Ending May with Sunshine

    The month of May has provided a wide variety of weather. Just 10 days ago we had 27˚ for a morning low that set a record. Not many days later we turned on the air conditioning when the temperatures reached the 80s combined with humidity. Then a beautiful change in weather arrived this weekend. We decided to take advantage of the change in weather and ventured a bit farther from home yesterday.

    We've probably driven by the street that takes you to Old Waverly Park hundreds of times but never turned. A friend mentioned that we might like the trail along the White River that we didn't know was there. Since the weather had moderated we decided it was perfect for a short trip out of town. The trail is paved and there are views of the White River and even picnic benches in a few select spots. Ray remarked, "there's no trash." The trail is 2 miles out and back for a 4-mile walk. Sometime soon I hope to go back and run the trail. After our walk, we had a picnic in the town gazebo to complete our adventure.

A very short breather on our 4-mile hike

The White River south of Indianapolis

  Last Sunday I donated blood and received some dollars off coupons for Noodles and Company a restaurant that's new to me. The next day, Memorial Day, I used the coupons to order carry out. We took our carryout meals to a picnic table in Craig Park. The weather was nice and we enjoyed being outdoors. Before the pandemic, Memorial Day is often a time for family cookouts. I hope we can return to that sometime in the future. 

    I don't think I've posted this photo taken in late April. I guess it's not too late to do that. A friend was walking in her neighborhood and let me know that my name was in "big" letters not far from her house. Ray and I drove over to see if we could find it. 

Prettier display than the usual Lawn Card

    On a side note, Blogger has made a few changes that I'm using for the first time but which are becoming permanent in a month or so. I had to play around with the new tools. Most things I figured out with some experimenting and I'm hoping I'll get comfortable with the new formatting tools.

Two Months of Isolation

Our first day of isolation was March 17. On the previous day, my birthday, we enjoyed a meal at a local restaurant and I recall the waitress mentioning that it was her last day. She already knew that they would be open only to take-out meals beginning the next day. She had another job and had already decided to leave any opportunities for employment to other workers who didn't have other jobs.

So what is happening in our lives? We run or walk every day and then also participate in other exercises mostly yoga interspersed with pilates and aerobics and even a bit of tai chi. Of course, we still prepare meals, have laundry to do, take short trips to the grocery store, and have been participating in online church services since this began. A week ago, we had a virtual Zoom meeting with Bart and his family and this time Nancy and Joe chimed in. Dustin had a quick cameo appearance. I've connected with friends from church on Zoom several times also. After two months, we have a new normal and it's difficult to remember what life was like before this all began. I guess humans are adaptable!

Last Saturday morning, I joined two other friends at church to work on quilts for Lutheran World Relief. I was able to knot three quilts while someone else used the sewing machine to stitch the outside edges of the quilts and the third person assembled quilt layers so the next time we meet I can knot them.

The saga of our TV woes continues. We thought the problem was solved when last Monday the service technician installed a direct connection. (We're on a first-name basis with the service tech since he's been trying to solve this for the past month.) For four days we didn't have a problem. Yesterday, we had our first sign that something was wrong when we had to reboot our receiver. This afternoon, we've rebooted several times and can't get a signal. It's back to square one.

Salons opened last Monday and we both thought about getting haircuts. Great Clips was swamped for a few days but by Thursday the wait lines weren't as long. I had been getting used to longer hair after about 10 or more weeks without a haircut and could sport a small ponytail.

We enjoyed watching "The King and I" we recorded on our DVR as part of the Great Performances series on PBS. I probably saw the original movie years ago but didn't remember much of the storyline. The music is very familiar though and this new revival was excellent.

I've been making bread for the last two months. I had some yeast on hand and purchased a 4 oz. jar when I needed some more but now I've been unable to find yeast in several stores. I think I can make two more loaves but I might have to begin making quick bread or sourdough if I can't find yeast.

It's hard to visualize what our lives will be like two months from now, but somehow we'll manage the challenge and changes.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Sometime early this morning, I'm guessing between 3 and 4 a.m. I was awakened by a thunderstorm. It was one of the longest and loudest in memory. After getting a little more sleep we were up and getting dressed by 7 a.m. and left for the grocery store. We returned home to have breakfast and realized that we didn't have the Internet. We couldn't read our digital newspaper or watch YouTube for the regular 9 a.m. church service.

With nothing else to do, we headed out for our daily exercise. The weather was quite beautiful and we saw some areas where there was standing water so the storm must have dumped quite a bit of rain along with all the noise. As we headed back to our car we passed a Circle K and stopped in for a newspaper. We haven't had a print copy in a very long time. It felt a bit strange to walk into someplace other than a grocery store.

In mid-afternoon, we decided it would be a good time to shop at Costco and I guess lots of others did to. I was surprised at the number of people in the store making it hard to follow social distancing guidelines. We had a pleasant surprise on our return home. The Internet was working! As soon as the groceries were put away I watched this morning's church service. Then it was time for our evening meal.

In my post last week I lamented about our TV woes. We thought everything was working fine and it did for almost 24 or so hours. Since then I've lost count of the number of times we've had to reboot our receiver because we've lost the satellite signal. So that's an ongoing saga with no answers to the problem.

One day last week, we played virtual bingo. The Copper Chase management put it together and I don't know how many players signed up. We were sent two bingo cards and the game started at 10 a.m. on their Facebook page. Every 20 minutes a number was called and when the last number was called at 5 p.m. there still wasn't a winner. The game continued the next morning and after about two or three calls, someone had BINGO. The game was over and the winner posted a copy of their winning board and won a $25 gift certificate for something (I can't remember what it was for).

What will life be like in the next weeks and months? It's kind of scary not knowing whether to stay at home and be safe or to venture out.