Let out and Loopy - Episode 5- The Escape

     The weather grew warm, the school year came to an end, and the states began opening up. We binge watched nearly every program ever produced and had resorted to watching bad movies about alien abductions...

It was time to get out of the house.

   And by get out of the house, I meant farther than our backyard. Quite frankly, we were pretty fed up with the view from our windows and pretty sure the neighbors were tired of looking at us as well. We needed a change of scenery.

Looks good in backyard, but better elsewhere!

   As the pandemic wore on, it became increasingly obvious that our carefully planned summer vacation plans to see the entire western United States were no longer feasible. Places we wished to visit were gradually reopening in stages, which meant many of the sites would still be inaccessible due to limited facilities and limited staff. To complicate matters, it appeared that everyone else was also tired of their limited view from home and suddenly had the urge to explore the national parks. Several locations of interest reported record number of visitors, and the season had yet to begin. The idea of visiting overcrowded parks without staff and the possibility of closures due to lack of social distancing lacked appeal.

Even less appealing were hostile comments made by locals on social media in regards to people planning trips to their area...

   With heavy hearts, we canceled our trip and began to search alternative travel plans. Destinations closer to home. We split our original trip into smaller camping excursions with breaks in between to restock and regroup before heading out again. It seemed like the perfect plan, not to mention one which would allow us to keep most of our vacation money for next year.

   Our daughter was horrified. This meant she was going to be stuck cooped up in a small space with nothing but her parents for a week at a time! What if it rained?!?

Ummmm... our original trip was for a continuous three and a half weeks.

I envisioned a very wet kid standing in the rain.

I'm told I'm a terrible parent.

   Much to the angst of our teenager, we booked the trips anyway. Iowa was our first destination. Turns out Iowa shares a border with Hell. Pretty sure I overheard this guy with horns and a tail muttering something about heading home to cool off...

   Once we got past the heat, it was a pretty neat place to visit. 

Even with the severe thunderstorms with hail.

We went to the beach.

We went biking.

We had coffee.

We went to the cemetery. (Don't ask.)

We saw lots of wildlife.

  And lovely scenery.

Did I mention full hookup in a state park? SCORE!

 

We anxiously await our next travel destination.

Locked up and Loopy: Episode 4

   Our lives are pretty eventful and exciting for a time in which we are living under Stay-at-home restrictions.

You might ask - What makes our lives so exciting?

   My husband won a cool raffle prize through our dentist office. He won a new power toothbrush. If you don't think toothbrushes are cool, you have never encountered this toothbrush! It has a charger base, storage container, flashing lights, an app, Bluetooth connectivity, and multiple cleaning settings. One setting in particular sells this product, I call it the Nascar Setting. While my husband polishes up his pearly whites, we hear a full two minutes of what sounds like race cars doing laps around the porcelain and tile filled space. I have suddenly found a new appreciation for brushing teeth and have been clamoring to use this new device... 

   Alas, he won't share and I am delegated to a semi-automatic model that requires batteries and has zezo settings.

   To get past my immense disappointment, we adopted a new pet!

Meet Penelopy (or Penny as we fondly like to call her).

   With the passing of our first banded woolly bear caterpillar (Hector) and our second resident insect (Jarard) resting snugly in a cocoon beneath a piece of bark, we felt a void in our lives. That was when my husband discovered Penny in between our traffic saftey cones. (By now you know you shouldn't have to ask why we own traffic safety cones) She was obviously searching for a family so we brought her in to share our home. Larger than our first two caterpillars and certainly more lively, the bold and adventurous Penny readily climbed into our hands and entertained us for many hours crawling about to explore her surroundings.

   This probably should have been a sign that she needed something more than the open topped enclosure we used to house both Hector and Jarard, for lo and behold, one morning she was gone. We searched high and low witout success and now await the appearance of a beautiful Isabella Tiger Moth in the near future.

   In an effort to keep ourselves from worrying over our little lost lady (who is probably at this moment eating all our wool sweaters), we threw ourselves into projects around the house, mostly outside projects since the weather was warmer. First we opened up our camper so that it is all ready to go... absolutely nowhere. Everything is closed, including campgrounds. While we anxiously await the opening of the outdoors and the ability to go anywhere, (and I do mean ANYWHERE) we are using it as an escape from our house.

   Because opening the camper wasn't very time consuming, we decided it was time we tackled another project on our to do list - the removal of the bushes running the length of our backyard. By bushes, I mean the overgrown Weed-Trees that had overpowered and replaced the lovely lilacs.

   While the Weed-Trees did provide us with considerable privacy, they were ugly but worse still, becoming unmanageable. We also had issues keeping them from growing into the overhead power lines. The result of my husband's hard labor... 

Quite a bit of firewood.

A whole lot of brush

for pick up.

Us feeling over exposed!

   As if all of this wasn't enough to occupy us for the last two weeks, we celebrated by brother's 88th birthday. If you see him, make sure to wish him a happy birthday and tell him he doesn't look a day over 40-something!

Locked up and Loopy: Episode 3

   Day something or other of the Corona Covid shelter-in-place, social distance quarantine lockdown and it's finally happened. My husband has left the house without wearing pants!

It's a little chilly for the shorts, but I think he wants to cut down on the amount of wash we are doing.

We seem to be doing an unprecedented amount of laundry. In all the history of having a girl child who used to change clothes four times a day, I've never seen this much laundry. I'm not entirely sure who is wearing all of these clothes, or why, since literally no one is going anywhere.

   Well, I'm not anyway.

   The honor of going out to forage for food and supplies is left to my husband. It comes down to health, and unfortunately, my risk factor is higher. That and police involvement during a pandemic probably wouldn't look good on my record. Oh yes, I have a record.

   I'm beginning to get a little jealous, and I don't like shopping. I thought I would be relieved to pass this chore onto someone else, but it turns out that as a result of my following the guidelines of social-distancing-stay-in-placing, I now have a serious case of getmeoutofthehouseitis that seems to worsen as each day passes. 

Last weekend, I worked from the back seat of the pickup truck in our driveway.

   The truck makes a wonderful workspace. There are plenty of drink holders and an outlet should the laptop run low on battery power. My phone connects seamlessly with the audio system and I can play my music at a level of my choosing without anyone complaining. (Unless you have the windows down, then you may actually hear the complaints. I recommend only opening the window in the sunroof.)

   It had a great view of the house and the street and as an added bonus, I could see the sky too! 

Honestly, I wasn't napping.

My case of getmeoutofthehouseitis has become so bad I have cleaned the camper and readied it for our next trip.

   Mind you, I don't know when that will be. Everything is closed. I can't even stay overnight in the backyard since sprinting for the house potty in the middle of the night would not end well. Yes, the camper has a bathroom. No, we can't use it because we have no way to clean it out when it gets full because the local sanitary dump station is locked down. Sigh.

  This afternoon I worked from the camper. (Bathroom breaks are much easier to navigate during daylight hours.) The backyard is looking pretty spiffy. With the exposure from the west facing window at the dining table, I could enjoy the sun and still see the screen on the computer monitor. But I could also see the tree needs some major trimming. And didn't we talk about dismantling the sandbox this year?

   Desperate to be relieved from another bout of projects, my husband took me for a short drive.

To a cemetery.

   It's the second cemetery we've visited this week. I'm not sure what he's trying to tell me. I mean, the cemetery is nice and peaceful and everything, but is he expecting the second coming? Patrolling for zombies? I'm a little baffled by his sudden and unexpected interest in burial real estate. I really was kidding about the plot in our backyard that is just his size. I may have to be more careful...Nah.

   Regardless of my husbands odd scenic choices, the drive did help with my getmeoutofthehouseitis. Too bad the drives have to be short. I would love a long drive, but then where does one go to the bathroom during a pandemic? I would suggest hitching up the camper and taking it along as a mobile port-o-potty, but the aforementioned dump station is truly closed until who knows when and I am sure us driving aimlessly about with a camper in tow is going to arouse suspicion. Um, sorry officer, we were just going for a drive and not socially interacting with anyone but needed to bring our lunch and bathroom?

Yeah, I can see the headlines now.

I think I'll go back to playing with my fidget spinner.

Locked up and Loopy - Episode 2

   Trying to focus on all the positive while I'm confined to my home. Sometimes it's not easy.

 I commuted to my dining room for online bible study last week. The location is nice, but lacking in the usual snacks. Prayer group was held in the newly opened three season porch. Snacks also a little on the lean side and reception kinda spotty. May move to the living room for my daily dose of writing before I head up to the office to sort through the unending boxes of receipts. Depends on the traffic in the kitchen. We really need a traffic light in there.

It's a little chilly outside, so I will refrain from extended travel plans to the remote corners of the yard.

   I know I'm blessed. I have multiple rooms, which means my family and I can spend some time apart. Right now, we kinda need that. Don't get me wrong, I love my family. I love spending time with my family. We take extended vacations and long weekends to spend time together.

This is not a vacation.

   It feels a little more like an open ended prison sentence. I don't remember earning a prison sentence, though I have now looked up the distance a taser gun can reach. Did you know they can effectively fire one of those suckers to take you down and still maintain social distancing? This is going to seriously curb my prospective life of crime.

   Sorry, I was derailed. Ignore that part about me considering a life of crime. I'm not that desperate...yet.

   Just getting a little stir crazy. We are now officially on spring break. Seems kind of pointless. We can't go anywhere, so not much of a break, and this is Chicago, so spring is optional, usually held for about forty five minutes on a Thursday morning during the third week of March. I still don't understand why they didn't just plow through with E-learning and tag this week onto the end of the school year when we might actually be able to do something with it.

Maybe they think the kids need to be available to shovel snow or something....

   Thankfully, I have work to do, which tends to keep me busy, but I can't work all the time. This has become a problem. I now have time to notice the walls need painting and there is a crack in the dining room ceiling and the rugs are shot...

   Normally when I get the urge to pull up rugs or tear out walls, I step out to grab a cup of coffee with a friend or go teach class, or something. Now... I make trips out to the garage to review my tool options.

My husband has taken an uncanny interest in reviewing my life insurance policies.

   At the same time he is looking into new career options. After his comments at breakfast, I believe the foremost option is grave digging. He is starting with his own. We have multiple shovels he can use to practice his skills and I have the perfect place in the yard where he can practice. Maybe my daughter can help him.

She asked me to turn down my music while I was working.

I was wearing headphones.

Maybe what we need is a padded room. Those are soundproof, right?

Locked in and Loopy - Episode 1

We have to stay at home?

For how long???

  You think for me this would be easy. I already work from home.

Guess again.

I already have a natural inclination to bristle when told I can't do something. To be told I can't do a lot of somethings...

   While I spend considerable amount of time on a computer (I'm a writer who does side work for a trucking firm), working from home doesn't necessarily mean I am at home ALL THE TIME! Nothing could be farther from the truth. My day consists of errands, picking up and dropping off kids (not just my own - I seem to have accumulated a lot of other children), volunteering, teaching, meeting people, going to the gym, and even my most dreaded task - going to the grocery store. I was never much for shopping of any kind before, but now...

I'm researching which BDUs would be most effective to wear to the grocery store.
This is not what I envisioned when I said I needed to get out.

   My social media involvement has increased, but believe me, it's not the same.

   Last week absolutely no one contacted me to bring missing lunches, books, and instruments to the school. No one needed to be picked up after practice. That meant I went nowhere, except the grocery store. You remember, the place I LOVE to go?

   Several grocery stores. The new norm means the stuff we need can no longer be found at ONE store. My tank isn't big enough.

   Still exercising every day, but the gym is where the treadmill and other equipment is kept. Since I have difficulty walking, I like the treadmill. It gives me something to hold onto when my body up and decides it isn't feeling very cooperative. There is no treadmill at home. Yes, I have seen the video of the guy who uses dish soap and a little bit of water on the kitchen floor to create his own treadmill. That will work, until I have to go to the bathroom. Please, I am trying to avoid a visit to the ER.

   Bible study last week was quiet. Just the video, the workbooks, and me. No one put out coffee and snacks. There was no lively discussion. No clean up either.

   Only took one kid driving this week for practice hours. My kid. We had already talked about everything we would otherwise talk about.

   I did my first e-class for my RE kids last week. I already use technology when I teach, so it wasn't a big stretch. This week I am hoping to add a little more interactive activities to my curriculum to try and keep them involved. Our church is not set up for on-line learning, so there is no connectivity with my noisy, rambunctious class. No one had to be told to sit down for the 7th time.

Did I just suggest I missed the kids!?!

   Mass was quiet too. Just the three of us. No eucharist. No fellowship afterward.

   As for those other errands - no can do. I believe I have cleaned the kitchen twice a day, just so I am looking at something other than my office.

I miss my life outside this house. Dare I say it? I miss actual contact with people.

I must be getting a little loopy.

  

Decompressing and adventures in Florida

   First I'd like to start by thanking our wonderful relatives who hosted us for our five day decompression trip to Florida. We enjoyed warm company, excellent food, beautiful views, and lovely days of doing as little as humanly possible.

  They made our visit truly delightful and stress free...

Which is more than I can say for the rental car company!

   No trip with us is without adventure. We've overcome tornados, floods, windstorms, hurricanes, forest fires, flat tires, lost transmission, and nearly breaking down in customs. Why should this trip be without a snag? At least as far as adventures go, it was low on the danger scale, if somewhat higher on the irritation level.

 Normally my husband and I travel in September for our annual eight year anniversary celebration, but this year our schedules were busy and September turned into January. It was nice to leave the cold and slush behind and exchange it for chilly with a forecast of falling Iguanas.

             Seriously, there really were Iguanas falling from trees.

CNN reports Cold Florida weather causing Iguanas to fall from trees

 
   To be fair, we didn't actually see any reptiles falling, but the danger was there. Florida is a nice place to visit, but it sure can be dangerous. Which is why when the rental car agent asked why we were visiting, I told him we were robbing banks. It seemed prudent to have a police escort everywhere we traveled...

   I have to admit, the guy at the rental car place wasn't sure what to do with this tidbit of information. I wasn't feeling particularly sympathetic. By the time we got to the rental car place, we were already delayed and I was hungry. Never a good combination. If I were you, I would NEVER, EVER, rent a car with us. Our track record isn't so hot. Rental car companies are one of the top reasons we now drive wherever it is we wish to go.

I like my truck.

  To be fair, the first problem with the car rental wasn't their fault. When we booked the car on line, we didn't realize that the pick up location wasn't actually at the airport. Our bad.

  The rental car company wasn't much help after we discovered the problem. Their bad.

   Because of the way we prepaid for our vehicle through a third party, customer service became optional. Like so optional that they only called the other location after telling my husband multiple times that they weren't sure the office would still be open by the time we got there via taxi. I'm still not clear why they were unable to assist with the mix up, but I am of the opinion that repeat business is not one of their goals.

   It's not the first time we have had issues with rental cars. In the past we have been stuck with mini-vans, cars with faulty brakes (not cool going downhill in the mountains), filthy cars, missing child car seats, and unwanted upgrades. I once argued with an agent in the middle of the night in an empty airport that it was not only unacceptable that I place an infant in a booster seat, but also illegal. At the top of my lungs. Yep, that attracted police attention.

   Which is why my husband wisely left me on a bench while he dealt with the first rental car agency. He was not so lucky at the second location where not only did they NOT have the car we rented (surprise surprise), but also tried to upsell us an upgrade. If I wanted a fancier model, I would have rented one in the first place!

   Once the agent finally realized he wasn't going to get more money out of us, he completed the agreement and went out to get the car. He promptly drove it to the prep area where they proceeded to clean and inspect the car while we waited. And waited. And waited. After a time, he passed us to retrieve an air pump to fill the tires. At long last, we saw them start the car and drive it back into the lot.

WHAT?!?

   Apparently, there was something wrong with the dashboard. Perhaps if they did all the inspecting and cleaning when the car had been dropped off they would have known this sooner. Now they needed to upgrade us. Lovely, another wait.

   They didn't do nearly as much prepping with the new car. Might have had something to do with my teasing the wasp climbing the windows in their office. We were off. My husband fed me. We saw our first sunset from the highway. Not nearly as impressive as the ones we later experienced on the beach.

 
   Fortunately, the car didn't break down or give us trouble. As a matter of fact, we didn't really have to deal with the rental agency again on our trip. They were closed when we returned the car and put the keys in the drop box. We took pictures of the car, just to be on the safe side.

 

   Days after our return they sent an automated call saying our rental car was overdue for return...





I'm a little shy on bail money, so I'm leaving the reply to my husband.