Here is the link to the page with all the past letters. (it has music to play – I hope).
Wow, I am planning to be very happy when this year is over, although I am not so sure about next year being a lot better. As I stated last year we all made it through but not in a way we wanted. So, with that said let’s begin with what did happen (all locked up)…
For me my posting to the blog fell into a horrible black abyss. I used to at least post weekly but seems my desire has waned with all the crap going down. Early in the New Year we had a birthday to celebrate and a lot of weird stuff was starting to pick up. We were hearing about that new virus that was on its way but we were not worried. We made it to Oklahoma and used that as a base to make a trip to the Bahamas. Along with that link you can follow along with the daily posts about that cruise. It was with Sherries old HS friends and was a short cruise but enjoyable to just be away.
By March I had missed a month of posting so did a little catch up and here you can see a picture of how Cancer treatments can affect you, as well as some other odd stuff we encountered. As stated in that post we felt good about chances to do more travel so we were doing some, going to Hockey games and running off to ABQ. We had signed up for frequent traveler TSA prepass/Global entry. We both signed up for this and the best shot at getting the interview done was in ABQ, so why not go spend a couple days, make a nice road trip out of it. I had plans to set up a cruise for New Zealand/Australia in a few months at that time. Now all that said, what would a person do in ABQ besides our intended purpose? Well for one you go sample Green Chili everywhere.
Or
Well, we had a plan but that all got stuffed. We all got locked in, or locked up. As the year progressed with political division, medical division, people division, and any other division you can think of I posted – The Death of Common Sense – It seems that between politicians, and the virus we have all lost it. The stores went bare.
We were told where to stand, where to enter and when to leave and how we can and can’t proceed.
Of course up here in the Divide we had on/off winter till May, I worked on another airplane – new design and I didn’t really like it so not sure I will make another one of those. We also all got stimulated… although it seems that the stimulation was bigger for a lot of things that honestly, had no link to the virus? But hey, I have heard both sides say, “Why waste a disaster”.
When it did warm up I started doing a little back country looking for access to some fishing streams, didn’t find one, we did do some back country driving too. We could do that without worry of “social distancing”. As the summer wore on and the lock-down relaxed we made a few trips back to Oklahoma to check on stuff and people.
Late in July I did get a chance to capture NEOWISE. I figured I better do it this time because next time I may not be able to see?
That brings us to the end of what I posted _ yep long time since I felt the urge but from September to now we have been so locked in a political circus I just turned off almost all my social media links, and media links, etc. and stayed away from all that bickering and back-stabbing. Honestly I don’t trust anything I can’t see, don’t see and even then I only trust about 25% of that because so many have gotten so good at telling us how to believe.
With that update done, the rest of the family seems to be coping with this “Pandemic” ok. The grandkids are mostly home-remote – schooling. GS#3 has been in class this fall all but a couple weeks so he at least is getting some connection to others. Amy just had her last treatment for those liver growths and the treatments have worked although still some pain but nothing like when she had a softball size growth on her liver. The new normal has also put Sean working from home most of the time. Ryan is still dealing with his medical issues, but doing ok. Sherrie has gotten good news on her most recent visit that the cancer has not come back and we move down from 3 months to 4 months for MRI/Cat scans and Dr. Visits. Health-wise I am ok, although my hearing is progressively getting worse. I have been fighting with my hearing aids (newer ones) and just last week I had one of my ears tubed to see if that might help by further releasing the pressure. It seems to be a bit better but will take time to get a more reliable measure.
One other reason for not posting much and me guess I should have is that we finally, after 2 years, got a contractor set up to remodel/update the kitchen. Just like the pandemic it has taken a lot longer and more missed time than planned. We didn’t just do a small update although it will look some the same we ended up having a lot of stuff changed that made it imperative to change other things (appliances) and then other (painting) then more (redo the floors) and replace the cabinets, etc. At some point there will be posts and pictures of the changes suffice to see before, mid and current.
Before
Middle disaster
Current, waiting on appliances, plumbing, tile backsplash, misc.
Due to covid restrictions, multiple delays, a few mistakes, rework, etc. It might be done in January but do not hold your breath – this started the first of OCT. Oh, and we are replacing the carpet in the basement as we also moved the island from kitchen down, more cabinet down there and a better and more useful height. The old single wall bar counter was 12+ inches wide and about 55 inches tall, no belly up to that bar it was chin up. If this is like our other projects, we will move in 2 years. Not saying we will, but our luck has been get it nice for us and poof, plans change…So that is where we are this Christmas – all packed away waiting on things to be done so we can come back out from our back room and enjoy it a little.
Everyone stay safe, healthy, and prepare for all this to get much better so we can be “Social” once again.
Merry Christmas (to hell with politically correctness), Happy New Year, and may things smooth out on all aspects for everyone. “God Bless Us Everyone”.
WD0AJG