Staying at Home (Again)

 We had a nice and quiet Thanksgiving spending most of the holiday in the house relaxing and watching some football and a couple of movies. Over the weekend we got out all the Christmas stuff and put up the tree.

It looks like staying home will continue to be the routine going forward. The virus is spreading out of control here and there are new orders designed to try and slow it down.

We are doing our best to keep safe. Aimee continues to work from home and my work is limited to very few people onsite with contact tracers and weekly testing for everyone.

There won't be any softball for awhile. We go to the grocery store and they are limiting customers to just 20% capacity at a time.

While it certainly looks like this will get much worse before it gets better, hopefully the new year will bring everyone some much needed positive changes.

New Niece

Way back in the days when it was considered safe to travel and people were able to go and visit with each other Aimee and I had made plans to do so.

We were going to Connecticut for nephew Max's high school graduation celebration in June. We were very disappointed about that not working out. It would have been fun to be there for that.

We also were going to go to Minnesota. Aimee's dad Richard has a June birthday and we wanted to celebrate with him. At the same time, Molly and Lars were welcoming their second child and first daughter Kinsley Jo.

This visit also will have to happen another time.

Aimee was later able to take part (online) in Kinsley's baptism ceremony as a very proud Godmother.

While we weren't able to be there in person Aimee was able to sew a few gifts for Kinsley and her older brother.

Smoky

 It's been very eerie this past week.

The holiday weekend was 4 straight days of heat with temperatures we've never had before. That was followed by thick smoke blanketing pretty much the whole state from the largest fires we've ever had.

The Bay Area had it a lot worse than we did but there was no escape from either the heat or the smoke.

We've tried to stay inside as much as we can and relax at home. Fortunately there are no fires in our immediate area.

It's just one more way this year has been unlike any other.

Still at Home

Aimee and I are continuing to spend nearly all of our time here at the house. Grocery shopping and walks around the neighborhood are about as far as we usually get. Now it looks like our city is preparing to shut down non-essential businesses once again.

Most people are pretty good about wearing a mask around here. It's required in all public spaces even though there are still some who refuse to get onboard.

Fortunately the lines to get into the stores have gotten a lot shorter or gone away altogether. Most of the shelves are fully stocked now. A couple of months ago it was a different story.

In the meantime, we're keeping ourselves busy around the house and enjoying our summer safe at home!

At least baseball is back......... for now.

Birthday Week

We had a nice 5-day weekend celebrating Aimee's birthday. We did the best we could under the circumstances. Aimee finished her puzzle and got to work making her own chocolate cake with raspberries on top. I offered to make her a cake but got turned down.

She did get to have a nice Skype visit with her dad. His place is not allowing visitors and so this is how it's done these days. It was a brief but very enjoyable visit.

Later that night after dinner I was part of a 16-person Zoom call and they all sang Happy Birthday to Aimee right before she blew out the candles on her cake. Hopefully later this summer we'll be able to have another celebration when this is all over and we can leave the house for a change.

Aimee is Puzzled

We've got plenty of time on our hands so Aimee dug out a puzzle we've had for a long time. This puzzle is particularly challenging because it is a PhotoMosaic image. The picture is made up of hundreds of tiny pictures.

It's a 1,000 piece puzzle that takes quite a bit of attention to detail and a few days to complete. Aimee was determined to finish it in a few days so it would be done by her birthday (which was Wednesday). Here is the finished product.

Aimee was lucky enough to get a couple of paid days off this week in appreciation of her birthday and all the hard work she has contributed to the project. Awhile back we had made plans to take a long weekend trip up the coast to celebrate but had to shelve that for another time.

Staying Home

Here's a look at Aimee's home office. She's been busy with her usual workload but, like many, is now working from home. She and I went down to her office last week to get her monitors and a docking station so she doesn't have to look at just a laptop screen all day.

We dug out her old drafting desk and set that up for her. At this height she can stand or sit and work comfortably. The larger desk was from an old job she had where they were going to get rid of this desk. Aimee asked if she could have it and it's been a great work surface for the past 4 years or so.

It's going to be at least a couple or three months (if not longer) before we are both able to return to our routines. Right now there is very little work that I can do so I'm hoping for a quick return.

In the meantime we are taking advantage of the extra time we have by getting plenty of rest, exercise and catching up on Netflix. The weather's been a bit cool and cloudy but it's now starting to warm up so there will be plenty of gardening work to be done in the weeks ahead.

Can't wait to get back to normal!