Week Three of COVID-19 Life

It’s Monday the 30th, the third week of the reality of this virus and its associated disease, COVID-19. Life is very different for everyone, mostly not for the better, but for some better than for others. At our place we are still healthy and active and thankful for that. Like everyone else, we watch the news and cry for New York and its dead and its medical providers. It’s a tough time.

While most of the news is bad our every day reality is not too terrible. Yes, we watch the news and we worry and we pray. Yet, we are thankful as well. We are currently healthy and that is a large something. We are finding ways to keep busy even if those things don’t bring in any income. And we are keeping in touch with others, if only in the non-physical sense.

On nice days we have worked on the yard and garden and on rainy days we’ve worked on inside projects. My front yard is getting more attention than in years past and it feels good to be out there among the plants. My pantry got a complete overhaul - everything came out, the shelves were rotated and then things got put back. I used to stock by alphabet but this time I did it by category. We’ll see how we like that.

I have a couple of group chats with college friends which is really nice. We are taking the time we have to catch up and keep in touch. Two of my friends have husbands who are New York doctors. One has patients with COVID-19; so far they are all able to be at home and he uses tele-medicine to treat them. The other is an administrator and he is working to keep his staff safe and sane and also deal with people who come in with “a sore arm” (true).

A week ago my tenants/friends suggested we gather on Sunday afternoon in the vineyard for a BYOB happy hour. It was them, my mom, husband and myself and my brother and his family. It was wonderful. We liked it so much we did it again this Sunday. We build a fire in the fire pit and each sit/stand six feet apart and take turns stoking it. In some ways, we are doing something we have never done before: The nine of us have never taken the time to get together and visit like this. At the same time, this is only a small replacement for the many dinners we normally share with our friends or the Sunday dinners my mom usually enjoys at my brother’s. Until something changes, this will be our new normal.

Keep yourselves sane and safe. Tell everyone who is important to you how you feel. Keep in touch.