pan and elbow grease. I am still not half way through working on these pans, but I figure I am going to be here for a while and can spread this job out over multiple months. I might have to resort to a power tool, but that is excitement for another day.

As my world shrinks smaller and smaller I am looking for even more obscure things to clean to perfection. I have my eye on the crystals of the front hallway chandelier. Of course I have actually cleaned that before so it is not the perfect subject of my cleaning obsession.

I would love to know how you have been whiling away the weeks and what ridiculous projects you have found to work on. I can’t be the only person who has fallen into this hole.

On This Day

On this Day in 1756 Britain Declared war on France, on what was called the seven years war.

On the same day in 1792 Merchants formed the New York Stock Exchange.

May 17, 1875 the first Kentucky Derby was run.

On this day in 1938, Ed Carter was born.

It is appropriate that he arrived on the same day as these previous events because he always liked the British so much more than the French. He believes in capitalism and all things the stock market represents and has never shied away from a good excuse for a drink like they do at the Kentucky Derby.

It is quite amazing that my Dad has made it to 82, although he looks almost exactly the same as he always has. He is the most generous and hard working person on earth. In fact when I spoke with him today he was busy helping his “hay man” load 192 12-foot diameter round bales of hay on trucks.

So please wish my father a happy birthday. He doesn’t do face book, but I will forward any well wishes on to him.

Graduation in The Driveway

This morning Russ and I went to a surprise Driveway drop-in to say congratulations to Leander Perun for graduating from Denison. Her brother Drew is due to graduate from Cardinal Gibbons in a week also, but this celebration was for his sister.

The loss of graduation is sad for the family, but to me the loss of those last sweet weeks of college is the saddest. Spending time with your best friends made over the last four years is something you can not replace. Never again, not at any reunion, wedding or other get together will you ever have all your friends and those carefree last days of college.

I have great memories from those weeks senior year of college packing in as many memory making activities as we could. When I graduated from college we were in the middle of a terrible recession. Jobs were hard to come by, people were worried, but not so much that we didn’t revel in spending time together.

The actual graduation was the least exciting event of the senior year. It was bittersweet. Yes, we had accomplished fulfilling our academic requirements and for our parents they had completed paying for it, spending the last hours with our class of friends was sad, but we were together.

For this year’s class of graduates they had no warning that those last few days in March would be the last time they would be together. They didn’t get to have heart felt talks with friends, or final chances to confess a crush on someone, or make up with someone you had harsh words with. Granted young people are more connected electronically now. We only had letter writing and expensive long distance calls to keep us together after college.

The class of 2020 got robbed and nothing can change that, but don’t let that hold you back from having lifelong connections with your college friends. You may have more free time right now to communicate, since few of you are rushing into jobs right now. Those too will come. Pandemics, like recessions eventually subside. It is part of the ebb and flow you will experience many times in life. Learning to ride it out is a skill that you can draw on. Realizing that things go up and go down helps prepare you to be resilient.

So congratulations to Leander and all the graduates out there. The fact you did not have a real graduation does not diminish your years of hard work.

Dirty Jobs

When you have lived in the same house for over 25 years there are chores that stay on the to-do list year after year. Covid has provided time to work through that list in a way that feels productive, but not fun. No, I have not cleaned out the much written about attic. Since that job will involve many trips to donate things and to the dump I have an excuse to not work on it.

In the last two days I tackled a job that has been growing for at least ten years- the refinishing of old teak furniture. We acquired this furniture when Carter’s god father moved from Washington to Chicago. I think it was about fifteen years ago, because he lived there about four years and since moved back to DC and retaken his rightful place as prince of the city.

The furniture was in perfect shape when it came from him. We put it on our deck off our gathering room and enjoyed it greatly. Sometime about ten years ago I noticed a spot of lichen on a leg of a chair. Then another and eventually the furniture was looking like that Character Groot from the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. We just stopped using it.

Yesterday I took out a plastic scraper and scraped off all the lichen and other things growing on the wood. It was a disgusting job, but it was just the start. Today I put on my respirator, which I purchased for the kitchen redo last summer. I pulled out the mouse sander and I sanded four chairs and a dining table. It took over two hours and I finally had to stop because my hand was vibrating even when the machine was off.

Tomorrow I am going to finish cleaning those items by washing them. After great study on YouTube I think that will be enough since I have read you don’t oil teak outdoor furniture. I still have a few more pieces of furniture to work on, but at least I made a big dent. The deck itself needs attention, but I am hoping for some other job to make itself known so I can put that off for a little bit longer.

Need Elastic?

Eight weeks ago I went on Amazon to order some quarter inch elastic for mask making. It started because one friend texted asking me if she could commission me to make her a mask. I was happy to make it for her with materials I had on hand. Fabric and thread I have for days, but then I only had three yards of elastic. Another friend asked me for nine masks and she found me 30 yards of elastic. Then more and more requests for masks came in.

I needed more elastic. I went online and sure enough it was sold out everywhere, except for some people charging ridiculous amounts. You would have thought they were selling super bowl tickets.

What I did not realize as I was pursuing different vendors on Amazon was I was inadvertently ordering from them and agreeing to eight to twelve week deliveries. I tried to cancel the orders, but could not. One spool came in four weeks ago. I have since used it up and made over 175 masks. Now a second giant spool arrived today and another is expected in the next few days. Probably followed by two more in the next weeks.

If you are wanting to make your own masks and need elastic feel free to contact me. My mask making has slowed down. I am very thankful to all the people who made donations to the Food Bank in trade for masks. The Food Bank has let me know who made donations so if you still need to do that it is not too late.

I will still keep making masks, but I don’t anticipate needing all the elastic in the world. If I can get some time in my sweat shop between Carter’s work calls I am going to try and make some fun masks with different materials and maybe even some with embroidered smiles, or words that read “thanks for wearing a mask” or “Masks Mean You’re Kind.” Those are better than the things I think when I see people out in public not wearing masks.

Sweatshirt Period

Picasso had his blue period and I have my sweatshirt period. I will look back on these last few months of my life as the time I wore a sweatshirt almost everyday. Granted when we started quarantining it was March and kind of cold, then we had April and with just a couple of warm days I wore a sweatshirt everyday and now we have had one of the coldest May’s ever so far and I am still wearing the same thing.

There is something about staying at home that makes me need the comfort of one of my four quarter zip sweatshirts. I only have them in patriotic red, white or blues, but they have become my go to thing to throw on. Granted they go perfectly with yoga pants and those too have been part of my Covid uniform.

I have had these sweatshirts for between 10-20 years. I probably have not worn the white one in three of four years, but somehow it has gotten into the rotation. Forget wearing sweaters. For some reason they seem too formal for stay at home activities. Even on my once a week adventure to purchase food I wear my sweatshirt and look as unkempt as I ever could.

Maybe the lack of professional hair care has done this to me. Perhaps the shrinking of my wardrobe choices is in relation to the shrinking of my world. More likely I am taking comfort in my discomfort.

I laugh at the catalogs that arrive at our house from retailers advertising dresses and blazers. Where on earth would I ever need to go dressed in those? Even shoes without rubber bottoms seem absurd these days. First, you really can only wear sneakers when you are wearing a sweatshirt and second I am always wearing a sweatshirt. I wonder if my feet will ever fit back into dress shoes again after three months of this? What about after six months?

I am worried about what my uniform will become once warm weather finally gets here. Obviously it will have to be a red, white or blue t-shirt, the summer equivalent of the sweatshirt, but I don’t think I have ones as old and beloved as my sweatshirt collection.

I guess I liken my sweatshirts as the equivalent of a baby blanket. Maybe I should just make myself a baby quilt and carry it around with me, then I could wear real clothes.

Regressive House Wife

Today I felt like I was channeling my inner 1940’s House Wife. Not that I set out to do that. Everyone else in my house was busy working, locked away in their respective offices, interacting with other humans electronically. I had no such excitement so without a plan for the day I just started in cleaning various things.

As most major things have been cleaned and re-cleaned during the last eight week lock down I had to turn my attention to the rarely or difficult to clean items. I started with the glass wall of the shower. As I had stripped out the ten year old silicone beading on the bottom of the glass wall yesterday and replaced it with new, clean silicone I needed to polish the glass. I have finally found the right combination of vinegar and Dawn mixed with a touch of water and a micro-fabric covered sponge as the way to clean the shower glass. It takes two or three passes between the vinegar/Dawn mixture and clean water before squeegeeing the whole thing. Oh the satisfaction of clean glass and fresh silicone.

Once I had that gallon jug of white vinegar out I turned to another cleaning job I have never done- deep cleaning my washer. I had noticed a “tub clean” setting on my top loader. In my whole life I have never cleaned my washer, but what the hell. I poured two cups of vinegar in the machine and ran the tub cleaning cycle. When it was done I ran a second cycle to ensure no vinegar lurked anywhere in my washer.

My robot vacuum ran all over the house all the while I was doing these other jobs. Then I got out a set of mops. I used my hardwood mop and cleans the wood floors. Then I turned to the tile floors. Next I dealt with every toilet. I was on a roll.

Lastly I took on the burners of my gas stove. As I have starfish burners and the gunk tends to turn black on the corners of the stars. Despite cleaning the stove daily when I wipe down the counters I never get all the stuff off. Channeling my inner 1940’s house wife, who had nothing better to do than keep a perfect home, I took a Brillo pad to the stove and scrubbed until my fingers nails were black. I got most everything off the corners of the starfish, but a few stubborn black marks persist. I am going to have to research the best way to remove them in tight spots.

As I had pulled out some stainless steel cleaner to work on the stove I finished up by polishing all the appliances in the kitchen. Only then did I realize I could have been cleaning the oven. Oh thank goodness I have something to do tomorrow. It is still going to be the 1940’s here for a while. Maybe I can pull out my old Electrolux vacuum and I can vacuum the lampshades and all the sofa cushions. If only I could get my hands on some good beef bones I could make my own soap and gelatin.

Cover a Your Mouth AND Nose

I try and stay home. When I have to go out I try and go on an off weekday time, hoping there are fewer people out. I believe the scientists who say no contact and good face covering and hand washing are the best way to not contract or spread Covid. It is not inevitable that we all have to get this thing in the next two years if people do the three easiest things, stay at least six feet apart from everyone, except those who you live with, wear a mask when you are in public, which does not mean when you are taking a walk in your empty neighborhood, but are in a store, and wash your hands, lots.

Last week my outing was to Trader Joe’s. They have this system of keeping us safe down pat. ALL the employees are wearing masks that cover both their nose and mouth. They only have enough carts in use to keep the numbers low inside the store and they disinfect them between each customer. They have employees at the door managing the line outside and have little “x’s” on the sidewalk incase you really don’t know how far apart six feet is. They also only let in customers who are also wearing masks and you can’t bring your own bags. I feel safe shopping there because of all these things.

Unfortunately today I had three errands to run I had been putting off. The first was to Home Depot. Big Mistake. They have a sign at the door telling people to wear masks but half of the idiots in the store were not, and that includes employees. There was a greeter getting carts from outside and giving them to customers inside, but he was not cleaning the cart handles. I asked him why there were so many customers coming in without masks and he just shrugged. You can bet I told a few of those customers to put masks on, but they looked at me like they were on the way to an NRA rally. I even saw a pregnant woman shopping without a mask.

At one point I witnessed three employees without masks who were as close together as people could be talking to each other. I could practically see the water droplets come from their mouths as they talked face-to-face. I will not be going back to Home Depot as they are clearly OK with killing off their employees and customers.

The next stop was a national pharmacy where not only were the customers unmasked, but so were the Pharmacists and shelf stockers. Pharmacists are highly trained professionals and it was shocking to see them with their masks casually around their necks, they certainly know better.

The last stop was the Post Office. They had a sign on the door that said that everyone was to be masked per the USPS, yet the two of the three workers had their masks below their noses. Now I am certain that wearing a mask all day at work can be annoying, but the Post Office workers come in contact with every type of person. Like the woman in front of me who brought in $1,300 is cash in small bills to get a money order. Talk about germ spreading. Cash isn’t even allowed at Smoothy King.

I came home and wrote all the corporations where I had witnessed poor behavior by employees. I know these people are essential workers who are working at stores so we can get needed supplies. I want them to stay healthy along with the rest of us. More places need to follow Trader Joe’s lead and do things right. We are in this for the long haul. Things are not going back the way they used to be for years until we have a vaccine and everyone has gotten it, including all those anti-vaxers.

So not only should you wear your masks correctly, you need to call places out that are not. Change only happens with pressure. Knowing you might lose customers for a lifetime because you are only paying lip service to the necessary precautions is the only way to make businesses be good citizens. I am keeping a list of the good places and the bad places and am happy to write to all the presidents and board chairs of offending companies. Let me know of your good places. I want to call them out for doing the right things.

No Mother’s Together for Mother’s Day

This is the loneliest Mother’s Day for so many people this year. I am not able to see my mother, although we did make plans to try and see each other in a few weeks, but not to get to hug.

I have had a nice day with Russ and Carter, but it is not so different than the last sixty days. I am thinking of people who can’t visit their Mother or whose Mothers are no longer on this earth.

Mothers who are living in assisted living, that are rightfully not allowing any visitors to keep their residents safe, can’t be visited by their kids. Mothers who live far away and can’t be visited because we are sheltering at home and not traveling. Mothers whose children are working at essential jobs such as nurses and doctors and don’t want to expose their mother’s to any potential germs, can’t be visited.

What this Mother’s Day reminds me is to spend time with your mother when you can because even if they are healthy, you might not get to be with them. We just don’t know how long we have with our Moms. So Happy Mother’s Day to my sweet mother. Thanks to my family to spending time with me today too. It’s not a normal Mother’s Day, but it makes me appreciate being one.

Back to 1970’s Delivery

When I was a kid we would pour over the FAO Schwarz toy catalog which came in a September. It was the Christmas wish book for us. Every year I would marvel over the same two items which cost the most in the whole book and were essentially the same price, a live pony and a rolling life sized stuffed pony with cart. How could they be the same price? I wondered if they had the live ponies in a cage at the warehouse where all the other toys were stored.

The catalog came in September so that parents had plenty of time to mail in their order form and wait the few weeks for the toys to be delivered. You really had to be organized back then. There was no way to phone in an order and there was no overnight delivery.

We thought nothing of waiting weeks for something ordered from a catalog. Perhaps that is why we mostly shopped at local store where we could have instant gratification.

Fast forward fifty years and we have practically instant gratification while ordering from Online catalogs. Of course they are nothing like the FAO Schwarz way of shopping where all the items had a long descriptive copy written beside the tiny photos. At one point I thought I might want to be both a copy writer and an art director because I loved reading catalogs.

We have become so spoiled with nearly instant delivery. Companies, in order to compete, were practically forced into offering inexpensive overnight delivery, no matter what it actually costs. Enter Covid-19.

Now that we are staying home we have no choice but to order online and wait for things to be delivered, but suddenly everything is taking so much longer. I understand that warehouses might not have exactly the same staffing they had before and that maybe employees have to be further apart, but the actually delivery mechanism that has been in place for years now has slowed down to 1970’s levels.

I had to order more plain fabric to make masks and it took three weeks to arrive, when two months ago it would have taken three days. My friend Suzanne said that she son’s “Welcome to Brown” big college acceptance envelope came five weeks after the email giving him the good news of his being offered a spot. The post mark proved it.

I have been awaiting elastic I ordered in March. Unknowingly I ordered five different spools from five different vendors. One arrived two weeks ago and I have used it up. A second should come this week, eight weeks after the original order. The other three are coming weeks from now. These deliveries are akin to ordering the live pony from the FAO Schwarz catalog. I figure if I am going to be getting anyone a Christmas present I better start shopping now. Should Carter get the love of stuffed pony?

Oh Lord, I forgot I write a Daily Blog

This life of nothing to do has made me forget the only thing I do. One day runs into the other and nothing happens. Sorry I have no blog today. Just as I am falling asleep I realize I have not written today. Tomorrow hopefully I will do better

Growing Dog Anxiety

Shay has always been partial to Russ. She has always loved him more than me and Carter, but she still liked us plenty. When he worked downtown at his office she would spend the day with me, but as soon as she heard that garage door open she would wiggly wait at the top of the stairs until he opens the door. Then she would stand on her haunches and dance for him.

Eight weeks ago Russ stopped going to the downtown office. He moved into his home office in the bunny bedroom. I wonder if his Zoom mates can see the running bunny boarder on the wall?

When Russ moved into that room, so did Shay. She has a tiny bed next to his desk and the big regular bed to sleep on. At first she would go in while he was on calls and hang out with him, but would still come around and see me and when Carter got home he would visit her, a little. As the weeks have gone on she has stopped visiting me and Carter and stays exclusively with Russ.

When he tires of the office he moves outside to his office bench in the front yard. Shay goes with him. She did not like to sit on the slatted bench without a towel because she felt uneasy about falling through. So Russ brought two towels to make her comfy. Then he found an old cushion for the bench, but she also wanted the towels. Now she never leaves his side.

Today he had a call and needed to concentrate, so he went outside and left her inside. I got a text, “Did you let Shay out?” She had figured out how to let herself out and sat on the bench with him. She peers over the seat back watching walkers as they go by. We have started calling her Gladys Kravits because she is so nosy about people in the neighborhood.

Shay stays by Russ 24 hours a day and refuses to let him out of her sight. Carter try’s to get her to sleep in her room and she will have none of it. If Russ gets up in the middle of the night, as he does every night, she goes with him. She has even stopped going to the kitchen for breakfast if Russ has an early morning call, instead going right to her bed by his desk. Officially she has become the CDO, Chief Dog Officer.

I am getting a little worried what is going to happen to her psychologically when Russ does get to leave the house. I think we are going to have to start practicing because it is not going to be pretty.

Chickens At Home?

As the news of meat shortages hit the airways in the last couple of days there is one business who saw this as an opportunity. Wayfair e-mailed me today with the headline of Chicken coops for sale. As a company I usually think of for sofas I was curious about what kind of chicken coops they had.

I was astonished to find they had 36 different models on offer. My favorite part of the descriptions was how many chickens each coop held. The majority were two chicken coops. Lord, it is a lot of work to keep just two chickens. Two chickens hardly produce enough eggs for one person.

Most of these coops are for laying hens so that does nothing for the meat shortage. When I was a kid my father used to tell me about the chickens his family raised during and after the war. They had both laying hens and eating birds. My Dad as a very young boy, say five or six, would be in charge of catching and wringing the necks of the chosen dinner bird.

It used to make my dad really mad that on Sunday when the preacher would come for Sunday dinner after church the family would have one chicken and the preacher would have a whole one just to himself.

I can’t imagine having to clean a chicken I raised, much less wring it’s neck. Having laying hens is great, as long as you are stuck at home. It is going to be interesting to see how long people keep their chickens once they are allowed to go on vacation. Can’t you see the Animal Protection Society now having to accept chickens.

Rather than investing a few thousand dollars in a chicken coop large enough for seven birds it might be a good time to lean in to veganisim. This Covid thing is really doing everything good for the planet. No travel, to cut down on pollution. Less meat to cut down on pollution. Maybe it can cut down on bad politicians too.

Thanks for Birthday Persistence

My friend Shelayne and I always celebrate our birthdays with a lunch. Shelayne was not letting social distancing change our tradition completely. She called me up and invited me to tKe a birthday walk with her and the have lunch on her back porch with our friend Lee. It seemed like the perfect plan.

Thankfully the rain held off for a mid morning walk around Shelayne’s neighborhood. Since they have sidewalks and very wide roads it made the walk easier than walking at my house. It was nice to have a change of scenery and it was a great chance to catch up with Shelayne.

After the walk Lee came over to Shelayne’s with a delicious quiche she had made for us. Shelayne donned a pair of rubber gloves to bring the plates out to the porch. We sat at their giant table six feet apart like guests at a royal banquet. Shelayne had thought of everything to keep us safe. We had extra napkins to use if we needed to pass anything and we each had our own serving spoons to dress our salads. At no point did we get close to each other or touch any common items.

Starved for each other’s company we stayed on the porch for a couple of hours and filled each other in on the goings on for the two months. We decided that we are not ready to go back to restaurants for a long while and found lunch on the porch far apart to be better anyway.

Shelayne declared that she did not want to miss sharing a birthday and this was a lovely way to do it. I am so thankful for wonderful friends who find creative ways to show love. We are going to be going at this for a while and I see I am going to have to expand my terrace table to have people far enough apart to keep the social in social distancing.

I Have A Beef With Hasbro

For the last two weeks Carter and I have been playing a never ending Monopoly game. It stays on the game table in the living room and every day or two I get a text from Carter, “Want to play Monopoly.” Happier words she has never texted me.

This game goes on and on because we have a similar amount of properties and housing, but Carter is amassing a much greater amount of cash than I am. My beef with Hasbro is they in no way provide enough cash in the various denominations to play this game with any skill level. As we are playing the “Here and Now” version of the game the top denomination is $5,000,000. Think of it as equivalent to the $500 bill in good old original Monopoly. The second most valuable bill is $1,000,000. When you pass go you get two of these.

Carter and I are constantly having to turn in the million dollar bills as the bank runs out. We trade in five and get a $5,000,000 bill in exchange. Then the bank runs out of those. So we have to start a secret second bank where are money is just a number written on paper. Currently Carter has $120,000,000 in her credit account and I only have $50,000,000. This does not include the cash on hand we both have. You can imagine that Carter has much more cash than I do.

At one point Carter had every $5,000,000 bill in the whole game. She counted it up and it only totaled $100,000,000. I don’t know who at Hasbro ever tested this game, but they just don’t provide enough cash to play to game with any skill. Carter and I looked online to see if we could buy more Monopoly money to supplement our under capitalized bank and it is not sold anywhere.

Hasbro needs to get into the spare parts business. I understand that we have a limited number of houses and hotels for strategic reasons, but more money is not going to change the way the game is played. If lightening struck our house and Russ wanted to play with us we would hardly have enough money for three players to play long enough to buy all the properties.

So Hasbro, if you are listening. Sell us some cash infusions. It could be a nice revenue stream and makes playing the game so much more pleasant because we don’t have to constantly be turning bills in because the bank is broke. We hate playing the 2008 version of banking.

Really, The Best Birthday

Low were the expectations I had for this birthday. Of course no one has had much Celebrating for the last seven weeks. A birthday is not like a wedding, or graduation so having an “ehh” day was not a big deal. I had Russ, Carter and Shay Shay, so I didn’t need anything else.

My friend Christy had dropped flowers off at my house earlier for my birthday and it was nice to have thee beautiful Lillies to remind me of my friend.

Russ and Carter and dribbled my gifts to me over the last few weeks because a need would arise. Like I got new earbuds so I could listen quietly while they worked. And when Carter wanted me to teach her how to make hollandaise sauce she gave me the pair of tiny whisks she had bought since I was only making enough for one person. With getting those gifts early I was certain today would be not so much.

I was wrong. When I woke up I got a couple of new gifts. I especially liked the tiny spatulas to go along with my tiny whisks. Then the messages started coming in from friends and family near and far. The best thing about Facebook is the birthday reminder function. My parents and sister Janet all called and we had a great time talking.

I had a nice walk on the treadmill while watching church online so I felt productive. My neighbor Lucy dropped off fresh picked Strawberries. Then I took an outdoor walk with the whole family. On this absolutely perfect day we had to do it. When we got back from the walk I discovered more flowers from a friend Nicki, who had come by to pick up masks.

Carter gave me time in the sweat shop so I could work on a baby quilt I was making for some young friends. While wearing my rubbery quilting gloves as I pushed the quilt though my sewing machine, Russ came down and said I needed to come outside, there was a parade outside. Throwing off my gloves I ran outside to discover a large contingent of my garden club with signs, and beads, honking and waving out of their car windows. Since there are three of us in the neighborhood who share today as our birthday they were parading to all our houses. So happy Birthday to Susan and Beth too! It was a fun surprise and good just to see so many friendly faces I have missed.

I went back to the sweat shop and no sooner had I finished the quilting and putting on the binding when I was called out again. Nine of my friends were social distancing on my terrace with flowers and coconut cake. Lynn and Hannah had organized it and it was the best thing that has happened to me all year. Thanks to Stephanie, Christy, Mary Lloyd, Sara, Karen, Amanda and Kathi who joined Lynn and Hannah to surprise me.

Sitting far apart we shared what shows we were binging and other things we have been doing to stay busy while we have not seen each other. Thank goodness they came over because Russ had bought a whole coconut cake without telling me and that needed to be shared.

Tonight Carter is making us dinner and then we all are watching a movie. If I had designed a perfect day, under regular circumstances I would not have beat today. Thanks to all my friends and family for making it so special.

Twenty-Eight and Pretty Great

You know that saying, “When you make plans, God laughs.” Today Russ and I had planned on being in Mexico, Costa Rica, Belize… someplace warm and tropical. Someplace to celebrate 28 years together. Russ had not been on a vacation is a long time and I had been researching someplace wonderful for him. This would have taken the pressure off him for this weekend.

This is the worst weekend for him, our anniversary and my birthday back to back, followed quickly by Mother’s Day next weekend. He considers it “my” weekend, but today really is “our” day. A trip away, planned by me, would mean he didn’t have to do any work and it still would have been a great celebration for me too.

Sadly, God laughed. So my trying to relieve the pressure of my weekend back fired and Russ is now trying to make up for the quarantine on the big weekend. Not what I wanted this year. See, Russ makes every weekend “my” weekend. For twenty-eight years he has always thought of others before himself.

I am not quite sure how I got this lucky, but I try and not take him for granted, because he really is one of a kind. There is no one else I can think of who would make all this staying home so easy.

It is sad that my plans to take him away to celebrate him got cancelled, but it is no tragedy. We have Carter home and we are all healthy. It is a beautiful weekend, exactly as it was on this day twenty-eight years ago when I announced loudly in church that “I will” marry Russ Lange. I am certain he had no idea what life with me was going to be like. Thank goodness he stayed.

Sometime, when the world is different than it is today, I hope we can go away, but not get away, because there is nothing to get away from as long as Russ is with me. Happy Anniversary to the best.

Leftover Parade

With Carter home the containers of leftover seems to be multiplying like rabbits. Russ and I had gotten into a good rhythm of eating the leftovers and keeping the rotation of the food in the fridge under control. Then Carter came home. She is a good cook, but she does not like leftovers and she often does not want the dinner I make so she makes her own.

Tonight Russ took about a quarter of the leftover containers out of the fridge tonight to figure out what he was going to eat. He found four homemade salad dressings, most made from similar ingredients. There were two different quinoa containers and he didn’t even take out the other half of the stuffed squash up with quinoa. There were unlimited vegetables in small quantities.

I am going to have to do a better job of eating the leftovers with Russ. The only problem is tomorrow is our anniversary and Sunday is my birthday so that means two dinners of new food. No one wants celebratory leftovers. I wish I liked squash for breakfast. I may have to throw some things away.

Back To Being Productive

After my lack luster day yesterday I had to finish something today. So I finally finished the quilt my mother requested I make. At Christmas she saw the sandpiper placemats I made Carter and asked for a sand piper king sized quilt. It was quite an undertaking.

I told her I would do it if I got to pick out the materials. She just wanted one that would go with the rug in her bedroom. So I picked fabrics in her rug colors, but also ones that have something to do with my mother. Since she is an artist I found a fabric of a palette. One of London Bus, as that was her favorite mode of transport when she lived there. I loved this very orange fabric since my mother grew up in Knoxville, TN and is a Lady Vol lover. I found a cute fabric of socks on a clothes line since my mother love to wash and some others that go along with all of those.

The quilt is completely random with different sized sand pipers and blocks. As I got to the bottom I needed to make it even out and my favorite parts ended up being three little matching sand pipers in the corner to represent myself and my two sisters.

My long arm quilter, Tina, did the quilting for me in a flower pattern all over as my mother likes to garden. After I got the quilt back from Tina I had to hand sew the binding on which finishes off the quilt and this project I spent the front half of 2020 on. I am thankful to have had this project to work on during quarantine. I can’t wait until we are released and I can bring it to my mother to go on her bed.

Bored, Bored, Bored

Monday I was so bored that I out on real pants for entertainment. I thought I had reached a new low, but now I know I have no idea how low, low can go. Today, in anticipation of a huge rain storm tonight, I cut some of the peonies in my front yard. The excitement low of the day was spending a good amount of time pulling tiny ants off the flowers. I washed the flowers, shook them in the sink, looked for ants and killed them as I found them. Then I repeated the whole process again and again.

Then I just sat, staring at the flowers. Sure enough I found more ants. I kept at it. I certainly am sure I brought ants in the house and have not found all that are hiding in the feathery petals. On any other day this would have been an aggravating experience. Today it was something productive to do.

It’s not that I don’t have plenty to do, I just don’t want to do those things, especially the things I have been doing over and over again. I used to say that my favorite vacation would be to be alone in my house for a few days. Not now. Not that I am alone, but with Russ and Carter working I feel alone.

I am tired of being productive. I am tired of cleaning things up. I am tired of making healthy food. But I should be grateful. We have a lovely place to shelter in. We have food. We are healthy.

I am not so bored that I think things should be reopened. Keeping more people well is the most important thing. So I am willing to be bored. I will try and be productive. I will try and not sound like I am whining. I just needed to vent a little. I bet I am not alone in feeling this way.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Tonight was a “eat what is in the fridge night.” Russ is always good at scavenging and creating new meals out of previous ones. Carter was unsure of what she wanted as there was not a huge stock of protein choices. I looked around at what needed to be eaten and focused my eye on a lone acorn Squash. I decided to make a stuffed squash and was very satisfied with the outcome. Half was a perfect meal.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

1 Acorn squash – cut in half with seeds cleaned out

1/2 cup cooked quinoa

1/4 honey crisp apple diced into 1/2 cubes

1/4 cup of Caramelized onions

1 large fresh sage leaf minced or 1/4 t. Dried rubbed sage

2 T. Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup of Quattro formagio or any Italian cheese mixture

Preheat oven to 400°

Cover a cookie sheet with foil and spray with Pam.

Lay cut side of acorn squash drown on foil and put in oven and cook for 30 minutes.

While squash is cooking mix quinoa, apples, onions, sage and Parmesan together. At 30 minutes remove squash from oven and turn it cut side up. Sprinkle the cavity liberally with salt and pepper and then put half of the quinoa mixture in one squash’s cavity and the other half in the second one.

Place back in the oven and cook for 15 more minutes. Sprinkle the four cheese mixture on top and put back in the oven until melted.

Sewing Flash Back

Seems like all I do is sew this year. Before the Covid crisis I was sewing a giant quilt for my mother. It is the most detailed and beautiful quilt I have made to date. After I finished piecing it it went off to my long arm quilter to be quilted. While it was gone I went to sewing masks. I have sewed over 120 masks so far.

My quilt came back and so I am taking a mask break and I am putting the binding on the edge of the quilt which will complete this project. The binding is the slowest part of the job because first I have to create the binding by attaching two and a half inch strips together end-to-end, ironing it in half and sewing it with the machine all around the edge of the quilt. Then comes the hand sewing where I fold the binding over the raw edge of the quilt and attach it to the back.

Tonight as I was sewing tiny invisible stitches to the binding and quilt I had a flash back to fourth grade. I was on the blacktop of the play ground and I was sewing something by hand. She I liked to sew back then more than I liked to run around. I remember one of the teachers, Mrs. Baldwin who was a short stout woman with salt and pepper hair who looked a little bit like a turtle came over to me while I was hand sewing something. I am certain I must have been making big, unattractive stitches. She told me a story about two tailors. One who made tiny stitches close together, which took him longer, but produced beautiful clothes that lasted forever and a second tailor who made big long stitches and finished making the clothes very quickly, but they fell apart and were unattractive.

This one very short story changed the way I hand stitched forever. I try and take tiny stitches, mostly hidden at the edges and have been happy with the outcome ever since.

Mrs. Baldwin was not my teacher that year, but was the next year. I can’t say what else she taught me, but I do remember liking her as my teacher. I am certain if she we alive today she would not remember telling me that story of the two tailors, but it is a lesson I use often. Teachers are so important.

No Beauty School Dropout

A few weeks ago Russ ordered a beard trimmer. It took a while to get here and as the Covid weeks went by his beard of many colors grew and grew. Along with his beard, his hair and my hair must have enjoyed the healthy home cooking because our locks were acting like those of young people hair and grew to healthy lengths.

This morning as I was trying to needlepoint I was having trouble seeing through my fringe so I took to the bathroom with a pair of scissors. I gave myself a business cut up front, but left the party out back. It is one thing to cut the hair I can see, but I was not about to hack what I couldn’t, or try and do it backwards in a mirror.

Feeling like I had succeeded at cutting my own hair I took to Russ. He sat on a stool on the patio with a sheet wrapped around him. I took out the newly charged beard trimmer and went to work on him. Carter sat nearby giving me style advice.

I cleaned up his neck and eye brows and trimmed his beard into a nice looking style. Then I pulled out Carter’s second grade scissors I had used on myself and cut Russ’ hair.

I am not planning on being Russ’ sole barber as he likes Tony and wants to support him, but I can do in a pinch. As for my hair I am looking forward to the day Suzanne can safely cut it herself, but I’m not in Georgia state of mind and can wait.

Ice Guilt

As I was working in my garden this morning I had a number of lovely conversations with friends and neighbors taking their walks. It was a wonderful way to keep my mind off weeding and to see actual people. One theme among my friends was that they are fine and can’t complain when we have nice houses to stay in with plenty of food.

We collectively feel for those who are in tougher situations and each person mentioned a different way they were trying to help. I have been touched by the generous donations people have been making to the Food Bank in exchange for the masks I make them. Making each mask is an act of love for the person I am hoping to protect. One person just want to pay me and I said, “This is my way to help hungry people, please just give to the Food Bank.” She said, “How will you know if I give?” I told her I trust her, but I don’t think she realized that I also get reports on giving as a member of the development committee.

I feel guilty that this time has been one of joy to have my family together enjoying each other. One of productivity and creativity between making masks, quilts and needlepoint. One of better health having lost weight during the quarantine. One of centering myself with cleaning things out, putting in a garden, reading and just concentrating on what’s important.

Not everything is rosie, we have no idea how this time will impact us financially and we are missing time with friends and family face-to-face and would love to travel, but we have each other and our health.

If there is one selfish thing I could wish for it would be a stand alone ice maker. With three of us home all the time the ice runs out faster than the freezer can make it and Russ hardly ever has any ice. I can’t imagine what it is like in homes where there are five of six people all the time. There just can’t be enough ice in the world. But ice is a luxury and I am grateful for it. I am trying not to feel guilty about using up the ice.

Veggie Safe

Six weeks ago when we started social distancing the weather was fabulous. We prepped our vegetable gardens for planting. I put in some arugula seed, a couple of kale plants and three random pepper seedlings along with some old bush and green bean seeds.

Just as I was on the look out for some other seedlings to transplant the weather took a turn and it was too cold to plant the things I wanted to plant. The arugula came up and is tiny now, the kale has flourished, the peppers just survived, but the beans did nothing.

The standard wisdom around these parts is you don’t plant your warm weather garden until after April 15. I should have followed the standard and not felt like global warming had changed the date.

Now that it is almost ten days past the safety time I feel like I can go ahead and plant the rest of my garden. That being said I have had a hard time finding the vegetables I want. I looked at Home Depot and they did not have much. I waited a few days, since I really should be staying home and then I went by Lowe’s, also not much there. A friend told me For Garden’s Sake was doing curbside pick up and I went on their website and could not order as all the curbside times we filled for the next few days.

Russ looked at Stone Brothers and Byrd’s sight and thought it looked promising. So we made a little essential trip there this afternoon and hit the jackpot. They had almost everything I was looking for. Now it is not the same variety I get at the farmer’s market, but I was able to get zucchini, okra and cucumbers, things I have successfully grown in the past. If you want tomatoes they have many. Sadly I have trouble growing tomatoes.

Tomorrow I am going to put in what we got along with the new green bean seeds. It’s a good year to try and garden as You probably won’t be jetting off to Spain or Italy this year. It’s not too late to start and you can grow most stuff in pots if you want to start slow. There is nothing better than going out to the garden and cutting your own salad for dinner.

Now If I can get the rabbits and deer to social distance from my garden I will be most happy.

Play the Long Game

As a person who was born in a North Carolina, grew up in Connecticut, spent my twenties in Washington DC and moved back to NC in my thirties I have witnessed how non-southerners have thought about the south in the last fifty years. When I was a kid Yankees thought southerners were sweet, but not always bright. I knew that was not always true. I knew plenty of mean, brilliant southerners.

Over the years the image of the south has improved thanks in part to cities like Atlanta where many companies have grown up to be great businesses and great universities attract bright people from all over the world. Now with one incredibly stupid Governor in Georgia the reputation of the south is going down the drain overnight. To be fair, it is not just Georgia that is doing this, the Governors of South Carolina and Tennessee are helping.

In my humble opinion Georgia is leading the race in stupidity. Yes, the whole country wants to reopen, but not at the expense of our public health. The idea that bowling alleys, tattoo parlors, nail salons and massage parlors are worth spreading the virus is ludicrous. The livelihood of the people who own those businesses is important, but so are their lives and the lives of the people they come in contact with, knowingly or unknowingly.

Georgia has not had a decrease in cases of Covid -19, so this opening up can only go one way and when it does the reputation of the south will be set back fifty years. If you are concerned about the economy of your state don’t be an idiot and open up too soon. No smart business will ever pick you as a place to have an operation if you are the state that killed more of your citizens due to stupidity.

None of us can keep a virus in or out of a place and so as Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee stop being careful it will infect us all. Please, to any friends who live in these places, stay vigilant. Atlanta could become the next New York and it could have been helped.

This is not just about the short term economic pain, but the long term economic future of the region. These three states are shooting themselves in the foot.

Good Day

Tonight I had a zoom church Ways and means committee meeting. One usually does not think of a group who looks after the finances as a fun bunch, but to me this is a wonderful group of people who I miss seeing face-to-face. Our fearless leader Dave started the meeting in a new way by asking us for any good news we had. It was nice to hear people’s uplifting thoughts.

I carried that feeling away from the meeting up to the kitchen where Carter had volunteered to make dinner. She asked me if I would just keep her company while she cooked. Talk about uplifting. I was a guest sitting at the bar in my own kitchen with no work to do. I find this such a bonus to our quarantining. We never would have this much time with Carter if it weren’t for this terrible virus.

She was in an excellent mood as she had a very good day at her work from home job. The support and positive reinforcement she gets from her supervisors is heaven sent. I am thankful that this work experience is so valuable and rewarding.

Dinner of chicken and rice with saffron was a huge hit with all of us, especially Shay who wanted a plate of her own. We ate in the dinning room and enjoyed every minute of each other’s company. Then Russ and Carter did the dishes. I really can’t complain about having to stay home with the ones I love and have a good time. I know that everyday is not like this, so I am going to hold on tight to this one.

New Pants

As I flip through my various social media accounts over the last two days there is a definite theme in the paid content posts. Marketers think we all need new pants. Now marketers study trends, data and other social media posts and there is one thing they think: you have either gotten too big for your old pants or too small, either way you need new pants.

They are not wrong. Early in the quarantine many of the posts I saw were about the bread people were baking, sour dough, banana, chocolate babkas. All that bread adds up, especially for people who rarely ate bread before the quarantine.

Searches on what to do with Pasta soared. Carbs were making a comeback like, “if I am not going to be around long at least I am going to enjoy some spaghetti.” I ran into a friend at the grocery and almost did not recognize the person because they had taken the Covid-19 to mean gain 19 pounds.

Then there are the worriers. The people who were afraid they could not go out and buy new food so they rationed out the food they had. They also are extreme exercising because they don’t know what else to do. Just remember that you can’t go have PT if you pull something so back off a little.

Either way, both of these camps may be in need of new pants and marketers know it. Thankfully here in our house we have many sizes of pants and are able to change them out as needed.

I think we are going to be home for a while longer, at least I hope in NC we don’t follow that fool in Georgia’s lead. So there is still time to get back to your original pants size, if that is a good thing. Or if you are like me and are happy to go to a smaller size, now is the time to embrace it. I bet pants are still going to be on sale in a month or two. It would be a great thing if people didn’t recognize you because you are in better shape rather than the opposite when we finally get to emerge. Pants marketers are counting on you needing new pants one way or the other.

Hair, Hair, Flowing Everywhere

If ever there was a product whose time has finally come I would nominate the Flowbee. You remember the Flowbee from infomercials of the 80’s. It’s the attachment for your vacuum that cuts your hair and sucks away all the small hair cuttings at the same time.

I don’t remember ever seeing anyone with a good haircut with the Flowbee. I think the best style it could handle was a bowl cut. Not that it matters right now since we are all without any haircuts, good, bad or bowl right now.

Russ ordered a beard trimming kit which is back ordered for a while. He can always just shave if this Covid Beard gets too annoying. But as far as haircuts go we are out of luck. I could probably cut Russ’ hair as long as it doesn’t get too long and he needs a “style”. I could probably cut Carter’s hair, but long straight hair can just keep getting longer. My hair is another story. It is beginning to resemble a bowl cut.

It is too short for a pony tail but getting long enough that soon I will need a barrette. I am certain the only ones we have might be from when Carter was two. Perhaps I can take the clips off my orchids and use those.

If only I had a a Flowbee. I saw one on EBay for $299. I am certain the original cost was something like $29.99. Maybe they just put the decimal in the wrong place.

Pack Rat Payoff

Being a bit of a pack rat eventually pays off. Today I was packaging up the masks I made for friends and family in far off places. Since I want to get them to people as fast as possible I wanted to mail them in envelopes. From my years in the mail opening business I became intimately familiar with the post offices mail handling. The system for envelopes is much faster than the one for packages.

I didn’t want to use giant envelopes because those are just like packages in the eyes of the post office. So I looked around my various stash of envelopes and discovered a box in my craft shower. Yes, you read that right, my craft shower in the bathroom by my office is an old fashioned metal shower. Since no one in my house was ever going to shower in it I put shelves in the shower and store little used supplies in there.

The box I came across was the perfect example of pack rat-ness. I found the invitations from my fortieth birthday. That was almost 19 years ago. The unsent invitations had big envelopes and that was the jackpot I hit.

The masks, put in ziplock bags fit perfectly in the party invitation envelopes. Then I weighed them. They were more than the one ounce a standard first class envelope is allowed. Since they were barley over I only needed to add .15¢ for two mask envelopes or .30¢ for three masks.

Yes I could have just put two forever stamps on each envelope and be done, but my stamp supply is getting low. Then I stumbled upon a roll of .34¢ stamps I had, the last first class amount made before the invention of forever stamps. Hooray! A use for those odd stamps.

So I packed up eight packages to mail and three for local delivery. Satisfaction on so many levels. Now if I can just finish sewing the last 17 masks I have promised.

Sweat Shop Well Named

I am in the middle of my 74 mask orders. I made an initial group two weeks ago and after my blog a couple of days ago I got requests from many friends near and far. Each mask takes four matching pieces of material so cutting all those pieces for so many masks takes a while. I thought I had enough white material with the bolt I had in my sewing room, but I have gone through the whole thing.

I have also gone through thousands of yards of thread as well as hundreds of feet of elastic. I reordered more material and thread today so I am prepared for more mask making.

Making each mask takes about forty minutes not counting the time spent pre-washing and ironing the fabric. Today I completed 13 and only have 26 left from the 74 already promised. One thing I do for each mask is machine embroider each person’s name on the inside of the mask this way family members know whose are whose. It also gives me a little feeling of connection for the person I am sewing it for.

Today as I was sewing the names in I realized how many I was making for high school friends. We have been friends for over forty years now and I it makes me happy to think these masks will keep them safe. I also realize that going to a boarding school meant no home economics and none of those friends probably even has a sewing machine or knows how to sew. Thank goodness my father bought me my first machine when I was 12 along with sewing lessons.

So I sweated away for my friends who generously donated to the Food Bank. Thank you so much for that. Tomorrow I hope to make a big dent in the last 23 and will mail everything out Monday morning. For local people I will contact you about getting you your masks. Somebody will be getting light blue ones as I have run out of white, but they are just as protective. Stay safe and stay covered.

The Best Diet Machine Ever

In a moment of weakness at Costco a few weeks ago I was talked into buying an air fryer. While we are stuck at home cooking all our own food I thought it would keep the troops entertained. We have used it twice. The first time we made french fries. They were fine, which was a good thing because it meant we didn’t need to make french fries everyday.

The machine sat on the counter for two weeks, unused. I wanted to move it to the appliance world down stairs, but I was voted down. Tonight Russ and Carter decided to make potato chips. They got out the serious french real mandolin and sliced the one small potato which was slightly bigger than. A golf ball, but smaller than a tennis ball. They soaked the slivers of potato in water and the dried them. At last time to air fry them.

Carter laid out a layer of the translucent tubers on the rack and added a second rack and repeated the whole operation. I entered the scene a little while later and asked how the chips were. “They are still cooking.” It was at least 12 minutes before the chips were ready. That whole process produced about 16 small chips.

Carter sprinkled a bit of salt on them and we tried them. Delicious, but not crispy all over. The crispy part were very dark and the paler parts were more wobbly potato than chip. There was another round of frying.

It took at least an hour to do the whole one small potato. After eating my allotted eight chips I felt like I had enough. I have a new found appreciation for chip makers. Granted they deep fry them which would be a whole lot faster, but the prep work is also time consuming. I am not sure that I like chips enough to spend this much time for such a small amount of food.

Making Masks for a Food Bank Donation

At the end of March when it became apparent that all of us need to wear masks out in public I went to my sweat shop to make a mask. A couple of friends and family members with great needs for masks asked me if I could make masks for them too. I took stock of my supplies. As I am a big collector of quilting material I had more than enough high quality cotton perfect for masks. What I was missing was enough elastic.

Immediately I went online to order some 1/4 inch elastic banding. As a I searched through Amazon finding everything sold out I did not realize I was accidentally ordering hundreds of yards for future delivery. A few days later a friend sent me 20 yards which was enough to make the masks that had been requested of me.

As I was looking at my Amazon orders for something else I discovered my mistaken multi orders for elastic which I was unable to stop. So today the first bolt of banding arrived. Now I am back in the mask making business. I have orders for three masks that I will make tomorrow. If you need a washable well fitting mask I am taking requests. I am not charging for them, but ask you to make a generous donation to the Food Bank of CENC in exchange for the mask.

I am happy to mail them to you or drop them off if you are local. Since Carter is home and I share my sweat shop space with her my time is limited as to how fast I can make masks. I can give you an estimate as to delivery time. I won’t me taking hundreds of orders so I will have limits as to how many I can offer, but as more elastic arrives I will resume sewing. I do want my friends and family to wear good quality masks to protect yourselves the best you can.

Stay safe, stay healthy and stay home.