@NJres We’ve got a virtual zero k next weekend, via a local Irish pub. Folks can Zoom in.
Did the ladies dinner on Thursday. Outside, so yes, chilly. This weekend, cleaning before my cleaning lady comes back from her covid break. And wondering why I’m cleaning for her. But it’s cathartic.
School work broken up with walks/bike rides near or at beach and cooking/freezing/eating the incredible bounty of tomatoes, beans, peppers, and squash the garden keeps giving.
PS–never did so much school prep as now teaching online–whew! Even leaving out the grading/paper comments part, which is basically the same as normal times, the class prep and efforts to keep everyone onboard and engaged is huge.
Though it’s nice to be able to do it at the Shore! 
After having a late outdoor lunch yesterday at a Brewery, DH and I attended an outdoor theater performance at a local playhouse. I don’t think they are making any money with the few patrons that were there but it was great to see live theater again.
Tonight we are celebrating DD’s birthday on a restaurant patio. Tomorrow DD and I are attending a small outdoor baby shower. So happy the weather is cooperating for all of this. I am not looking forward to late fall/winter!
Celebrated DD’17’s birthday (and sort of mine too) yesterday- she and BF kayaked on the lake and DH and I walked the dog around the lake. We finally gave her the Polaroid camera she’s been wanting.
I will be working on hand quilting a baby quilt for great-nephew to be. This will be my mom’s 2nd great grand. So far, the deal is my aunt embroiders a quilt top, I quilt it, and my mom binds it. They’re both turning 80 but hopefully will get to do this for more babies.
Enjoying, cleaning and closing up our lake cottage for the year. I can’t believe summer is over, it went so fast.
So, so jealous @momo2x2018 and @ClassicMom98 — sons and kittens, nothing better.
Looking up my old boyfriends on the Internet to see what happened to them, while re-reading the last section of “In Search of Lost Time”
Nice juxtaposition.
@HighTide2020 hope you have a great time on the River Walk, one of my favorite places. Since I’m from Austin, I’ve been there frequently.
On my schedule today:
Practicing piano, because I have my first real lesson in 30 years on Monday! I’m definitely rusty. Getting both my hands to play the right notes in a Bach French Suite and a Mozart Sonata is challenging! It has to be good for my brain, all this thinking.
Run/walk on the treadmill. I’ll keep watching “Away” while I’m exercising. Two episodes to go.
Zoom memorial service for my BFF’s dad at 3. I hope it goes OK. BFF is very flustered about it all. She’s very introverted and this is hard for her.
Grocery shopping. Daughter has been doing most of it for weeks, so I figure it’s my turn.
Tonight, DH and I are going to have a Zoom candlelight dinner with my sister and her husband. It was my BIL’s idea!
Tomorrow, zoom church service at 10 am, followed by piano practice and exercising. Nothing else so far. My work load has lightened up, which I don’t mind.
Thanks @MaineLonghorn We have avoided it during the pandemic, but we think we can manage it tonight. Very cool about your new piano lessons.
@garland – I 1000% agree that online teaching is much much more work than in-person. I taught “at” the high school I retired from for the last 10 weeks of this past school year, to fill in during a former colleague’s maternity leave.
I started in mid-April, the rest of the dept. had a 3 week head start on me. That head start was critical, as I needed people to lean on when trying to learn how to use zoom, teams, post lessons, etc etc , etc.
What teachers did last spring without prior prep was heroic. It pains me to see teachers being treated with no respect again this fall. I watch my former colleagues struggle with a hybrid schedule, which is double the work, but no happy shareholders. Teachers are fearful of the risk of face-to-face teaching, while parents are unhappy with child care issues.
Hanging around the house. Had a Covid test this morning for knee surgery on Thursday so have to isolate until that time. I might walk up to the lake at some point when I know no one else will be there.
Will do some yard work.
Today I’m cooking and baking in preparation for our camping trip. Tomorrow we will leave midday to head to a state park about two hours away. This is plan C. Plans A was a campground near one of the large fires that is closed, plan B was camping in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains which is now closed due to high fire danger in the state. Plan C is not in the mountains but on the coast so I think we are good to go. We will meet up with the inlaws for part of the trip. Weather should be warm and the skies clear.
Hope it all goes well on Thursday @thumper1 - I bet you can’t wait for it to be done!
The zoom memorial service went well, I thought. My friend’s dad was quite accomplished. He was a psychology professor who did some of the very first research on nature vs. nature with identical twins. He also was one of the first people to use computers for modeling and data analysis in psychology. He was very quiet but a really nice guy.
It’s been quite rainy yesterday and today here in VA on the river. We’ve been on our computers on the porch making up stories about dragons causing the other side to disappear in the mist. (The river is 3 miles wide here.)
Other than that, we’ve been playing Racko (yesterday) and Aggravation today. FIL made the Aggravation board eons ago and has his own house rules which mostly match the rules I just read online. His board is only for 4 players and we use two dice instead of one making the game far more competitive. It’s a lot of fun.
He had fallen a few weeks ago and his knee still isn’t good, so being able to sit and play games with him keeps his spirits up far more than watching TV did. I’ve been pondering more games we have at home that he’d be able to play. He’s very, very sharp with Aggravation. He’s 92, but his strategy and knowledge are still 100% with that game. Racko is new to him, so he’s still getting that strategy down.
Meanwhile we try to get out on walks between raindrops. I still have almost 25,000 steps to go for 200K for the month. At home it’s super easy to do. Here it’s quite the challenge. Most walking is from the porch to the table or bathroom and my phone won’t count most of those as steps!
And when I’m not doing any of the above, I’m reading Lucky Child - A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind by Loung Ung. It’s very, very good giving great insight to the life of refugees and children of war. She came to the US in 1980 and wrote about seeing a trailer for the movie, The Killing Fields - a sobering movie I really liked in high school. In her words:
"Americans will never know what it was truly like. They won’t remember the smell, the sound, or the heat. For two hours, they’ll sit in the dark and watch but they’ll never know what it was like to be there for three years, eight months, and twenty-one days. What it was like thinking every day that I was going to die and not knowing if the war would ever end. When the credits roll after two hours, the lights will come back on, and they’ll leave the war. But I can’t.
…
I tell myself the actors are too fat to play starving Cambodians."
We’ve had many refugees in my school over the years - not from Cambodia, but from other places like Bosnia. I wish I had read this book before meeting them. There is so much insight in it from a child’s point of view (she was 5 when the war started and 10 when she came to the US). She lost both parents and two sisters in the war, coming here with her oldest brother and his wife - then there’s the whole adjustment part.
Before long I’m going to buy her first book, “First They Killed My Father,” but one doesn’t have to read that first to “get” this one.
It puts a lot of First World problems, even with the pandemic, in perspective. Life is good. Let’s keep it that way.
Saturday AM, I woke up assuming that the heavy rain last night was going to close the natural grass field but was very happy to learn that I was going to get to coach.
This was the 1st Saturday since last October that I spent essentially the whole day outside on a soccer field. coaching (I had games at 10, 11:30 and 2:30, all at different locations) We don’t have regular games yet and are trying to keep the kids socially distanced so it is different but it was still soccer-related and it was glorious. DW also had a great day because I was out of the house so she could take care of a bunch of projects.
For dinner we walked to a nearby brewpub. Tables were separated and it felt pretty safe.
We ended the day with a Zoom concert from Jon Dee Graham. He limits the attendance to 10 folks and everyone gets to make 2 requests so it is super cool.
Tomorrow we both have haircuts and will have dinner at our neighborhood Mexican joint (home of the best margaritas in the DC Metro area.).
Lowlight of Saturday - we lost power yet again. This happens way too often. This time it was because a car managed to break a pole in half at 3:15pm on a 25mph street in a commercial district. Was out for 4.5 hours.
Highlight - it did come back on in time for us to watch some football with younger S. That’s my first game I’ve watched in a year. Was nice.
High/low. Visited the shelter. Was sweet seeing all the kitties. But I can’t pick an animal. I always get sad there, but not like yesterday. I had to leave because I started bawling my head off. I can’t pick one without thinking of all the ones left behind. We can’t have a no kill shelter because we get too many animals. At one point they did an article saying they took in 1000 cats/month in the spring. We only have 40,000 people. H liked a few but nothing just said this is the one to get. But he will likely go back without me and I suspect we will have a new little ball of fur to love.
@Creekland – might not be important to you, but since you mentioned it, I don’t use my phone for step counting because I don’t think it’s that accurate plus I just am not going to pick it up and carry it everywhere. I like including all the steps and don’t need bells and whistles, so I use something like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007ZGZE8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Tiny, clips to a pocket or belt, and captures the steps the phone doesn’t. I have read all movement is good, so I want credit for it! 
If I’m keeping a running log I have to do it manually. H uses a more complex one that keeps a running total, but I find as soon as they get more options they get less accurate. This one is very, very accurate.
We saw our first bald eagle while kayaking yesterday! It’s the first one I’ve seen in the wild. So cool!!
We took a nice walk afterwards and saw a beaver. Also a rarity. Only my third sighting in two years.
We got take out for dinner and then watched Enola Homes. Very enjoyable day!!!
One of my favorite places!