2020: July

It's July.  2020.  The weirdest year I've seen so far.

The month started out very hot.  At the pool almost every day.  The garden is growing.  Tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, asparagus.

During the first two weeks of July, I noticed that my left knee was swollen.  It felt like it was stuffed with cotton and I was walking with a limp.  I couldn't use my left leg to go up a step.  I had recently purchased a new pair of Chaco sandals, and I suspected that they had thrown off my gait.

The Pennsylvania governor has now mandated that masks are to be worn in public all the time (just in time to have his own daughter's wedding in June).

Knoebel's opened (and Tess started work again) on July 1.  We didn't wear masks along with about 40% of the other patrons.  Crowds were exceedingly light.

He's so strong (and cool) he can do the handcars single-handed now.

I had a pair of glasses dipped to make prescription sunglasses.  Best decision I ever made.

This is just sad.  They turned off the North Pole because you might catch Covid from touching it.  

The next day they (and everybody else) started cracking down hard on the mask regulation.  This was our first, last, and only visit to the Grove this year.

We celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.  Andy made the decision to replace the cracked electric stove with a gas stove, and spent several weeks installing a new gas line.  I thought he was just replacing the electric stove in the same location.  Then, he told me he was going to switch places with the refrigerator so he could install a range hood.  

I was sitting in the living room one July afternoon - it COULD have been our actual anniversary - when all of a sudden he comes to the front door with an enormous stainless steel refrigerator on a dolly.  His secret plan had been not only to replace the stove but also to upgrade to a larger refrigerator with a water and ice dispenser as an anniversary surprise.

I don't think I have any pictures...the phone I had last year was traded in.  I'll have to check.  Anyway, fun story ... the new fridge has double doors on top and a two-tiered freezer drawer on the bottom.  For the first few weeks I was perplexed to regularly find ice cubes on top of the frozen food.  I wondered if the kids were doing it, or if there was an overflow problem with the ice maker.  I looked up the model number to look for an online manual or troubleshooter, but was pleasantly shocked to read the description.

"28 cu. ft. French Door Refrigerator 

with CoolSelect Pantry™, Dual Ice Maker"

WHAT?!?!

He inadvertently picked out a fridge with two ice makers, and I had been storing food in the lower ice bin.  Like a ninny.  I can't describe how nice it is to have a reserve of ice at all times, especially when we are taking a cooler somewhere or making pierogies.  Everybody has quickly become addicted to glasses of tinkling ice water.

Grandchild #4 at 5 months

2020: June

 Pennsylvania counties are going from yellow to green.  

Joined Edgewood pool. 

Philip lost his first tooth. 

 Clare turned 19. 

I made her a Whoopie Pie pyramid instead of a birthday cake.

That map of Pennsylvania on the wall was Andy's surprise birthday present to me.

 Andy bought me a recumbent bike/elliptical machine so I could get moving because I ache everywhere, all the time.  We gave him a statue of the Blessed Mother and grotto for Father's Day. We gave it to him a week early because I was convinced that Father's Day was the 14th instead of the 21st.

 We incubated some of Sarah's chickens' eggs and hatched six chicks the last weekend of the month.  They are, in birth order, Valerie (Regina), Fluffy (Philip), Noodles(Emily), Oliver (Noelle), Champion (Mom), and Smokey (Natalie).

Happy 19th Clare

In lieu of a birthday cake and because she is obsessed with whoopie pies, we made a whoopie pie pyramid.

In addition to the nose ring, she got herself this:

2020: May

May:  Cold and rainy spring. Andy spent most of April and the first week of May trying to run a gas line to replace our broken electric range with a LP gas range because I did THIS in October.  

He also spent most of the first week of May being especially kind and solicitous of me, and asking what he could do to make my life better.  I think he knew something was up.

 On Friday, May 8, after having chest and arm pain all week, Andy went to the emergency room.  They sent him home after not finding any evidence of a heart attack.  After midnight, being unable to get comfortable, we went back to the main hospital.  He stayed the night, and after a stress test on Saturday morning, May 9, he experienced a heart attack.  They found two blockages and inserted two stents.  He spent most of that week in the hospital, and came home with several new prescriptions.

2020: April

Still on lockdown.  Holy Week was surreal.  We had our traditional Christian Seder on Holy Thursday.  

Holy Saturday we colored eggs.  Philip was moody and didn't want to participate.  Andy did a reading for the Vigil to an empty church.  

We attended a private Mass on Easter Sunday, just as we had done during the entire lockdown.  I sewed about 60 masks for Novipax employees.  Masks are required when shopping.  Scott got a dog, a female 6-month-old shepherd mix named Harper.  

2020: March

March:  (the 25th, specifically) The state of Pennsylvania waived all requirements for end-of-year evaluations and reporting for homeschoolers.  Our homeschool year ended abruptly on that day, although I didn't tell the kids for another month.    

Andy and I replaced the warped dining room floor over 2 days on the last weekend of the month.

2020: February

Scott received a job offer to manage a bigger store.  The catch?  Relocate to Long Island.  He moved out into a tiny house the last week in  February.  

That was also the week that the quarantine was implemented.  All "non-essential" businesses were shut down.  Schools were closed.  There was a rush on grocery stores, and toilet paper was impossible to find.  Scott's dining room closed the next week.  His business was takeout only with a skeleton staff for 15 weeks.

2020: January

BD was home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but went back on the 3rd.  While he was home, he and Andy repaired the cracked pipe under the kitchen sink, and he and Conor completely renovated the second floor bathroom.  They even put in the bathroom window of my dreams!  

Sarah had a baby.  She went into labor just after her last day of work!  We stayed with the dog and chickens for three days until she came home.

2021: January -

 January:

I got a perm.  I wanted to try it out to see if it would work for the wedding.

Also in January, at the end of the month, I tried a new medication to help with my knee and joint pain.

I took my first dose on a Friday night.  On Saturday and Sunday I felt kind of agitated - tense in the abdomen and feeling like I was excited about something ... except I wasn't.  I just really didn't feel like myself.  I tried to take my blood pressure (Andy's suggestion) but his cuff didn't fit right.  We decided that I should go to the ER, just in case.  Of course, he couldn't go in with me (Covid).  They were able to take my pressure, and it was something like 190/110.  They gave me something intravenously which brought it down to a less absurd level, and sent me home after an hour or two.  

February:

Some time later, I did see my own doctor via video call (Covid) and started on an  low dose ACE inhibitor.  It took several weeks/months before I was getting numbers that I was comfortable with.

For some reason, Philip and I decided to make biscuits on the 8th.

On the 15th, we went to babysit Layla and Charlie while Sarah and Jer went on a ski trip.