The Corona Diaries Week 32 - Election Home Stretch

What exacerbates my anxiety? Dirty sinks.

We have asked our housekeeper to not come can clean as she used to. (But we still pay her.) So the housecleaning gets done piecemeal and at random times. Mostly the linens get their regular weekly wash on the weekends and the trash and cat boxes are emptied with great regularity. But cleaning the floors, cleaning the bathrooms and dusting all over and are much more random.

I have the fastest trigger on dirty sinks. We have two sinks in our main bathroom. Harper uses one and Kurt and I use the other, mainly. Harper is not great with rinsing out her sink and since I don't have to use hers, I generally ignore it. But this week my anxiety has been rising and looking at her sink just make me TENSE. And I don't need tense. So in the middle of an already busy day I spent 7 minutes cleaning the bathroom sinks. The picture doesn't do the messiness justice, but oh the heavenly feeling of clean sinks and counter tops. I was going to do the mirrors too, but I forgot. That's how tense I was. Tense.

One thing we got off our plates was voting. I had mine done, signed and sealed before Kurt so I hopped on my bike and dropped it off. Kurt went later and did same.

Then we both got our confirmations a few days later. Kurt's came a couple days after mine so he was concerned, called the hotline and was told to wait a little while longer. Then it came. Hooray! We voted!

We had a big Halloween event which I will do a separate post for. Harper was so happy to have an adventure.

My other big event for the week was Going To Costco! I haven't been since before lockdown, but I hardly ever went before then. Maybe a couple times a year. Funny how when it was just Kurt and me, we went a lot more often and bought...what did we buy? Pasta? Olive oil? Cheese? Random sh*t we didn't need? Anyway, I did the super practical big shop:

And was rewarded with no lines! Amazing. We have laundry detergent, toilet paper, q-tips, sponges and ziploc bags to last well into whatever the hell is going to happen after election day.

Scenes from around the house this week:

School lunch time (I love that Harper reads while she eats):

Zoom school with Cat.

Monday was Spirit Day/Pajama Day for school. And for art they made centipedes! YIKES. When one grows up in a place chock-a-block full of them, it's not as cute as you think.

Also in school they played MadLibs so then Harper dug out our MadLibs book and went to town with me and Kurt and with Grace on Facetime!

Grace also sent a funny little halloween gift and a puzzle card. Harper had a good time putting it together!

A friend was feeling blue, so Harper helped me with a card to make her feel better.

There was a school project about camouflage and how stick bugs use it.

She drew me a picture of the kind of shoes she wants. UM.......no.

After her Halloween adventure she made this on Kurt's nightstand. A gift with RULES.

Also there is a video game called Peace Island that is being slowly worked on. It's about cats and Harper asks about it from time to time. I look forward to playing it.

Cats of course.

Maybe when it's chilly in the winter they will get even closer?

More tree climbing adventures.

Willoughby stole a pizza crust off the table and chewed on it for a minute.

As for me, I put on a brave face.

Enjoy the neighborhood decorations.

Revel in the beautiful flowers.

And smile at the yarn bombers.

It's days away. Then a whole new SOMETHING will come into fruition. What will it be?

 

The Corona Diaries Week 31 - Getting Out The Vote

Last week was a blur as I ramped up the amount of text-bank volunteering I'm doing. And that's how it will be until November 4 - the day I can...I can...well, I was going to say relax, but I doubt November 4th will be relaxing. But at least I won't be busy texting. It's going to be like the end of a movie job where suddenly it's over and there is literally nothing to do and you walk around in a haze.

To keep me somewhat sane, I make sure to either take a long walk every day or at the very least, a bike ride to the post office or library. Today I'm going to fill out my ballot and drop it at the Drop Box at our library. I want my vote on its way today.

If you are in a swing state - your vote matters so much and you are being bombarded by groups like mine. If you are in California and you think your vote doesn't matter as much, it matters A LOT. All the down ballot races are really important. Karen Bass (my rep in Congress!) and Adam Schiff and Katie Porter all need to go back to Washington and do the good work they are doing.

Cats always make me feel better. Kurt took most of these pics this week:

A few minutes later:

Willoughby had a visitor

Neighbors have some fun decorations.

Harper wrote a Halloween card to Gammo Jane.

And I taught the art class for third grade, we made toilet paper roll spiders and bats. The teacher told me the kids really had fun with it. YAY! But I'm taking a 3 week break before I go back to teach more.

Harper made a snack lunch.

Harper was up early on Saturday morning as well and sat with me for a minute while I was starting my Get Out The Vote Team Captain day.

Another nice view on a walk.

Keep up the good fight.

The Corona Diaries Week 30 - Spooky Times

I continue to remind myself to breathe deeply and to stretch my arms and legs and unclench my jaw. There are only a few more weeks to go before the election. I am now going to have to go back to the "this too shall pass" attitude from a few weeks ago. But not quite that simplistic, as that was before (I'm too lazy to actually look) RBG died and the debate and the virus hitting the white house hard. Now I have to stop myself from "what-if"ing myself into a frenzy or more ocular migraines. There are SO MANY possible scenarios that it truly makes my head explode.

So. I focus on the texting work I'm doing and it will soon be even more of a distraction as we get into super intense times before the election. We have ballot chase programs (Can we ask you to mail in your ballot tomorrow?) and Get Out The Vote programs as well as a few candidate persuasion programs. And I'm a Volunteer Team Captain for the next few weeks which will also keep me busy busy busy. This is so good otherwise I don't know what I'd be doing. I mean, I'd find things to do, there is plenty to do. But this volunteering is so specific and focused and there is a finish line.

One thing that does keep me busy - cleaning out sections of the house from time to time. Yesterday Harper and I cleaned out/organized the arts and crafts cabinet. Of course I forgot a "before" pic, but trust me it was a mess. Having it be done and tidy = so satisfying!

Also satisfying? Some old school classic cooking = chicken spaghetti casserole. Half of it went into the freezer. It was good and soothing and oh so bland. If only I didn't live with two people who can't do spicy. I could have kicked this sucker up a few notches in excitement. But again, comforting.

One of Harper's school lunches this week.

Then she made her own one day and I laughed so hard. There are four food groups represented here: Fruit, Dairy, Salty Snacks and Candy. Perfect.

Speaking of Halloween Spooky times, I got Harper a Halloween dress to wear all month. And she asked for braids one night after bath time so we did it.

The braids were Sunday night. Monday morning was just a pony tail as we walked and picked up trash before school.

After school was flu shot time. Harper was not happy and started crying in anticipation in the waiting room. Once it was done, she cried a bit more, then done. I got mine at the same time by the same nurse, same cool bandaid.

Speaking of spooky, these rascals make me laugh every time I drive by this house.

Harper saved up money to buy an LOL ball thing. She knows I hate them but it was her money....so, I can't argue too much.

I hate them because they are just full of trash. It's all about the surprise and the unboxing/unwrapping. See:

Lame! She got one last Christmas, a bigger one, but that's been it. And now she got this for herself. But no more from me.

School in the age of Covid-19

After school fun with Dad. This is the first picture of Harper that I can see a real resemblance to me.

I got a new hairdo one day.

And of course there was art. Kurt and Harper worked on a diorama project - just for fun! It's not quite done yet.

Harper drew a picture for a friend's 50th.

Another friend had a dog go to canine heaven. A dog we knew and Harper played with often. She drew this for condolences. It's raining, Harper (on the left) is shown bowing her head down. Then there is a tiny plant with deep roots growing = new life. I love this so much.

Our friend who lost her dog also had a birthday a few days later and Harper drew/wrote this for her. Sooooooo sweet!

I volunteered to be art teacher and our first class on Monday was based on Calder's abstracts. Some of Calder's work:

And Harper's inspired work. It was really fun to see all the things the kids came up with. Tomorrow we are making toilet paper roll bats and spiders!!

Cats actually kind of played together outside one day.

And we got our Biden/Harris yard sign finally. Lots of them popping up around our neighborhood.

Spooky times ahead.

 

The Corona Diaries Week 29 - Wow. What...?...Wow! Wow.

Let's take a moment.

Deep breath in...let it out slowly.

Another deep breath in...let it out slowly.

Very nice. Listen to the sound of the waves, feel the cool ocean breeze on your sun-kissed face.

One more deep breath in...and let it out.

Ready? Good.

Seriously WTF was last week all about? What kind of cosmic karmic beat-down just happened? Wow. Do you remember there was a presidential debate last week? That was like three years ago once the news came about the President (and many others in that circle) contracting Covid-19. That was finally the trigger that got us to turn on the news after months and months of not watching any of it. (Harper and I watched the debate, but I'll get to that in a minute.)

I got interrupted after that last paragraph. I don't even know what to say after that. So I won't anything other than it's crazy times. Wait. It's been crazy times. Now it's super crazy time.

Let's look at some cats.

Last Monday was a day off from school so I took Harper to the beach. The day was gorgeous (click for bigger versions of the pics)

We had a dual lunch one day, and dinner alfresco (with cats) another day.

On the night of the debate, Harper and I were waiting for it to start and she played with my phone camera and filters.

Then the debate started. She was assigned to watch 10-15 minutes of it and write three facts she learned. Here is what she wrote all on her own. No parental help at all.

It was extra hot last week so friends who were out of town asked us to water their plants and fill their fountain. We are good neighbors.

Harper got a gift box from Gammo. It's called Crate Expectations and the box has a theme. This one was Kiki's Delivery Service box with various fun items as part of the theme. Harper is excited to be reading the book. We'll watch the movie when she's done.

We had a weekend get together with other girls and their parents.

This is the view when I step to the right of my main monitor every school day. It's nice.

But let's get to the art. Harper wanted to teach me to draw some of her favorite things and I said, "Why don't you go teach papa?" So she did. This was her template page that she drew for Kurt and his work is below.

One day she drew her two dolls. Just on her own for fun. I LOVE it when she does that.

She drew a thank you card for some jeans and masks she got from a friend. The picture in between the jeans is of their little dog who will do a dancing trick if you hold up a treat. Jeans on the left have unicorns on the knees.

Unicorn jeans IRL.

We found a fun front yard one morning.

On my own walks I found these two items and they made me smile.

Listen to WILLIE!

And please tell at least three friends to vote. Send them to VOTE.ORG to make sure they are registered and what all their voting options are.

What will next week bring?