Social Distancing aka Just Stay Home
Another week has gone by, and we've hit the middle of March. The first day of Spring is this week (3/19) and here in northeast Texas it feels like it. Rainy, cool days then we hit the 80's and everyone starts talking about how hot summer is bound to be. Then it cools off and more rain.
On a positive note - and couldn't we all use a bit of positive? - I spotted the very first bluebonnets blooming off the side of the highway this week.
One of my favorite things about living in Texas is our state pride; we all love our flag and singing Yellow Rose of Texas and dancing to Cotton Eyed Joe; and we love our state flower; once they start showing up the road crews stop mowing and just let them do their thing. We'll start seeing cars pulled off the side of the road and families and dogs all gathered together for a photo.
When the Indian paintbrush joins in it's glorious!
Does anyone else remember we're supposed to be a paperless world? It seems to me that there's so much paper, and I have to keep dealing with it. We're in the middle of selling a house and buying another one, which adds to the situation but on any given week there's so much to be done. If I could somehow deal with it while looking up and watching Home Fires
on Amazon Prime that would make the whole situation a lot more pleasant. I also found out this week that there are only two seasons of HF and that it ends with a cliff hanger since they were expecting a third, but I still love it so.
I just finished reading Brothers Karamazov with my family bookclub, the Nibs, and there wasn't really a single character to love, or even like much.
But Home Fires? So many! And just enough villains to round it out.
Home Fires makes for the perfect knitting show, so Oliver the Pig now has two arms, two hands and one leg. One more leg, a curly tail and a little hooded jacket so his ears can poke through and he'll be ready to wrap up. He's been one of my favorite ever things to knit.
I chopped off about 4 or 5 inches of my hair a couple of months ago, encouraged by this cute photo, and got it cut again yesterday. I found a hairdresser who works out of her home and charges me about 1/3 of what I'd pay in a salon. I show up with clean hair, and she cuts and styles it. She called it a layered bob, and now that my bangs are finally grown out you couldn't pay me to cut them again. She told me bangs come and go, but no thank you. They take at least six months to grow out and I can't stand hair in my face, so we'll just keep them.
She also told me not to ever get a 'stacked bob' because my hair is so thick and wavy that I'll have a crazy babushka thing sticking out the back of my head when the humidity hits. Ah, no thanks. We'll go with layered instead.
Not only does my hairdresser charge me a fraction of what a salon would, but her little dog Izzy jumped up and sat in my lap the entire time I was getting my hair cut. Apparently she is a rescue dog who was a comfort companion to an older woman who got sick, and she looks for opportunities to do her job. So we were buddies for about 30 or so minutes, and I didn't tell the hairdresser that it was the first dog I've held since we re-homed Lily, but it felt nice to snuggle her. So maybe I did need comfort?
And of course the entire world is talking about Corona Virus, and my hairdresser showed me this oil she has going in her home all the time. She said it's by Plant Therapy so it's much less expensive than other essential oil brands, and she's had it going for years because of the number of people passing through her home. The one she uses is called Germ Fighter and this bottle was $14.00. It's not available on Prime so it'll take a few days or so to get here, but the smell was really nice, a bit of cloves in it, but not overwhelming. I'm one of those who is sensitive to smells / perfumes and this was nice and light.
And right now we're all about keeping germs at bay.
If I didn't feel old before I have been reminded many times in the past week or so that Cub Sweetheart and I are in that demographic, 60 and up, that needs to be more careful about being exposed to the virus.
So as a last thing, before we got with the program of caution, we went to Babes to celebrate CS's birthday. And as always he was a good sport and wore the chicken hat and did the dance.
Then we went back to our kids' house and CS opened gifts.
For me that means more paperwork, and Oliver should be getting his leg and tail and little coat in short order. I'm going to run out of Home Fires in short order as well.
I'm open to suggestions for other good knitting shows if anyone has them? Maybe a binge watch of Sherlock Holmes?
Watching Home Fires, a show about a women's group that does their part to support the war effort during WWII, tells me we could do that. We could join together during this virus situation and be better people, do our part to make a difference, even if that means not grabbing more toilet paper or bottled water than you need at the grocery store so there is some left for others. (What is it about TP that makes people grab it up in mass quantities when things like this happen?)
It's interesting to me that so many homes have that board 'Why don't we all just stay home?' or 'Home is my favorite place to be', yet we were rarely there, and now they're telling us to all just stay home for awhile.
No school, no sports, no concerts, no cruises or Disneyland or or or. Just stay home. Knit, paperwork, meals together in our kitchens (how novel!). What we're all calling social distancing could just be called settle in and spend time with your family. There's a thought.
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