With Covid cases rising, we continue to social isolate and order pickup and delivery. My last haircut was in late February. It's getting long!
Six of the quilters are still braving meeting outdoors in the park. It was 50 degrees out, we were bundled up, wearing masks, and had a great visit.
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| Karen's Monkey Wrench quilt |
The rest of the quilters meet through Zoom.
As does the Clawson library book club. Next month we will read The Bear by Andrew Krivak, who is to join our Zoom meeting!
I am perfecting my Zooming skills.
Last week, I Zoomed with the Troy library book club. They read Song of Achilles and Zoomed with author Madeline Miller. She also discussed her novel Circe.
And in previous weeks, I Zoomed to hear Francesca Wade talk about her book Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars and with three historical fiction writers who wrote about composers, including Barbara Quick who wrote Vivaldi's Virgins.
New books on my shelf include
The Memory Collectors by Kim Neville, from Atria Books.
Other books new to my shelf include
- Nowhere Like This Place:Tales from a Nuclear Childhood by Marilyn Carr, a memoir
- The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication by Alexander Larman, about King Edward VIII
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
And soon to come for an Algonquin blog tour,
- Astrid Sees All by Natalie Standford
We are enjoying watching the original and hilarious The Good Place and saw the new Rebecca from Netflix, a very interesting and competent interpretation of Daphne Du Maurier's classic gothic novel.
Our only travels are to the doctors. Luckily, there is a lot to see in our two-mile square suburban neighborhood. Like this Blue Jay that perched on the edge of the sliding patio door as it endeavored to get to some insect hiding between the doors.
And the Canada Geese who decided to take a walk down our street.
And the Halloween decorations.
Like much of America, we have been busy fixing up the house and finishing projects. Besides painting a bedroom and ordering a new kitchen table, we bought bookshelves for our TBR books and a sideboard for under the kitchen windows.
Many of my TBR books are from the library sales, but also from my brother and ones I ordered.
This week, my husband dug a hole in the garden and we buried the ashes of our four Shiba Inu dogs. Kili was our first Shiba, adopted when our son was five years old. She lived over 16 years. Next came Suki, a seven-year-old puppy mill breeder who needed a lot of TLC to make her a 'real dog'. Suki's first friend was Kara, a nine-year veteran puppy mill breeder. He taught Suki how to play and snuggle. Sadly, Kara was only with us ten months. He already had kidney failure when he came to us. So, we brought home Kamikaze, another puppy mill rescue. Kaze thought the world was hers and loved freedom and her home. She and Suki bonded as they aged, and when they lost their eyesight they aided each other in every day tasks--like finding the water bowl and going in and out doors.
Now they are all together in their forever home near the Pink Drift Roses, marked by a lovely Shiba Inu statue.
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Our fur babies forever home
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The roses are still blooming since we have not had a killing frost yet here.
Every day on my walk I find a beautiful tree to photograph and share on Facebook and Instagram. Here are some.
We voted. We got our flu shots. We are staying safe. I hope you are, too. It's going to be a challenging fall without normalcy, the pandemic impacting our cherished Halloween, Thanksgiving, Advent, Hanukkah, Christmas, and other family and community traditions.
The sign of a really good haircut is that it grows out so well—so Kudos to your stylist. It seems that you have adjusted really well to the constraints of the pandemic with your socially distanced, but satisfying, events. I do think that this fall and winter will be difficult, but we need to persevere. The stress of concerns about that as well as the election, is hard to deal with right now.
ReplyDeleteI finally braved the hair salon- complete with very very few clients and hairdressers, temperature checks, signing papers... but it was worth it to me! We have enlarged our "bubble" to include several close friends and that has helped a lot. I go out every day to enjoy the fall colors and am grateful.
ReplyDeleteYes, JanineMarie,the haircut has grown out nicely. I trimmed the front hair to the length of the back hair early on, hoping it would grow out one length. My salon said our hair stylist would contact us...but it never happened. I hope she is still there when this finally ends!
ReplyDeleteSue, it is good to hear the salons are being very proactive. Getting outside is so important! We will walk until it the sidewalks are too icy. I will really miss the gym then.