Covid, Christmas Tree, Cat

The Sunday that Dan and I got back from our trip to Georgia for the wedding, Peter said he didn't feel well.  He said he was congested and had a cough and he was sneezing a lot too.

I chalked it up to seasonal allergies and/or the new cat (who has very long hair). He had no fever and no other symptoms so I was fairly certain it was not covid.

I kept him home from school on Monday and took him to the doctor because even though he had no fever, I couldn't stand the thought of him coughing all day at school and everyone giving him the evil eye.

The doctor agreed that it was not covid and most likely the beginnings of a sinus infection brought on by allergies.  So Peter headed back to school as soon as we left the doctor and life was good.

Until Tuesday.

Sarah got sent home Tuesday morning because someone that she sits near in one of her classes tested positive for covid.  She was excluded from school in person until 14 days had passed and had to do remote school.

The school recommended getting testing on day 5 or 6 so I scrambled around and got her an appointment for a rapid test on Saturday (this was November 21st not this past Saturday).

We drove to the testing center with our email in hand confirming our appointment.  There were three containers set up on the side of the building.  And when I say container, they looked like small container truck beds used for shipping.  Here is an image to help since I don't think I'm doing a good job explaining it:

Anyway, they had three of these lined up end to end and there were doors in each one on the side. Someone popped out of the first "room" and we had to hold up the email with the confirmation code printed on it in large letters and Sarah also had to hold up her driver's license.  Once we were checked in, we rolled forward to the next "room" and someone else popped out of it.

This person pushed a cart into our car.  The edge of the cart was wrapped in a pool noodle to keep it from scratching the car. He demonstrated how Sarah was to unwrap the swab, get the sample from both nostrils, and rewrap the swab. Once she did this, we had to put the sample back into the cart and push it back to this guy.

He then took the sample from the cart and took it the next "room" and deposited it there and we were on our merry way. And I am assuming that someone was in that third "room" furiously testing samples because in 45 minutes we had an email stating that Sarah was negative.

We were expecting that result because other than some sniffles (due to our lovely long-haired cat) she was absolutely fine.

She went back to school today and was very happy to be going back. She has missed a week of swim practice and has try outs tomorrow and she's nervous about that.  Apparently there are a lot of year round freshman swimmers and only a certain number of spots on the team and thanks to covid Sarah wasn't able to swim this summer or fall so she is going to be out of shape.  Hopefully muscle memory will kick in!

We got our tree on Friday after Thanksgiving like we normally do.

 And then we decorated it:

 

And Sarah made hot chocolate:

 I'm sure you could all see this coming, butwe had to give our sweet cat away because of the kid's allergies.  Peter was sneezing non-stop around the cat and had to take Benadryl to get things under control and Sarah's nose was running constantly.  We were hoping they would be able to adjust to him but it wasn't happening.

My mom agreed to take him and now she has the lap dog she's always wanted!  :)

Here's some pictures she's texted me:

And the nice thing about him being at my mom's is that he's just right next door!

I guess with that, you are all up to date and I really need to get some Christmas shopping done. Happy December 1st!

A little birthday party for Peter.

Before we left for the wedding, we wished Peter a happy birthday because he was EIGHTEEN!

We checked with him before we agreed to go to the wedding and he confirmed that he didn't mind if we were gone or not.  He had plans with friends and was happy celebrating with the family on Sunday evening when we got home.

We celebrated him at my mom's house with appetizers and birthday cake and presents.

 

 

 

Happy Eighteenth Birthday, Peter!

Wedding Weekend

Last Friday morning, as soon as the kids headed to school, Dan and I hopped in the car and headed south to Columbus, Georgia!  The son of one of Dan's best army buddies was getting married.  And this son just so happens to be named after Dan!  (The groom is named Patrick which is Dan's middle name.)

It was a sunny and warm day and we made good time.  We arrived in about 7 1/2 hours but that included a leisurely lunch stop and a stop for gas and the bathroom.  (Travel time with no stops is 6 1/2 hours.)

We were really surprised at how cute downtown Columbus is.  Since Columbus, GA is home to Ft. Benning, we were expecting your typical run down little army town.  And while the area near Ft. Benning did live up to that expectation, the rest of Columbus was as cute as a button!

Within just a couple of minutes walk from our hotel were a bunch of restaurants and bars and the downtown is also the home to Columbus State University.

We had dinner at The Cannon. And then headed to The Loft for a drink.

On Saturday morning we had breakfast at the restaurant in the Marriott and then headed to check out the Riverwalk. The Chattahoochee Riverwalk is a 15 mile linear park that runs from the city marina all the way to the Infantry Museum.  

Patrick (the groom) was a whitewater rafting guide for a few years at The Rush South Whitewater Express. This park on the Chattahoochee is the longest urban whitewater rafting spot in the world.  They also have a zip line course that spans the river.  If you do the course you will go from Columbus, Ga into Phoenix City, AL and back again. 

Patrick  had arranged for out-of-town family members to do the zip line course.  We opted out of the zip lining but did head over there to catch up with Doug (Dan's friend and father of the groom) and Tammy (mother of the groom) and watch some of the family zip across the river.

Afterwards Dan and I walked more of the Riverwalk and headed across a pedestrian bridge to Alabama. (This was my first time in Alabama!)

 

After our walk we drove to Ft. Benning.  Dan was stationed there at the very beginning of his time in the Army and completed his infantry training and Ranger school there.  Unfortunately, they weren't letting anyone on the base without a special pass due to COVID.  Dan also really wanted to tour the National Infantry Museum  which, sadly, was also closed due to COVID.

We then headed to lunch at the Dinglewood Pharmacy. It's a full service pharmacy and soda shop that's been in business since 1918 and they are the home of the Scrambled Hotdog.  We read about it in a guidebook and decided we needed to find out what it was.

The pharmacy was closed on Saturday afternoon but the place was packed with people eating lunch.  We ordered a scrambled dog and were not disappointed.

The scrambled dog is served in a banana split dish.  They take a hot dog bun and open it up and lay it in the dish. Then they chop up a couple of hot dogs and sprinkle them over the bun.  Then they ladle on a bunch of their special chili and top it with pickles and oyster crackers.  We got ours "all the way" which meant they added cheese and onions.  It was a delicious mess of food!  We couldn't go to Columbus with out trying this local specialty and I'm glad we did.

After lunch we took another walk through the quaint downtown, found a rooftop bar and enjoyed a drink outside in the beautiful weather.

Then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the 6:00 pm wedding. The invitation said the wedding was formal so women should be in an evening gown, cocktail dress, or formal pantsuit and men should be in a tux or a solid dark colored suit.

I'm wearing a sleeveless pantsuit with a sheer wrap (to cover the old lady arms) and Dan is wearing a black suit.  I thought we looked pretty good!  My pantsuit felt dressy enough for the occasion (especially with the wrap) and there is a small chance that since it's a pantsuit instead of an evening gown that I might, at some point, be able to wear it again. It also had slits up the side of each leg and when I crossed my legs, I looked like I came to party!  (Which may or may not be a good thing!)  :) It also had pockets which I loved.

The wedding and the reception were across the street in the convention center. The wedding space was lovely with all the chairs spaced apart to allow for social distancing. There were a lot of twinkle lights and it felt very romantic.  They had an artist doing a live painting of the ceremony as it was happening and then she finished it during the reception.  I thought that was a really cool touch.

The wedding ceremony was sweet and simple and before I knew it, we were in another part of the convention center having drinks and appetizers and then dinner.  It was all very lovely and I'm so glad we were able to attend.

Here's a picture of the happy couple.  Aren't they so cute?

 

I regret not getting a picture of Dan and Doug but they were busy talking and catching up and sadly I didn't even think about it until the next morning.

We had a great weekend away celebrating a new marriage and an old friendship and I'm so glad we were able to make the trip.

Eighteen is...

Eighteen is....

witty 

intelligent

sensitive

loyal

moody

tenderhearted

a night owl

a football fanatic

a procrastinator

conservative

 

 

Eighteen loves to...

play football and watch it on TV (Carolina Panthers, NC State are his favorites)

listen to rap music

take long drives through the city

collect Nikes

play video games

hang out with friends

eat fast food (McDonalds, Bojangles, and Zaxby's are favorites)

stay up late

argue (with anyone who doesn't agree with him - I'm convinced this kid would make a great lawyer!)

 

 

Eighteen has my heart!

Happy Birthday, Peter! 

 

How is it that my baby is 18?  

 

 

Trees, a new cat, and back to normal life...

So I'm finally done with my "job".  In the 16 days that we were open, we voted over 9,500 people at our little polling place.  The turn-out was record breaking and my weary body felt it! I'm very glad to be able to get back to my normal life. 

I would like to point out that of the 13 people that worked at the polling place (and we all worked almost every day all day) none of us got sick.  I was praying hard that we would all be protected. I think we were all praying that prayer!

We wore masks and gloves (and some of the older people wore face shields) and 99% of the people that came in wore masks as well.  We issued each voter a q-tip to use the touch screen voting machines so we wouldn't have to wipe down the machine between each voter. Everything worked very smoothly and based on everything I saw on the local Facebook page everyone was pleased with how smooth voting went.  

The only problem we encountered  was that our county didn't buy "I Voted" stickers this year - instead we were giving out "I Voted" pens so people wouldn't have to share pens.  The pens were back-ordered and by the time they came in over half of the people had already voted.  (And because we didn't have pens to give out, we had to sanitize the pens between use.  UGH!)

I heard, "you don't have stickers?" hundreds of times each day and it got old.  Apparently, if you can't post a selfie with your "I Voted" sticker you didn't really vote.  

Enough about voting.  What else has been going on in the last couple of weeks?

One of the 100-year-old pecan trees in my mom's yard fell over during the hurricane that blew through.  I got a text about it from Sarah while I was working.  (The kids were out of school because of the storm.) I almost started crying when I saw the pictures.  

She has four beautiful pecan trees in her yard and (obviously since they are over 100 years old) they've been there my whole life. Even though I was sad about the trees (the one that fell, landed on one of the other ones and it had to be removed as well) I was extremely thankfully that it fell the way it did.  It could have just as easily fallen on my mom's house or on our side driveway where the kids park their cars.

In other news, on November 1st, I got a text from my brother that said there was a gray cat on their porch but that it ran towards our house. I looked for it but couldn't find it. The next day though, Peter spotted it on our back patio but it ran away when he went outside. We spotted it several times over the next week and I finally broke down and fed it.  It didn't appear to be going anywhere and it also didn't appear to be eating very much.  

And you know what happens when you start feeding a stray cat....

So I took it to the vet on Monday and she was treated for ear mites, fleas, and worms and was given rabies shot and vaccines and now we have a new cat.

He's really pretty and very sweet....

And Kitten hates him with a passion.  This picture looks very sweet but there was a lot of growling and hissing going on that you can't see in the picture. And last night we were awoken by horrible cat screams and fighting cats. Cat screams are terrifying in the middle of the night, by the way.

We are still trying to find the perfect name for the cat but no luck yet.

The kids are out of school for Veteran's Day today.  Sarah starts swim team workouts tomorrow and Peter starts football workouts as well.  Dan and I are headed to Georgia this weekend for a wedding and life is just rolling on along.  I hope to post more regularly now that I'm free from my civic duties but we all know how that goes...

Also, as a side note - the menopause hot flashes are about to do me in so anyone with any suggestions on how to get rid of them, please drop them in the comments! 

 

Working girl.

Just wanted to check in quickly.  I've been working the early voting polls here in my county and it's been crazy.  We've seen record numbers and we've only been open 9 days. In those 9 days I've already worked 89 hours and boy am I tired!

I'm leaving the house at 7:40 AM and returning at 7:45 PM. Dan is having to do laundry and cook dinner.  (I usually have the main dish prepped but he and Sarah get it cooked along with the rest of the meal.)

These hours are longer than I realize when I first signed up to do this but I am working with some of my friends and that is making it fun.  Plus I'm really enjoying getting to know the other people I'm working with too.  

The first four or five days we were open were crazy.  Lines were wrapped around the building and into the parking lot.  Things have calmed down the last few days and I'm not bone tired when I get home like I was at first.

I've been taking lots of vitamin C, wearing a mask and gloves, washing my hands like crazy, using lots of hand sanitizer and hoping for the best Covid wise.  99.9 percent of the people voting are wearing their masks and when they aren't we ask them to put one on and they comply. There have only been a couple here and there who refuse (and at this point our little precinct has voted 6,000 people so I think that's pretty good).

I would love to post a picture of myself all masked up and helping voters but it is a felony to take a picture inside a polling location so - no pictures on this post my friends!

Have a great week!

Another quick beach trip and a few other things that have been keeping us busy.

 We spent a small portion of this past weekend in North Myrtle Beach.  If you are keeping up, that makes three weekends in a row that I've been to the beaches in South Carolina.

This time however, it wasn't all fun and games.  The father of one of Sarah's best friends passed away unexpectedly and his funeral was on Friday in North Myrtle.  Her friend asked her if she would come and how could we say no.  

Dan had Friday off as one of his furlough days thanks to Covid so the three of us headed to the beach early on Friday morning.  The funeral Mass was at 1:00.  Our hotel room wasn't ready so we did a quick change in the lobby bathroom and headed to the church.

It was a beautiful funeral - as beautiful as they can be I suppose.  He was retired from the Air Force so there was a flag ceremony, Taps played on the bugle, and a three volley gun salute.  It was sad but I was glad that Sarah was able to be there to support her friend.

We grabbed lunch after the funeral and then Dan and I headed to the beach for a little bit.  

That evening we went to dinner and afterwards Sarah met her friend for ice cream and they hung out for a while.  

Then we got up early on Saturday morning, had breakfast and  headed home.  It was a quick, sad trip but I'm glad we were able to take Sarah.

Other than going to the beach, here's what we've been up to in list form:

1.  Peter's been working on his college applications and I've been filling out his FAFSA.  Everything is very complicated and time consuming and I wish we had started on things sooner.  But we will get it all done. (I hope.)

2. Sarah's been working on her Student of the Year activities for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She led her first team Zoom meeting  and did an excellent job.  I was very proud of her.  And right  now, she is on a call with her first business owner to ask for his support in the spring when the fundraising begins.  By the end of this, she is going to have gained some really great skills that she will hopefully be able to put to good use in the future. And hopefully she will have raised a lot of money to support research for cancer.

3. I will be working the polls for early voting this year!  A friend of mine does it every year and asked if I wanted to help.  They need extra workers this year because due to the PPE we are required to wear, everyone will need extra breaks and time to just breathe. Most of the people that work at this particular poling place are retires so I think they are also looking for extra help running in and out to do the voting for people who can't come inside due to Covid. At the meeting I attended yesterday, we were told we would need to wear a mask, a shield, and gloves.  Part of me is rethinking all of this because guess whose hot flashes have returned with a vengeance?   

4. I finally got a few things to spruce up the front porch and make it look a little fallish. Walmart had this little beauty marked down to $5!  I had to get it.

5.  And I guess I better sign off because it's Open Enrollment time!  I need to make sure we are properly signed up for all of our health benefits.  It seems like I just completed last year's open enrollment process.  Even during Covid, time is flying by.

Girls Getaway to North Myrtle Beach

 Last Friday afternoon, I headed to North Myrtle Beach with 4 of my friends from my old MOPS group.  Our 6th member Wendy wasn't able to go and we really missed her.

We had such a great weekend together. We had no plans other than to eat out  a couple of meals and hang out on the beach.  The weather wasn't the greatest but we still managed a long walk and sitting around enjoying the waves and the sights and sounds of the beach.

Here are a few pictures from our trip:

We arrived Friday night and immediately stopped to see the beach under the gorgeous moon!

  Kim was our hostess and when we arrived at her condo these were waiting on us! Inside each basket was a beach devotion book, salt water taffy, a personalized Christmas ornament, a seashell, and Yankee Candle votive called Beach Walk and a handwritten note.  Such a sweet welcome!

Our original plan was to go out for dinner on Saturday evening but after enjoying a leisurely breakfast at the condo and literally sitting around talking and laughing until 2:00 we decided at late lunch would be better.

After lunch we took a walk on the beach and enjoyed the scenery.  The weather was starting to deteriorate at this point but we didn't care.

On Sunday morning we headed out for brunch.

And then we hit a couple  of the outlet stores and shoppes near Barefoot Landing.  The lines to get in the stores were long and we didn't have time to wait.  

It was such a great weekend.  I really enjoyed my time with these ladies and we are already planning another trip.