While we are striving to keep our lives as "normal" as we can within this newly restricted world we live in, sometimes I catch myself holding my breath, anxious. While I full recognize that my reality right now is a pretty lucky one in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't negate the feelings I am having or mean that I shouldn't be having them. While I'm trying not to worry much or feel guilty about any number of things, it is hard. I feel sad for Sam and her classmates, missing out on these final months of 5th grade. Recommendation has come out from the DoE to keep school closed for the remainder of the school year, and while MSAD75 has yet to say definitely if the kids will or will not go back to school after May 1st, which at the moment is the end of the Governor's Stay at Home order, they are planning for continued distance learning and the kids returning to school seems like less and less of a possible reality. I continue to feel anxious for family and friends, and to simply worry overall about the health of our nation and those who are most challenged even in better economic times. It is rough right now for so many. Even going to the grocery store, masked and gloved and wiping and sanitizing every possible surface, is not only surreal but anxiety producing.
It also continues to be hard to juggle this work-at-home, school-at-home thing. We are doing our best and Sam has taken it all in stride as best she can and I am so grateful Ryan is home too to help out when I can't just step away immediately to assist. Because, frankly, work is busy. There are emergency funding forms to fill out, lunches to deliver to our shelter, discussions of how to keep everyone as safe as possible, regular everyday work to attend to, and what just feels like endless conference calls... Sigh. But really, Sam is doing great, and overall she is focused on her schoolwork and keeping herself busy, even if she, like us, has her times and days of feeling a bit less energetic than others. Thank goodness! (Again, I realize we are lucky here.)
We also discovered this week that CREA has temporarily restricted access to the Cathance trails, putting signs up at the main trailheads and asking people to stay off the trails. I love these trails and while I know Highland Green is doing this for the safety of their community in the midst of this Covid-19 outbreak and what has seemed to be so many more people out on the trails in this crazy time, I am heartbroken. I really hope the closure doesn't continue for too long. I so enjoy watching spring unfurl along the river and trail edges!
Because, in spite of all the chaos, the uncertainty, the unknown, spring continues her brightening of the landscape. The tops of the trees are tinged with red and buds beginning to show. The lilies and iris out front are steadily growing upwards through the soil, their neon new green brightening the garden beds. Sunrise is steadily moving earlier and earlier and the days are warming. I am grateful that we can still get outside to enjoy this change of season, even if one of my favorite places is no longer an option for running and our afternoon and weekend walks. Although frankly, even Mother Nature seemed to be joining in on the chaos this week, as we got about 5" of compressed heavy wet snow overnight on Thursday accompanied by a power outage. SERIOUSLY! This is just not funny!
I'd say this comic from the Awkward Yeti pretty much sums up how I'm feeling life is going these days...
Monday: Sam did a great job with her schoolwork today, working on submitting her Big Tree science observations, getting her math done, adding to her Backyard Bird writing project, finishing up one of her puzzles and reading while I was on way too many phone calls. 🙈🙉🙊
She had a group video chat with a few of her friends in the late afternoon, which is so great!, and then we all headed out for a short walk before dinner. It was sunny but windy (again) so we drove over to walk down in the ravine on the Highlands Trails. I like this short but rugged trail loop that meanders along a sandy, clayey stream and goes up the steep banks to wander along the top of the ridges before dropping back down to the water again. It's like a hidden treasure. We saw no one out there either, which was nice. Tons of skunk cabbage blooming along the stream and in the boggy, wet areas. (1.1 miles walked)
Tuesday: Up early to run, much better for social distancing anyway! Pretty morning with some lovely light. Still playing TMR bingo and had a good time searching for more squares. Got the elusive Bud Light! 😂 Ryan had told me there was a can out on the back dirt road, which either was new since Sunday or I had literally run right by it numerous times last week 😁, so I went in search of it and ta da! Found it! Also saw an Eagle flying overhead (bird of prey) and stopped to take a photo of the Heath Trail sign (a brown trail sign). Finally got a Bingo on my own card, although the game was ended when someone filled up their entire card! Way to go, Bucky, and what a fun group game. Thanks, Val! (6.0 miles)
Then it was off to the office for the day. A donor dropped off cloth masks for all of our employees, and I am grateful to have one. It was my day to pick up lunches at Midcoast Hunger and bring them over to the shelter, plus I had to stop at the post office to pick up the mail, so I put on the mask, and my gloves, and headed out. I could probably attempt to make a mask myself but it most certainly would not be as pretty! The CDC is now saying cloth masks for the general public isn't such a bad idea, so I'll certainly be wearing mine... although I am definitely claustrophobic so I hope we don't have to wear them for TOO long!
It felt like a long day and frankly I was wiped by the time I got home, but Sam and Ryan had waited for me to join them on a walk so after a quick shower, we took off across the street for a walk on the powerlines and in the woods. It was a really nice afternoon and I was glad I had joined them despite feeling exhausted. I did however go to bed before Sam that night! 😂😴 (1.9 miles walked)
Worked from home, and we stopped a little before noon to head over to the middle school to pick up the school lunches for the week and support the food program. There have been numerous changes to this food program over the past 4 weeks and they have settled on a once-a-week pick up with 5 meals in an effort to support the Governor's stay at home order and keep everyone as distanced as possible. We haven't partaken before, but the meals are available to anyone in the district so I was curious to see what they were doing, and I know that more people picking up lunches means more funding available to the district. We were all impressed by what was in the grocery bag. And there was a half gallon of milk too!
Sam ate up the yogurt, an apple, fries and chicken nuggets and had a juice box for lunch while Ryan ate the turkey sandwich. I made a salad for myself and ate the orange. We still have a fair amount to get through in the next few days! Thank you, MSAD 75!
Around 4:30, work and school were done, and Sam and I headed across the street for a walk. Really nice afternoon once again and we enjoyed a quiet walk in the woods and back along the powerlines. (1.7 miles walked)
Thursday: I went into the office for a few hours in the morning - it was quiet and no one was there but me - and caught up on some things that needed to be printed, mailed, etc and then came home for lunch, and worked some more. No run in the morning, no walk in the afternoon due to the rain, so other than making banana muffins once work was done, it was seeming like a fairly benign, unexciting day...
...then the snow began in the early evening. At first it seemed rather pretty, coating the ground and tree limbs out back...
...but then we realized it was coming down pretty hard and it began to seem a bit much! The wind began to howl and a few big branches fell out back. I pretty much was ALL DONE, much like Gigi was apparently feeling! 😹
Friday: But apparently the joke was on us this time as I woke up to my alarm at 4:30 to get ready for a run to find the house cold and the power still out. I padded downstairs, put on my headlamp, fed the cats, sat and reported the outage to CMP, ate a banana muffin, did a bit of scrolling on my phone, looked outside to see a fair amount of snow, said screw it and went back to bed. Woke up around 7:30 and still no power. Hmmm.... Had a bar to eat and then went out and cleaned off our cars and our neighbor's car... Still no power, so Ryan and I sat on the couch until Sam woke up around 9:00 and then we all sat on the couch until things flicked back on around 9:45. Phew! We cranked the heat, and then I finally set off on what I had intended to be an earlier morning grocery run to Hannaford.
Same routine as last week although I didn't have to wait quite as long in line, and this time around I wore my mask. Also noticed many, many more people in masks themselves. It was fairly quiet in the store and I found almost all of what I had wanted, not to mention I was able to buy toilet paper, one tub of disinfecting wipes and one bag of flour. Woohoo! How's that for excitement?!
Got home, got things unpacked and put away, said screw it to a run for the day as it was still nasty out and spitting rain, took a shower, made cookies, had lunch, played a few games of Uno and then went about my typical Friday house cleaning. The spitting rain turned to more snow falling. Like, WTF? I know it isn't atypical to have an April snowstorm, but it seems like rubbing salt in the wound given this crazy pandemic we are living through right now!
They don't look pretty but they still taste yummy! 🍪😋
Not sure any of us had the most productive day, but hey, at least it was Friday! I've been putting up the list of weekly dinners on the fridge so that everyone would know what was on the menu for the night, and was thankful that I had already penciled in "takeout," because I was definitely not feeling like cooking! 😂 Hurray for pizza from Portland Pie!Yum!🍕
Saturday: The snow sadly did not melt overnight, but I was hopeful I would be able to get a run in on the cart paths. Set out at 7:00 am and found the snow much more clumpy, frozen and deep than I had hoped for on the powerlines, so I stuck to the sidewalks and ran a loop around Highland Green Road instead. The back dirt road was rather messy and icy, it was windy, and frankly I was feeling neither motivated or enthused enough to wander further for more miles, so I finished up around Canam to at least get 6 and headed home. Meh. The sky was pretty though. (6.0 miles)
After a bit of food and another cup of coffee, I headed out to pick up veggies and bacon at Whatley Farm, a loaf of bread from Hotenanny and then down to the mill to pick up some additional veggies from Goranson Farm. So grateful to have all of these local options for fresh produce, meat and bread. And thankful that a fair number of the vendors have either expanded their farm stands or continued to make the efforts to be at the farmer's markets, even if they have been pushed outside and have to take a lot more precautions to keep everyone safe.
Did a bit of relaxing and then corralled the troops after lunch for a walk. Still windy and cool but bright out. Most of the snow had melted off the gravel path and pavement up to the top of Mt. A. but there was still plenty of squishy, wet snow in the woods to tromp through. A lot of deer prints plus a few turkey tracks as well and most definitely wet feet! We had fun meandering around, and got in a bit of fun downhill snow running near the end of our walk too! It was good to get out and about for a bit of fresh air and sunshine together💗 (2.5 miles walked)
A bit of family snow running to finish up our hike!
Sunday: Happy Easter! 🐰🐣🌸
I knew we had some grand plans for the day - as in, an egg hunt, a scavenger hunt set up by Neenie with my help, Easter pancakes and bacon to eat, and family walk - so I headed out early to get in my run. Since I didn't run on Friday, I knew this week was going to end up being a thin week in terms of miles. Not a huge deal, especially since looking back at the calendar for January to March, I've run 40-50 mile weeks each week except for three weeks in the 30s, interestingly one per month. And I had to go back to the week of December 16th to see a week lower than 30 miles. So, a true down week was OK and maybe even a good thing. Plus, as I didn't really have the motivation for a long run and I've got no immediate goals on the line (duh! 😏), there's even more reason to accept that this is a crazy time and that some weeks running is going to come easily and others maybe not so much. So with that I set out on the roads thinking I'd run 8-12 miles. Settled on the middle number, and tried to push the pace just a little bit as I ran along since I felt decent and why not? Listened to a fun podcast with Des Linden and Lindsey Hein, and enjoyed the bright and sunny morning. A bit chilly so there was a bit of icing on some of the melting spots and the sidewalks weren't all entirely clear of snow either, but otherwise, a lovely morning to be out. And thankfully, not windy! (10.0 miles)
View #1 of the river from the green bridge. So much water!
View #2 on the return via the connector. Very tranquil from this spot!
Once everyone else woke up, we started off the day with pancakes and bacon - yum! 😋
Listening to Neenie tell her a clue...
... with one of them actually in the Clue box 😂
Her treasure at the end of the hunt!
From there, we moved on to the Easter egg hunt. Most she found easily but the final two eggs were well camouflaged and Ryan and I got a good laugh about her literally being right in front of the final egg for a good 5 minutes without finding it! It was the perfect hiding spot!
Egg in the tissue box!
Do you see the last egg? It was a purple egg set in the top of her water bottle with the top partially covering the egg. Very sneaky!
She finally figured it out!!!
😊💗🌸🐣🐰
Later in the afternoon, we headed across the street for a walk. It had warmed up nicely and was quite sunny, but once again, windy! April is apparently still stuck on "in like a lion" 😆🐯💨 We took the road less traveled down through the woods and came across a very flooded trail section. Sam and I managed to maneuver around the edges getting only minimally wet while Ryan decided to plow right through. It was quite funny although he was also QUITE wet for the rest of the walk! (2.0 miles walked)
We finished up the day with a yummy meal - salmon for me, steak for Ryan and Sam, roasted asparagus, maple carrots and rice pilaf, followed up by strawberry shortcake. Delish! Hurray for a fancy dinner in PJs 😆😋
Cheers! 🍷🍸
This is the first glass of wine I've had since the evening prior to the initial notice that school would be shut for the first 2 weeks... Instead of drinking, I've just been baking 😂 but tonight seemed like a good night for a glass of wine!
🍓🍓💗💗😋😋
In spite of it being an unusual circumstance, we really had a great Easter, and it was a wonderful way to wrap up a crazy week! Who knows what next week will bring, but at least we have each other 💕 We might drive each other nuts once in a while, but in the end, we are really lucky!
2 comments:
D, Sorry about your trails being shut down. Pleasant Mtn. was closed a few weeks ago and I felt heartbroken as well. I was getting a little nervous driving over there, but we were always so early, we never bumped into anyone. The decision to close was made at the request of local first responders. I'm so impressed with the school food program, it made me both smile and also tear up. It was fun to see Sam's Easter fun. Be Well, Triffitts.
Ann
I know it is tough. Exercise is vital but we have to be safe about it! Hopefully things will open up again sooner than later. Yes, the school food program was impressive indeed. And Easter was fun! It was good to have a good day! Hope you and George are doing well. Hugs to you both!
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