I am going to document this journey and our experiences in it on a daily basis. Here goes...
Sunday, March 22, 2020
We had our first confirmed case of corona virus in Scott County (the county in which we reside).
Here are two of the memes I really liked from this day. The first one is how they test you. This, in itself, is enough to keep me at home so I don't catch this virus. Ugh!! The second was done by a student of someone from Church. Love the thought and the positive way to deal with this.
Monday, March 23, 2020
Recipes are showing up on Facebook to help people get through the food needs they may have, especially when the grocery store is sold out of the things you need. These are two that I kept. The first is for Potato Yeast. Our eldest grandmonster could not find yeast in her store. This recipe makes the equivalent of 1 tablespoon of yeast or the contents of 1 little yeast package. The second is for Quick Dinner Rolls. Claude actually made this one for us to have with dinner one evening. We decided it was a keeper. Next time he is going to sprinkle just a little bit of grated cheese in them to see how that works. I believe it will be great.
Received a message from our school teacher daughter indicating they had been called in to the school to prepare packets for the kids for their study at home. They were not going to do that until just in time for an April 6th delivery. The anticipation was a longer stay at home for the kids now with the possibility for that to even be extended.
I sent this joke to the Mini's. Question: What's 1 foot long and made of leather and sounds like a sneeze? Answer: A shoe.
This day I had the sweetest moment in the previous two weeks. Claude and I took Papa a soda. I left that with Kathy at the desk by the front door and explained to her I was going around to the back of the nursing home to refill the bird feeder outside of Papa's window. Kathy quickly took the soda to Papa and then she opened his window about an inch and told him to look out the window. There I was filling his bird feeder. I was able to yell "I love you" through the crack in the window. I could hear him telling Kathy that I know that he likes root beer and Dr. Pepper. He grinned really big at me. It was a treasure of a moment and one of the Lord's tender mercies in my life.
I received a question from Katelyn about writing Papa a letter. I posted on our family Facebook page the instructions and address to do this. Then I posted on the Ward (congregation) Facebook pages these same instructions. I'll not know if anyone responded but it felt good to have that out there. I also sent it to each of my two sisters and suggested they invite their kids to participate.
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
This is the best way for a little one to get through all this madness. Emelia sleeps with her mom, Katelyn.
There are a lot of fun things that have started to happen so that people can be connected during this time. One of these is teachers doing parades through the streets where their students live. This is what happened on this day. Northern Elementary teachers drove by where their students live. Claude and I went out to the front porch when we heard all the honking and waved to them from our porch. This has translated to a way to celebrate birthdays and other events from a distance. It allows everyone to share love and respect while maintaining their distance.
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
About this day Claude had a strong impression and shared it with me. He wanted our family to stay close together and support each other through this experience. He wanted to send a message to the kids explaining the need for each of us to make an additional extra effort to communicate with each other. He also wanted to surprise them with a mailing of a fast food gift card for them to be able to get out and go through a drive-thru to get a meal. I was grateful with this bit of inspiration of his part. He followed through with his letter to the kids and mailing them all their gift cards.
Thursday, March 26, 2020
This day was our Nissa's birthday. She would turn 49 years old. I posted this on Facebook about her birthday: "Let's take a journey through the decades of our first born child's life (No, she is not quite 50...yet). We want to wish Nissa Tyler a very Happy Birthday as she looks back at her amazing life, from Baby to Grandmother. Nissa Tyler, we hope you have a wonderful day (sans the deer incident). Happy Birthday & We Love Ya Bunches!!"
Nissa posted before me that her day started by driving to work and having a deer jump out in front of her. Ruined her front bumper, killed the deer, shook Nissa up, but all is okay. What a start to your birthday!
Now, I mailed Nissa and her son, Paul, birthday gifts the week before. It should have arrived on her birthday. Instead, I get a new bar code with a postette note on it from our Sadieville post master saying he had to give the package a new bar code. Not sure why. It just meant Nissa's birthday gift would be late. Nissa's gift would arrive in Muskegon where they work on Saturday, March 28th.
We received notice that Scott County now had 3 confirmed cases of corona virus. Also that Toyota would shut down until April 20th. Toyota was originally going to close for 3 days and deep clean. Then they changed to shutting down until April 20th.
I also received an eMail from Groupon that made me crack up. It started with "dis-trac-tion (noun) a thing similar to this email". Now that is a fun way to start an advertisement during this time.
Claude and I paused this day to sit on the front porch for a bit. Get some fresh air on a lovely day. I took this picture which I titled "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood..." Think Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood.
As we sat there a grandmother with two young children drove by our home. She turned around and headed back down the street. She rolled down her window and we chatted a bit. We didn't know her but it was nice to interact from our safe distance. As she drove away, Claude said the most profound thing, "What would this world be without grandmothers?"
Friday, March 27, 2020
And our final birthday for March is Paul, Nissa's middle child. This was my post about Paul. "Today this young man has a birthday. Paul (Jesse Orla-David Thompson) is our second born grandmonster. These pictures are from 2012 and 2014. I love that grin when we gave you an album of pictures of your life. We Love Ya Bunches, Paul. Hoping you have a most Happy Birthday!!"
My project this day was to make chair pads for the Roper's rocking chair. These pictures show the pads on my rocking chair. The Roper's chair is brown.
Another trend with the quarantine is to put a teddy bear in the window. Then when parents or grandparents are out for a drive with their kids, they can look to find all the bears in the windows. So, we added a bear to a window. Andie has a calendar their area is doing so that each week the stuffed animal in the window is a different thing. Some people are posting signs that say something in their windows for the kids to look for. Again, it helps them be outdoors at a safe distance and have a purpose to their outing.
Our little Raelyn loved playing with Wild Thing and singing with him. She was remembering in Michigan and walking around singing Wild Thing with out having the actual Wild Thing. I made a quick video of Wild Thing and sent it to Katelyn to play it for Raelyn. Keeping up that communication thing.
I saw another recipe on Facebook for brownies made with Dr. Pepper. People who know me know that I love Dr. Pepper. So I needed to try this recipe. I did. It was not good. It says to add a can of Dr. Pepper. I should not have used that much Dr. Pepper.
In the evenings Claude and I have sat together and watched a bit of television most evenings. We are trying to get through the television show Psyche. In addition, we are watching the Harry Potter movies. The first one is The Sorcerer's Stone. It occurred to me as we watched the part where a troll is in the school and Harry and Ron go in to save Hermione that when Harry Potter is on the troll and shoves his wand up the trolls nose that he was doing a Covid-19 test!! Yes, this is getting to us.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
We learned this day that a Toyota child care worker and a server at Josie's (a favorite restaurant) tested positive for Covid-19.
The Marx family taught us how to do a Google Handouts call. This is a way to video chat and see each other on our devices. Michael shared a picture of him working at home that Bailey took. And he also shared a picture of one of their cats as Pawlings Group Employee of the Month!
Bailey shared a picture of her hand. She used her theater make-up to create this really, really ugly hand.
I sent Jake this meme. He volunteers at their local animal shelter. I just thought he might appreciate it. He assured me it was actually pretty on-point. Since he is working from home, he stops every day at 5pm and goes outside to walk around. His neighbor is usually on her porch and they visit from a good distance. The day Jake got this he actually had interaction with a squirrel during this time. He also had the neighborhood 3-legged cat come for a visit.
We had tickets to hear the Louisville Opera play the music of ABBA for this evening. That was canceled because of the virus. We opted to donate the value of those two tickets to help the Louisville Orchestra who is out of work until this is over. I received an eMail from the Louisville Orchestra thanking all of the people who did this and expressing what a huge help it was to these unemployed people.
Claude made us a special dinner. We had hamburger buns. He made Party Delight sandwiches. When I was a teenager this recipe was one we made at Church activities. As young marrieds, Claude and I would often take our kids camping in the mountains in Colorado. One of our go to meals was Party Delight. It is simply Spam that is diced with diced boiled eggs, chopped onion, pickle relish, mayonnaise and a touch of mustard. You spread butter on the burger buns, put a plop of the Spam mixture on the bun and top it with a slice of cheese. Wrap all of that in tin foil and heat it in the coals of your campfire or, if at home, in your oven. They are good cold if they are left over and put in the fridge. Claude made these with tater tots. The Spam he used was bacon flavored!! They were so very good and we felt like we ate like royalty that night. I mentioned it to all three of our kids and they all remember well Party Delight sandwiches.
Sunday, March 29, 2020
In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we designate one Sunday each month as a Fast Sunday. We fast the equivalent of two meals in a 24 hours period. The money we would have spent on those meals is donated to the Church to assist those who are in need. We also choose something we want to fast and pray about during this time. Usually Fast Sunday is the first Sunday of each month. However, this April the first Sunday will be the semi-annual General Conference of the Church so we were asked to hold Fast Sunday for April on the last Sunday in March. Our Prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, asked that we all fast and pray for relief from the Covid-19 virus and all of its effects on the world. He invited us to ask our friends of other faiths to participate with us.
I tried to think of who I might invite. The impression came to my mind to ask Fred and Bevy Myers. These are dear friends from our motorcycling days. I sent them a message and explained about Fast Sunday and what we were all using as the focus of that fasting and prayer. Then I invited them to pray with us. I told them I knew they were faith filled people and would greatly appreciate their combining their faith and prayers with ours. The next week I received this note from them.
I contacted friends and family from different areas of my life past and present and forwarded this request to them. It feels good to pray for these things together. I am grateful for friends that love and believe in the power of faith and prayers. How powerful is that? It was with interest that I noticed this meme on Facebook. Yes, I know that faith and prayer are powerful.
As the afternoon wore on we had four power outages. Every time the power came back on Claude would assure me it was his superpowers! Our next door neighbor sent us a text asking if we were losing power. I assured Dan that we had lost power four times at that time. He sent me this picture stating the power outages were starting from Deer Lake and heading south.
We had scheduled to have our entire family participate in a Google Hangouts video call at 4pm. Fortunately, the power returned and we were good to go. All our kids and grandmonsters were on the call with the exception of Paul. His phone is on the fritz. It was fun to see everyone and to hear from everyone. I sent a text message to everyone Sunday morning to remind everyone to be ready at 4pm. After the call, the kids all started sending thank yous and how happy they were to see and talk with everyone. Andie sent this to keep us all busy until our next call. Clever...very clever.
Claude and I watched the Andy Beshear show at 5pm. This is the Governor of Kentucky. He updates all of us at 5pm every day. He is doing a great job of helping us stay positive and explaining thoroughly the restrictions and why they are needed and the results we are looking for with them.
I spent the evening working at my laptop on the breakfast room table while we watched television.
I received an eMail from Delta Airlines with an update of how they are handling the enormous drop in flights they are experiencing. They are carrying medical supplies globally via cargo flights and are operating repatriation flights to get people back to the United States. They are flying for free medical personal that can serve other communities that are in great need. There is a video clip circulating right now with a Delta Airlines plane with every single seat filled with missionaries of the Church returning back to America. These missionaries were singing hymns for the flight attendants and pilots. Good things happen in the midst of all the difficulties.
I purchased items off Amazon for our Mini's. I thought it would be fun to get them something to fill the spring break we didn't get to have with them.
I also checked out some things on Groupon. I received an eMail from them that started: Boring (adjective) not the eMail, nope, not at all, not even close, sorry. I purchased three Groupons for three Easter bunnies that are personalized for our three great grandmonsters.
Monday, March 30, 2020
Monday Claude and I ventured into the yard for the first time this year. Claude cutting grass and me pulling weeds. I managed to get this picture of my big guy on his tractor. I titled it..."Let the games begin!!". The most difficult part for Claude was only cutting our lot. For 15 years he has had two lots to cut. We sold our empty lot and he really doesn't have to do that one now. He did send the lady who purchased it a letter to ask if she wants him to cut it and her reimburse him for gasoline.
Next was to use the Groupons and get the Easter bunnies for the great grandmonsters. I chose the pattern for the t-shirt and indicated the name to go on it. As I was getting ready to pay for the shipping of the shirt, I read that they were 'temporarily closed'. This was due to the corona virus. Ugh!! They said that the item would be shipped as soon as they were back in business. I decided since I had already purchased the Groupons and they expired in June, I should just go ahead and order these bunnies. I did and realized Drew and Katelyn are in the midst of buying their first home and I wasn't sure where to have the rabbits for their girls sent. I opted to have them sent to Nissa at her place of work. Then I sent text messages to Katelyn and Nissa explaining what I did and why and that the rabbits for the Ropers would go to Nissa. I also sent a text to Aubrey about Nelson's rabbit. As of tonight, it appears they are in transit and will arrive on Tuesday. A little after Easter but, in this mixed up time, I don't think it will make any difference.
When we watched the Andy Show we were told that the people of Kentucky were not to travel outside of the Commonwealth. There are some exceptions for those who need medical attention outside the state or that live close to the border and their grocery store and post office are in the neighboring state, as well as some others. If we go outside the state, we are to then self quarantine for 14 days.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
The last day of March!! We are one quarter of the way through 2020.
The news reports were all stating people are not to take aspirin. It seems to exacerbate the virus. So any of the aspirin based medications are to be avoided. I take one tiny aspirin each day per doctors orders. I quit taking it this day. When we would do our next grocery run, Claude checked and there was no Tylenol on the shelves. He did purchase one bottle of the store brand of Tylenol.
I went to Google Photos and with my external storage drive, I created albums on Google Photos for each of the years of Spring Breaks with our Mini's. Tuesday evening I shared those pictures for 2013 and 2014 with the Marx family, explaining we couldn't be together but we could share in the memories of Spring Breaks for the Mini's.
Virginia Moore is the person who signs for Governor Beshear's broadcast almost every day. There is only one other lady that has done this just a bit. Governor Beshear made these both Kentucky Colonels for their service at this time. Everyone has fallen in love with Virginia. This day there was a video clip of a lady in a care facility on a video phone chat with Virginia. She was thanking Virginia for her signing as she was deaf. We heard Virginia's voice as she responded to this lady in the care facility. Virginia assured her when this was all over she was going to come and meet her in person. They lady was ecstatic. Quite a cute interchange and everyone was so happy to actually hear Virginia speak.
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
This day I spent my day making face masks for the nursing home. I came across a pattern and told Claude I thought I should do that for the nursing home. He was very happy I was going to do that. I cut out 18 on Tuesday evening. One Wednesday, I was able to finish sewing 16 of them before it was time to go to Georgetown.
Claude and I headed to Georgetown for our weekly outing. We delivered the face masks and the bag of items for Papa to the nursing home. We drove through the bank for Claude to deposit a check. We drove through Chick-filA for some dinner. We went to the park and took a walk. I took these pictures along the walk.
We also went to Walmart to pick up fresh veggies and see if they had more elastic for the masks. I stay in the car while Claude shops. They have asked us to only have one family member in the store at a time. Then we hurried home to watch the Andy Show. Claude did set the DVR in case we missed some or all of it.
That evening I sent the Marx family the pictures from the Mini's Spring Break in 2016 and 2017. Michael sent me a thank you and said they were enjoying the pictures.
I did not hear one April Fools joke the entire day. Such is the nature of these days.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Here we are at today. I have spent my day working on updating picture and this Blog as well as clearing out computer files and cleaning out messages on my phone. The digital age is great but it can be time consuming.
I did want to note two quotes from watching the Harry Potter movies. We only have one more to watch. Each of the quotes was something Dumbledore said to Harry Potter.
- It is not our abilities that show who we are. It is our choices.
- Soon we must all face the test of what is right and what is easy.
I had two observations about this time that I shared with my family. First, My hair is now long enough to put in a ponytail!! and Second, My Sudoku book has 950 puzzles. I am on puzzle 690. I hope Covid-19 is over before I get to puzzle 950!!
We end this day with a total of 770 positive cases in Kentucky.
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