Notes from a Self Quarantine

I attended a virtual author event on Sunday evening. I’m really enjoying these new virtual events — since the pandemic shut everything down, I have been able to attend so many different author events from the comfort of my own home. There’s no travel involved and all the events are recorded, so I can watch at anytime. Some of these events feature authors that I have never read or even heard of before, so it’s been an amazing experience to discover new books and it’s definitely one of my new favorite things to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic — along with curbside pick up at the library!

Sunday’s event was also a fundraiser for breast cancer research. The three featured authors were all new to me, their new novels sounded amazing and it was a fundraiser — so I purchased all three hardcover books! (Please don’t tell my husband — my bookshelves are overflowing and I just don’t want to hear him complain yet again about me buying books, because I obviously don’t listen…)

It was a good event, I was happy to participate and I knew that my money went to support both breast cancer research and local book stores. Two wonderful organizations to support!

And then the box with my new books showed up this morning and I realized that my husband might finally be right — I don’t have any more room for books. I have three bookshelves — one in the living room, and one in each of our spare rooms. I have books piled in front of other books on every single shelf in all three bookshelves. I have a basket under my night stand where I keep all my library books — that’s filled to the top with six books. I’ll eventually return those… I have two bedside tables/shelves in my home “office”/spare bedroom that has both books and photo albums shoved into it. There is honestly not another inch of space in my home for any more books. Unless I start stacking them on the floor…and that seems like kind of a hoarder move — am I there yet?? Have I crossed over from book lover to book hoarder?? Is there actually a difference…

I was able to prop the three new books on the bookshelf in our spare room — they’re standing up on the edge of the shelf, if there’s any sudden movement in that room, they will definitely fall off the shelf. Thank goodness the paper bags from our “second” pantry are sitting in front of that bookshelf and holding all the books safely in place.

Because my husband and I are definitely not hoarders…

Since the pandemic closed most businesses back in March, our local library has pivoted by offering a bunch of virtual events and a curbside pick up option, which might be my favorite thing to come out of COVID-19. Who doesn’t want to just drive up to the library’s front door and grab a paper bag filled with a bunch of books that you put a hold on via the library’s website?? It’s honestly the best thing to come out of staying at home.

One of their new virtual events is a “Take and Make Craft”, which means you sign up for the craft on their website, and on the day of the “event”, you pull up to the curb of the library, grab your paper bag with craft supplies and instructions, and they post the tutorial on their Facebook page later that night. And the whole darn thing is free! Who doesn’t love a free craft project??

Yesterday’s craft was an autumn themed book banner. I had no idea what to expect, but I was pretty excited to pick up my paper bag yesterday afternoon. (Don’t judge me, COVID-19 has taught me to find joy wherever I can and free craft projects just seem to do it for me lately!) I pulled up to the library’s front entrance, threw the car into park and went up to the table to grab the bag with my name on it. I’m trying to do this quickly since I’m supposed to be sitting in my home “office” working. But my bag isn’t there. And I had to touch all the other bags in the box to make sure mine just wasn’t out of alphabetical order, which probably goes against every pandemic policy the library has…

My bag wasn’t there, but I didn’t want to grab someone else’s bag, because then I’d just be that person who ruins free craft night for another excited patron… So I went home and e-mailed the librarian about my dilemma and hoped that they would have a least one leftover bag.

And they did! The librarian put a craft bag at the front desk for me to pick up this afternoon.

Now I haven’t been inside the library since maybe February. I love books — libraries and book stores are like glorious havens to me, especially libraries because you can take books out for free!! (I really like breweries and wineries too, oh and yoga studios, and pretty much any place that has a messy bacon cheeseburger, but this post is about libraries!!) So I was super excited to get back into the library! Like maybe a tad too excited…

And it was good to be back. You get checked in at the front door now — you have to fill out a COVID-19 survey about your health and the health of folks in your household. They only allow 20 people in the library at any time and you’re supposed to be there less than 30 minutes and wear a mask the entire time.

Honestly, I think I was the only patron in there. I browsed the shelves for a few minutes and picked up three books — not that I needed any more books to read, but since I was there!! I checked out at the front desk — got my three new books and my craft bag. One of the librarians even recognized me with my mask on — that totally surprised me! Guess I was a frequent customer back in “normal” times.

The whole trip took less than 15 minutes and it was so good to be back! I’d better get my act together — I now have 3 additional books to read and a craft project to make!

Now while I do actually love my husband, this pandemic has forced us to spend way too much time together. And there’s just way too much time that we spend in the same house, just the two of us, with no one else around to talk to or see.

So tonight I did something completely different — I went out for dinner with two friends! On a Wednesday! Thank goodness, because staying at home all the time is getting really old.

It was a beautiful night, much warmer than it should have been in mid-October. The restaurant has a cool outdoor covered patio — we sat outside and pretty much ordered everything off the menu. And I’m only slightly joking.

We ordered a tasting plate — we had no idea what to expect, but the “plate” was actually a wood board that had all these little appetizer-type things on it, one for each of us — stuffed figs (I could have eaten all of them!), prosciutto wrapped around long slices of mozzarella, smoked salmon on a crispy wafer with yummy goat cheese on top, and this crostini piled with hummus and diced tomatoes (which was so simple, but delicious! I could have easily made this at home, but it never would have tasted as good!). I think there was something else, but I’m in too much of a food coma to remember.

We split a goat cheese and beet salad, and two different entrees — their amazing beef tips with a creamy gorgonzola (do we see a trend??) and mascarpone sauce over pasta and short ribs, mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach. The other ladies weren’t a huge fan of the short ribs entree, and I agreed that they weren’t “melt-in-your-mouth” short ribs, but I really liked the red sauce they were in and I thought the spinach was delicious. Maybe my body just needed something other than cheese…

We finished with a slice of German chocolate cake. All that combined with the two bottles of red wine we ordered — between all the heavy cheese dishes and the wine, who knows how I am going to feel tomorrow…and tomorrow is in fact a work day, even if I can work in yoga pants, a sweatshirt and flip flops…

But no matter how I do feel tomorrow, it was so nice to go out with some girlfriends tonight and talk about different things! You know, like things I would never talk to my husband about! Not that he’s a bad listener (oh, hahaha!), it’s just nice to have a conversation with someone other than my full-time captive audience.

Can we do this again next week??

I’ve been really excited about my virtual painting classes after I painted a pretty cool pumpkin over the weekend. Sure it was just a tutorial and I did it on a pad of mixed media paper, but I’m pretty proud of the finished product. I even hung it from my bulletin board that hangs over my desk, so I can be inspired to commit to painting more. Now if only there was just more time…

The painting instructor posted a short video yesterday, while she was at the craft store Michael’s, with some suggestions for future painting projects. So I drove over to Michael’s today after work to check out some of her suggestions.

And I spent $93. At Michael’s craft store. On a Tuesday night.

Sigh.

But I purchased the wooden nutcracker with the Christmas countdown, a ceramic Christmas tree that lights up and two packs of round ceramic tree ornaments, all items that we are going to paint on in the next month. And then I also purchased two different sized wood boards — there’s another class where you paint two pumpkins onto a wood surface. And now I am a pumpkin painting expert! And sorry friends and family, you all just might get my quarantining Christmas decoration art for gifts this year!

I also got little snowman decoration, some magnets that I need for another project and two rolls of Christmas wrapping paper. I definitely didn’t need the wrapping paper — my husband buys 5 rolls every year and doesn’t use it all so I save it for the next year. And are we actually having Christmas this year?? But they had sloths wearing Santa hats and llamas with festive Christmas attire and I just couldn’t say no to that kind of wrapping paper, so I bought a roll of each.

This is turning out to be a real expensive virtual painting class. I better learn to paint something other than pumpkins.

I’m so not a fan of this time of year. I know that so many folks enjoy their hayrides and their pumpkin spiced everything, but frankly it’s just too cold for me. It was 40 degrees here this morning when I go up, and fine, as the day went on, it definitely warmed up. My husband and I went for a walk at lunchtime, when it was sunny and 60 degrees.

But what I really don’t like about this time of year — it is now warmer outside than it is in my house. How is that, you ask? Well, that’s because every year, my husband and I play the “let’s see how long we can go without turning on the heat” game and I feel like I am the real loser every year.

Over the weekend, I had on long yoga pants, a sweatshirt, big fuzzy socks and my finger nails looked blue. Today, I draped a big thick purple shawl over my shoulders while I sat at my computer responding to work e-mails. I had the window open hoping the warmer air from outside would heat my home “office”. My husband made fun of me for the shawl, but what else was I supposed to do? I could always start a small fire on the floor in my office, but that seems like it just won’t end well.

As I sit here rubbing my fingers to create some kind of warmth, I know that my husband is definitely determined again this year — he doesn’t want to turn the heat on until Thanksgiving. He says this every year, but every year I used to go into my actual office 5 days a week, so I could take advantage of the heat there. Now I’m stuck at home, just another pawn in my husband’s game with mother nature. Will turning on the heat in October hurt us? No, it won’t. But does he feel like if he turns on the heat in our home prior to November 1, he loses some universal game? Yes. And I’m not sure who the players are in this game he’s playing, but I’m the one wearing 3 layers in October. What the heck am I going to do while working from home in November??

It seems like every holiday I’m always the last-minute-Larry that’s running around seconds before the celebration starts putting up holiday decorations.

There was that one Christmas that my collection of stuffed snowmen sat in a pile in the middle of my living room floor for two weeks — I might have finally gotten all of them into their normal holiday positions just a few days before the New Year. Don’t judge me — I really like stuffed snowmen and snowwomen and I have a ton of them. (I’m not going to even talk about how long it takes me to wrap Christmas presents…but you can totally judge me on that.)

It’s normal for my battery operated window candles to not have batteries in them. Most holidays I’m lucky that the candles made it onto the window sills. That’s something I typically do after guests have arrived. I might even ask you to help me put the batteries in the candles, but I’ll never ask you to help me find my stash of batteries, I’d like you to come back to my house sometime in the future.

If you’re a guest at my house for Thanksgiving, you’re probably used to me decorating the dining room area with colorful turkeys sometime between the appetizers and the main course. I’ve even asked several of my in-laws to place little sticky pads on the bottoms of all the folding chairs that I’ve rented for an event. Sorry to my father-in-law and one of my niece’s — yes, the backing on those little sticky chair “feet” are really difficult to remove, I feel your pain, thank you for taking care of that for me! At least I didn’t ask you to do it during dinner…

Last year at Thanksgiving, I asked my mother-in-law to fill two sets of salt and pepper shakers, one of them didn’t have a stopper and probably hadn’t been cleaned out in 20 years. I’ve also asked her to vacuum my living room carpet. Only once, but I’m surprised that she keeps coming back to my house.

I’ve asked my own mother to help me set a table for 12 guests and polish the silverware, but I inherited my obsessive “need to buy more dishes” gene from her, so biologically she’s required to help me.

So let’s just say that I’m not the most organized in preparing for holiday…

So imagine my surprise that today, I actually dug my fall decorations out of the spare room closet! And I hung the Halloween ones! There’s a skeleton in the window next to the front door, a little spider on a pumpkin, a couple of jack-o’-lanterns in the kitchen. I have a little bird that I bought last year from Target that’s wearing a witch hat, a cape and carrying a broom (see above snowmen).

So I didn’t hang the Halloween wreath on the front door yet, but since my normal Halloween routine consists of hanging that skeleton next to the front door right before I pass out candy to the first trick-or-treater (one year I saw the first group walking down my street as I arrived home from work, I kept all the lights off in my house until I hung that Halloween decoration. It wasn’t my finest moment.), I think I am doing extremely well this year. It’s almost 2 weeks before Halloween!!

Sure there’s a pile of stuffed and ceramic pumpkins sitting on the bed in our spare room (see above snowmen) — but I got most of the Halloween stuff up already. I’ve got days to put out the other items. I even grabbed batteries for those lighted pumpkins, maybe they will be lit before the holiday…

I signed up for virtual painting classes back in August. The instructor hosts live painting sessions via Facebook several times a month. There’s full-length classes where she takes you through the steps to paint a specific topic — a fall sunset, a bouquet of asters, blue hydrangeas on the beach — you get the idea. She also does several sessions each month on painting tips — quick tutorials on painting techniques like blending color or highlighting or painting leaves.

So far I have only done one of the classes. I picked it because it was under 45 minutes (figured I could handle that time commitment) and it was a sunflower (which is my favorite flower). I was so proud of myself after I completed that class. I hung my sunflower painting above my desk. It’s not perfect, but it looks nice.

And I haven’t done a single class since. Until today!

First, I did the pumpkin tutorial:

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I didn’t like my first pumpkin with the squiggly leaves — the squiggle just didn’t seem right to me. My husband didn’t like the colors — he thinks pumpkins should only be orange. What does he know about art, right?? So then I did the second one without the squiggly leaves. This one isn’t as round. Pumpkins definitely don’t have to be round, but now I might like the first one better…

And then I did the fall leaves tutorial:

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Some of them are OK, but what the heck is going on with that maple leaf?? I guess that’s why it’s called a tutorial, right? I definitely need some more practice, but it was a fun way to spend my Saturday evening!

It’s only taken me 3 months, but I’ve done 3 classes! Go me!! Maybe I will get 3 more done by the end of 2020. It’ll be a quarantining miracle!

It’s another Friday night and that means my husband and I go out for dinner at one of our local establishments. It’s been raining off and on all day, so I made a reservation at one of our local restaurants that has a big outdoor tent with side flaps and heat lamps.

When we showed up for our outdoor reservation (a few minutes late, please don’t judge us!), one of the bartenders that we’ve known for years came outside to tell us they had a perfect table for two at the bar, which in “normal” times would always be our preferred seating.

Look at us — prime seating at the bar two Friday’s in a row!!

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And that’s a local craft beer that they don’t get too often here in my state! Things are starting to look up for us — it was almost a normal Friday night. Sure the bar wasn’t packed, but we had dinner and beers, got to chat with folks and we weren’t sitting outside cold and wet.

Things are definitely looking up! Now remember to keep your masks on, folks, don’t make my Friday night bar outings go away!!

Here’s an actual conversation with my husband from earlier today:

Husband: I think I’m going to clean the lines on the kegerator this afternoon.

(He means the hoses that pump beer from the actual keg in the little fridge into the spout where you pour the beer. You’ll need this information for later.)

Me: Please don’t do that right now. I haven’t emptied the dishwasher yet and there’s dirty dishes all over the counter and in the sink. You won’t have any room to clean anything up if something goes wrong. And I’m supposed to be working right now.

Husband: What could possible go wrong?

So I went back into my office — I answer an information phone line on Thursday afternoons, if it rings, I need to answer it. I should have locked my office door. And turned my internet radio up really, really loud.

It was pretty quiet out in the kitchen for awhile, which is never a good sign, but then I heard him calling my name.

Husband: You’re going to be mad. Where’s the mop?

I should’ve just stayed in my home office, but of course I went out into the kitchen. And there was a large puddle of beer on my beautiful hardwood floors. And my husband was using two old bath towels to clean it up.

Husband: You missed it, it was almost like a keg stand.

Sigh. I really wished I’d emptied the kitchen sink earlier in the day. I grabbed a wad of paper towels, some surface cleaner and helped him wipe up the mess. There was no way I was letting him push spilled beer around the kitchen floor with a mop, I’d probably find sticky spots for weeks.

I left him in the kitchen with his disconnected kegerator, I think he was wiping beer off the walls. I’ll just finish my work shift and try not to think about the mess. It will still be waiting for me when I am done with work. I can wash the floor and the rugs then. And the walls. And empty the dishwasher and reload it with all those dirty dishes. I have plenty of time to do all of these things after work. Too bad our house cleaner came yesterday, instead of tomorrow…

Is that even still a thing??

I received a Fed Ex package this afternoon — and I wasn’t expecting anything. My husband ran to front door to check it out. He wasn’t expecting anything either, but he’s always accusing me of obsessive online shopping and he was hoping to find proof of my bad habit.

He brought the box onside — it’s about the size of two shoe boxes and weights about 12 lbs. And it’s got my name and address on it. Now I haven’t ordered anything lately that would have come through Fed Ex and I told him that. I grabbed some scissors to open up the mystery box as he was yapping about how I need to stop online shopping after drinking a couple of beers (watch it, buddy, I’m holding scissors!).

Here’s my most recent “purchase”:

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Yes, those are 4 water pressure reducing valves. I definitely did not order them. There is no packing slip in the box. I checked my credit card and there is, thankfully, no weird charges on my account.

So how did they get here? Is this someone’s idea of a strange joke? Did one of my accounts get hacked? Why 4 valves?? Would I really even need 4 of them in the same house?? I’m not even sure where I would install them…

Well, I guess it’s a good thing I am not a contractor.

Tonight I googled the return address on the box — its from a Do It Best warehouse in Montgomery, NY. I e-mailed their corporate office. Who knows if they will actually respond. And I definitely don’t want to have to pay to ship this damn box back!

Anyone need a couple of water pressure reducing valves? I can get you some!