I am trying a weekly photo journal of my life during this stay-at-home pandemic. The idea is to post on Sundays and include one photo for each day of the week with some text. I may not limit myself to one photo because I have a hard time with rules like that. It seems a perfectly logical thing to do on a family history blog. This is certainly an historic time.
Sunday, 4/5/2020
Palm Sunday is definitely different this year. And yet, beautiful. Zoom during Sunday school hour, Zoom with pastors and so many near and far for a hymn and prayers. Again, the prayers lifted by the congregation made me tear up. Then the expanded podcast. How did the children’s choir director get all those sweet voices to record at home and sound like they were in a room together??? Wonderful sermon, pre-recorded beautiful choir music … These are different days that require different ways. Yet- Holy. Lovely. Safe.
Monday, 4/6/2020
Read Miss Rumphius in our ESL Book Club today. One of the students said that this book is not just for children, but is like a book of philosophy. Again, the theme fit very well with this time we are living in as we discussed ways that we see people making the world more beautiful. We thought of medical workers and researchers, grocery store employees, neighbors shopping for elderly persons, landscapers and people whose yards are beautiful, the students in our class, street cleaners and those who take away our garbage and on and on. Everyone agreed with this quote from Lady Bird Johnson: “Ugliness is so grim. A little beauty, something that is lovely, I think, can help create harmony which will lessen tensions.” It was suggested that even the little things we do in our own homes to add a little beauty make us more peaceful and our peacefulness grows to those around us.
It has been fun to reconnect to former students using this platform. Today we had students join us from Estonia and Iran (both of them live here, but had made trips to visit family before this mess started and then got stuck there), Peru, South Korea, and China, as well as Philadelphia, Bastrop, and Plano. The student in China had recently returned after being here for several months. He joined us from the hotel where is quarantined for two weeks. Unfortunately, a student from Spain who is here in Austin lost an uncle to COVID-19 in Spain and her father had been in the hospital for three weeks, but is recovering.
Tuesday, 4/7/2020
* Photo from walk in the neighborhood
* One of my oncology nurses emailed me yesterday and asked if I would make masks for patients. I got started later than I intended today and was not as fast as I thought I would be. Trying a pattern that has ties and a pocket that can be used to add a filter.
Wednesday, 4/8/2020
* Finished a few masks and tried one on. The first mask I made with a pattern that used elastic. It was way too big for me, but fit my husband. This one with the long ties would fit just about anyone.
* Cooking with greens. See Pandemic Pantry Potluck
Thursday, 4/9/2020
* ESL Class via zoom
* Bible study via zoom
* On my evening walk I saw these birds being socially distant. 😉
Friday, 4/10/2020
* Finished and bagged 8 masks for patients at TX Oncology
* CT scan
* Maunday Thursday podcast
* Scenes from this evening’s walk. Chalk art and Easter decor. I wore a mask. Trying to be a trendsetter. No one else was wearing one.
Sorry – some days just need more photos than others …
Friday, 4/11/2020
* Posted my first Pandemic Pantry Potluck post. Not sure I can keep up with all the things I keep deciding I should do.
* My masks don’t look very nice coming out of the dryer. I posted this photo and my comment on Facebook and my friends all said they were perfect – all cotton is best to use and wrinkles, after a few washings a friend says her masks got in a “groove,” and another reminded me that “If they help, they don’t have to look perfect, do they?”
Saturday, 4/12/2020
* Picked up first CSA veggie box of the pandemic at the farmer’s market.
* Prepared my butterfly prayers for church tomorrow. For the past few years, a few of my ESL students and I would attach hundreds of the paper butterflies to fishing line to be hung in the sanctuary. This year we are all on our own to do this at home.
* I tuned in to the movie “Battle of the Sexes” (about Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs). It reminded me that on my walk yesterday evening, I heard a little girl’s voice complaining. As I got closer, I saw that she was probably 3 or 4, riding a bike with her parents. She was obviously tired and wanted to turn back. The thing that was upsetting was hearing her dad say, “Are you going to be tough, or are you going to be a girly girl?“ If I had been closer, he would have at least gotten an evil eye from me.
Stay home and stay safe!