That
is how long we have been confined
to our house so far.
We started this shortly after we returned from our winter trip. Other
than dropping off some things to friends, we have not been away from
the house. Oh, Craig did take Clyda for a short drive several days
ago but that has been it. We
both do walk each day but I see very few people out and those that
are practice “Social distancing” so not a problem there.
Craig has only made two trips to the grocery store in that time
period. We get vegetables from a local farm garden near us. Drop a $
or 2 in a jar at the unattended stand and take what you need. We have
gotten carrots, lettuce, beets, cabbage and celery so far.
Back
in early February while we were on our winter trip, I sent Craig a
list of food supplies I thought we might need in case of a Pandemic.
The one thing I forgot was cleaning supplies. We have some, but not
the amount we might need for the long haul. We
can improvise if needed. So
we are good for some time to come with the basics such as beans and
rice!
So,
what is everyone doing to pass the time? Playing board games?
Learning a new language? Putting puzzles together? Reading? Playing
solitaire on your iPad? All good things to do I
guess.
I
have been working on family history at the request of a niece who
knew nothing of her family history. I hadn’t touched my family
history files in almost 2 years so as you can imagine the bits of
paper, computer searches, etc, were piled
up
everywhere. I first spent several days organizing the paperwork files
then tackled the computer files especially the photos. While making a
copy of my master photo file I discovered there were over 60,000
photos on my hard drive not all of which were in any type of
recognizable order. After days of work there are still some remaining
that need to be filed in the correct folders but it is a start.
Of
course I am spending way too much time on the computer but it goes
with the territory when tracing down family lineages.
Both
Clyda and I have been in the yard pulling weeds, getting the garden
bed ready to plant and trimming bushes as needed. There
is no hurry as it needs to warm up a little more before I plant
anything.
California poppies in my garden bed. As they go to seed, I will pull them out and plant veggies.
I
also have a 1000 piece puzzle
to
work on which may take me years to complete. It took a day and a half
to finish just the border. It is all succulents which are purple and
black. It sits in my computer room and occasionally I find a piece
that fits. My goal is to put 2 pieces together and eventually put
those 2 with another 2 that match. I know of no other way to finish
this monster. A friend of Clyda’s had completed a 4000 piece puzzle
recently which took up her whole dining room table. I didn’t know
they even made one that big.
Both
Clyda and I read a lot. Both paperbacks and on our iPads. I subscribe
to Amazon’s “Kindle Unlimited” app. They gave me 3 months of
free books for 99 cents and then extended it free for another month.
Nice
deal!
So,
have you made your masks yet? There are lots of videos on-line of the
“how to do it” kind. I tried making them from t-shirts with
marginal success but did find that the easiest and quickest was to
use the blue Shop Towels. These
are “no sew” masks. I
happened to have just a few towels
left
so I made Clyda and I each one in a few minutes time
yesterday.
The thing I like about them is there
is a paper
clip which
is used
to shape the nose piece. Most masks don’t adequately cover the nose
and leave a gap between the nose and the mask which fogs up your
glasses of you are wearing any. Also, the shop towels
are heavier (made
from pressed cellulose) and
allow for some stretch
in the material. These
shop towel masks are 54% effective compared to standard surgical
masks which are 39% effective. Just
Google “shop towel masks” for
more information.
