Time to pick things up I’ve dropped

It’s nearly May of 2020. Life in the time of Covid-19, the virus from hell. We are doing well, as we are introverts, so life has had some restrictions, but it hasn’t been too bad. We are healthy, and keeping busy. Dan is an ‘essential worker’, as one of two people of the school IT department. We wear masks in public, and go out only when necessary.

Now for a bit of catch up.

October

We had a lot of garden veggies to harvest. Tomatoes, squash, beets, lots of herbs, the last of the green beans and even a few tiny potatoes. I made apple chutney and tomato chutney. Yum! I pulled out winter clothes, bagged trash from the yard and garage, and did lots of garden clean up. Dan caulked windows, rearranged the lab, tool room, stacked firewood and dealt with the first really COLD weather and snow. Lots of cold. 2F was the lowest I believe. At the Aarquelle Harvest Festival, I once more became the Bard of Aarquelle. On the same day, we also attended Daniel and Breanna’s housewarming for which I made house and key shaped cookies. I attended the CASB Fall conference in Breckenridge, and the CASB Region 6 meeting. I also made lovely heavy winter curtains. Best of all, we changed things up in the basement so that all my woodworking stuff has a place in the basement. Halloween was slow, as it was very cold. We had 55 tricker-treaters.

November

I turned 60, and after 8 years on the school board moved to the reporter’s chair. 🙂 So, I’m still at all the board meetings, but I’m writing the articles for the local newspaper. I revamped our microwave stand, and we tackled more renovations in the tool room. Wow! What a difference. I continued to put the garden to bed for it’s winter rest, knitted socks for Dan, spent a lot of time on the road to Pueblo, Denver, and Castle Rock. We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary with a steak dinner. (been together for 15 yrs, but only married 4) I made wine jelly, and bits of sewing for the Holiday Market. It was alright, even if the wind did ‘steal’ three stockings.

December

I attended my last CASB Annual Conference at the Broadmoor. I actually stayed in the Broadmoor this time. Wow. The event was lovely yet bittersweet. A little part of me will always be CASB and school board. I worked on  the Clothing bank for the school district, worked in the garden (yeah…. even in between snow storms!), rearranged the knick-knacks in the living room and put up the Yule decorations. On Yule, we went up to see Daniel, Brenna and grandson John. He got all his Yule prezzies and his birthday prezzies. (born December 29th) He’s so cute! We built bookcases, rearranged the library, moved the old couch into the library and… got new living room furniture! First new couch and love seat in um… forever! The living room looks so classy now! New Year’s Eve was a lovely quiet time at home. Snow kept us from attending Yoolis and many A&S nights. sigh

January!

Lots of sewing. Dan got a new coat for Viking Vinter Vunderland. I was the feastocrat, making soup, and desserts. It went really well. With the ‘new freedom’ from school board events, I planned to do lots of sewing, and planned to do a number of SCA feasts. A friend’s laureling, possible Spring Coronation!!!, Harvest Fest, and of course, Battlemoor. We also had the fun of cleaning out our sewer. Ewww! In between snow storms, we watched the burnt out house across the street get torn down. What a process! Oh, and yet another celebration of John’s birthday! The first one got snowed out!

February

Hmmm… Snow! Cold! More Snow!!! I have to admit that it was beginning to wear on all of us! During a break in the weather, we spent time with friends in Colorado Springs. Ahhh! I also sat down and thought about a number of things, one of them being the anxiety I had over the 25+ UFO’s (UnFinishedObjects) in my sewing pile. I realized that the last 5 years, while taking care of my parents, that I’d only had time to craft of any kind in bits and snatches. Now I have time, and after taking a metaphorical deep breath, I realized that I didn’t have to run around like a headless chicken, but could work on a project from beginning to end. Ahhhh! This included socks for Dan and a sweater for me. We babysat my nephew’s dog, and our grandson John! It was a lovely time. 🙂 Three days of lovely cuddles. Best of all was the SCA event on the 29th. It was a Kingdom A&S event, and the Laureling of a dear friend. She honored me with the task of providing food. I made breads, tarts, oat cakes, cookies,rye griddle cakes, cheese spread, and procured other meats and cheeses. It was a beautiful day spent with our SCA family.

March

While we’d been hearing that this virus was out there, we didn’t begin to worry until about the second week of March. Weather had started to warm up, and I even had a few days in the garden! Our kitchen drain backed up, and we discovered it is collapsed somewhere under the cement stairs. So, we started to break those up with help from friends and family. I finally processed all the herbs that had dried, and began to think of spring, gardening and being outside. Silly me. Instead, we began to think on how to deal with the coming issues associated with the virus. We did get our groceries in as best we could and… picked up the puppy that we were getting two weeks early. Her name is Thora, and shes is Rottweiler, Pyrenees, Anatolian Shepherd and Bernese Mt. Dog. We both had this feeling that the state would be shut down faster than everyone was talking about. We predicted that schools would close, etc. They did. Dan still had to work as he is one of the two IT team for the school district. SCA events were canceled, and soon the only sewing I was doing was making masks for friends, family, and the hospital. What a whirlwind. I had such lofty plans on taking it easy. Dan has been 3D printing stuff for the hospital too. We haven’t slowed down one damn bit. I did finish my sweater, learned to Zoom meeting and done our best to cope with staying home.

April

So far, we’ve done much of the same thing. Stayed home, cooked, sewed, played with Saydee and Thora, Oh, and ventured out masked for coffee a few times. Life as we knew it is gone. Now to see what happens. Dan and I quietly celebrated our 16th year of being together. I have started the garden work again, and after making more masks than I care to think of, I’m taking a break. Time to reorganize.