Ten Little Celebrations – December 2020

A month with lots of celebrations…with some old and new ways of celebrating.

Snow. My husband and I celebrated the first snow of the year by making snow ice cream, attempting snowflake photography, and having a fire in the fireplace. The way we celebrate snow is something that hasn’t been changed by the COVID-19 pandemic; maybe it was better because we didn’t bother to shovel the driveway since we knew we weren’t going to be going out!

Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference. I enjoyed two mornings of Zoom presentation that were this year’s version of the one-day conference held in December. This was another instance of something better in some respects than the pre-pandemic….no crowded conference rooms or not being able to see the bottom of the slides! I am still celebrating by reading Rita Colwell’s book (she was the plenary speaker) – one chapter per day!

CSA stevia. I thoroughly enjoyed putting a few stevia leaves dried from my collection of it at the CSA into pots of hot tea….a little sweetness to celebrate in something hot to drink on a winter’s day.

Getting stuff put away…given away. I am celebrating getting our basement a little cleaned out. There is still a lot of stuff we won’t ever use again (i.e. to give away…or somehow get it out of the house) or we won’t need in the next year or so and can be boxed up to better preserve it. Getting it sorted and organized feels good….like we are back in control rather than being overwhelmed by possessions!

Making haystack cookies. This was a first for me. I had eaten them at holiday events previously and remembered how much I liked them. None of those events are happening this year so the only option was to make them myself. What a great treat! They will probably be something I make every year…a new tradition coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sunny afternoon. The weather has turned colder but there was one sunny afternoon that was warm enough to open the windows a little and get some air exchange with the outdoors. I celebrated the day…so different from the others of the month.

Chipotle take out. I enjoy my own cooking…but also a change of pace. And my husband has something he likes from Chipotle too. We order ahead and he picks it up.

Sunrise moment. The color of sunrise light on our forest….always a few moments to celebrate when it happens at the beginning of the day.

Finale of Mandalorian season. We watched every new episode as it came out then celebrated the finale and the prospect of more Star Wars spin offs…nothing too serious but fun to watch.

Last big leaf falling from the sycamore. That last leaf signaled the end of fall…the beginning of winter. I celebrated the passing of the old season…and the new one too.

30 Years Ago – December 1990

In December 1990, we were challenged to clear out my mother-in-law’s apartment after her funeral in late November and celebrate the holidays with our 15 month old daughter….but we made it.

We had several sessions to box up the apartment (usually while my daughter was at day care) – some to donate and some back to our house. Movers brought the things that came back to our house. My husband handled her last bills, and I did most of the unpacking at our house. The living room of our house was full of boxes for the early part of the month.

It was a lot to do overlaid on putting up holiday decorations and picking out gifts. Remembering it now – I’m sure the flurry of activity associated with the holidays helped lift our mood considerably. One memorable event happened at a shopping center where they had a roving Santa; our daughter’s response when he offered her a candy cane (even though she was standing between me and my husband) was to lay down on the sidewalk and cry….evidently traumatized by the Santa…or maybe it was the candy cane. I scooped her up and she calmed down almost immediately. We didn’t try to do anything else with a Santa that year.

We took her to the Christmas Party for children at IBM (where I worked); we attempted getting her face painted…but she only wanted to sit still for one small design; she enjoyed a large oatmeal raisin cookie…and she got her IBM bear (white bear with an IBM t-shirt) which was a good size bear for her to carry around.

There were lots of things on Christmas that she enjoyed too – a phone (she was getting adept at pushing buttons), a panda bear that was about the same size as her (that was later named Mr. Zebra), and a Little Tikes grocery cart. I noticed in one of the old pictures that she must have used a small red basket I’d bought as part of our Christmas decorations years before she was born as a toy as well…just her size.

Even this early in her life, she’s already accumulated a lot of stuffed animals. We arranged them in her crib, and she liked to be there with them. Note that she was already adept at grabbing the big bears by the ear. She liked having them with her more than blankets!

Anticipating Snow

We are excited to have snow in the forecast for Wednesday.

Visions of snow ice cream!

I previously bought peppermint candy chips to be ready for the winter…sugar and vanilla we always have on hand. So – the ingredient we are missing is half-and-half.

Since last winter we didn’t ever have enough snow to make snow ice cream, my husband and I have decided that I should do a grocery shopping at 1.5 weeks rather than 3 weeks since the last time….for the half and half and other things we’ll need to see us through the holidays (in our case it’s not just Christmas…there is an anniversary and birthday too…all from home this year, connections via Zoom).

Here’s the strategy for making snow ice cream:

Wait until enough snow falls that most of the pollution is out of the air (i.e. 1-2 inches have fallen).

Once there is enough snow – set out all the ingredients (peppermint candy chips, vanilla, half and half, sugar is optional since usually the chips provide enough sweetness, food coloring is optional but helps to know when everything is thoroughly mixed) and the big bowl + electric hand mixer + spatula + serving bowls.

Collect snow with a egg turner or anything with a large flat are to skim the top snow layers and transfer the snow into a large pan. Remember the snow compacts as it makes the snow ice cream. The fluffier the snow is – the more snow the ice cream will require.

Inside quickly put the snow into the big bowl…almost filling it. Add the other ingredients on top. The amounts are somewhat variable since snow has a range of consistencies – I usually start with 0.5 – 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 cup half and half, and .75 cup of peppermint candy chips. Then mix. Add more half and half if the consistency is crumbly rather than creamy.

Serve and enjoy.

Snowflake Photography!

Another activity to prepare for…probably something to do before enough snow has accumulated to make snow ice cream…photograph snowflakes. I’ve tried it several times in the past. March 2014 was a big year.

I still have glass plates that will work well to catch the snowflakes…provide good background color. They’ll be out on the deck the night before the snow starts to be cold and ready for collection.

I’m going to try my phone with the lighted magnifier first. It’s only 5x so might not be quite enough for snowflake pictures.

I have loupe with a light somewhere that I need to locate. For both I will attach the magnification to the phone with a rubber band.

I’m still thinking about how to get the plate and phone into focusing range (i.e. close) without being handheld (too much heat generated with my hands). I’ll use voice or an external clicker to signal the phone to take the picture. So – I have a deadline of Wednesday to jerry-rig a set up.

Or - I might end up reverting to the loupes that sit on top of the plate and laying the phone on the loupe – the other end on a box to make it horizontal. The trick it to not add too much heat that will cause the snowflakes to melt too quickly!

I am soooo looking forward to a snow day!

9 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

The first vaccine for COVID-19 was approved in the US by the FDA on the 9-month anniversary of the WHO declaring the world wide pandemic. The rollout will take months but there is more hope now….if we can just get through the months until enough people get vaccinated to provide herd immunity. The US is not in a good situation right now with hospitals filling up, larger than ever numbers of people testing positive, and deaths per day about the same as 9/11/2001 – the trauma of that death rate repeated again and again instead of one day. Even a month ago, I thought there were more effective treatments that had been developed since last spring, but it now seems that either they don’t exist or they are in such short supply that they don’t make a difference. Even worse – the best treatments only seem to be available to favorites of the President…implying (or confirming) the corruption of at least part of the medical system in the US.

The psyche of everyone in the country is impacted by the pandemic – made worse by the leadership of the country, particularly at the Federal level and trickling down to some states. There is a lack of caring in American society that still surprises me. I limit the time I spend watching/reading news…stay more with stats and public health recommendations to guide the actions I take relative to the pandemic.

• I have elongated my time between trips to the grocery store to every 3 weeks (rather than every 2 weeks like I did over the summer and fall or every week I did pre-pandemic). It takes more planning but is preferrable than going back to grocery delivery. I like to choose my purchases directly!

• My husband and I celebrated Thanksgiving on our own at home and are planning to do the same for all the upcoming holidays. Special foods are still part of the celebration but we cook for 2 (or enjoy a lot of leftovers). I am intentionally trying some new recipes for desserts. We also do telephone calls/Zoom sessions with family on the special days.

• We are getting take out every week or so. We haven’t eaten in a restaurant since back in February. It’s impossible to know how good the air circulation/filtration is in an enclosed area where 6 feet distance may not be adequate….and one cannot wear a mask while eating. Many municipalities/counties in Maryland are going back to take-out only because of the dramatic rise in cases over the past few weeks (although the rise might be more because of behavior around the Thanksgiving holiday than restaurants); whatever the cause - the likelihood of asymptomatic people in our community has increased and there is a need to respond to that to help avoid hospitals overflowing/starting to ration care.

• My husband is still planning to do some amateur astronomy sessions with the local club…outdoors and masked and telescopes set up at least 6 feet apart….if the weather cooperates. He did some solar astronomy on his own from our driveway and backyard in November. The club meetings have been via zoom for months.

Over the past month, we enjoyed

• The virtual Crane Fiesta (from Bosque del Apache)

• The virtual Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference (me)

• The virtual AGU fall meeting (my husband)

I am looking forward to cooking holiday desserts, watching a virtual Holiday House Tour being produced by my county and a session on Wild Birds in Winter from our state Department of Natural Resources, and filling up the porch with items for a charity to pick up…and continuing day to day activities that give me joy like Zentangle tile creation, photographing birds and wildlife from my office window, finding good books to browse, and writing a blog post….taking a walk in the neighborhood or watching the trees gently moving in the winter wind from my office window.

I am looking forward to cooking holiday desserts, watching a virtual Holiday House Tour being produced by my county and a session on Wild Birds in Winter from our state Department of Natural Resources, and filling up the porch with items for a charity to pick up…and continuing day to day activities that give me joy like Zentangle tile creation, photographing birds and wildlife from my office window, finding good books to browse, and writing a blog post….taking a walk in the neighborhood or watching the trees gently moving in the winter wind from my office window.

Over the next month, we might get a better sense of when we will be able to get the vaccine. My plan is to get it as soon as I am eligible. Once I’m protected by it and my parents are in the same state…a road trip to Texas will be my first post-pandemic travel.

At the 9 month mark – I am more hopeful for 2021….but very focused on staying hyper vigilant – doing everything we know to do to avoid getting COVID-19 until we are protected by the vaccine.

Sweet Potato Soup

The forecast for our area this morning was for snow showers. We didn’t see a single flake! But – the cold did get me in the mood to make soup. I had cooked the last haul of sweet potatoes from the CSA a few days ago so I opted to start with the sweet potato puree for the primary ingredient. Things evolved from there.

I put some powered chicken bouillon with water in a pan…added a few cubes of frozen beets (also from the CSA) to increase the potential color of the soup. The beets cooked and softened while I got the other ingredients prepared. The seasonings were garlic (from the CSA too), fresh finger, onion powder, and curry. They were added while the beets were cooking.

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I thawed 2 turkey sausage patties and cut them up. I decided a small handful of frozen cranberries would add to the flavor complexity.

After the beets were soft enough, I used the potato masher in the pan…then added the pureed sweet potato, sausage, and cranberries. I cooked everything until the cranberries began to split open.

When I poured it into the bowl, I realized the color had turned out to be similar to cream of tomato soup. The cranberries and sausage cubes floated on top.

Then for the topping of Chinese noodles (I like them better than crackers).

A fabulous winter-time lunch! One of my favorite things about soups is the combination of ingredients…the grand experiment. I just add ingredients that I want to taste together…because that’s what happens in soup. My experiments have become dependable enough that I am confident it will be edible….even tasty! This time it was also a success for the color – a seasonal shade between Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Sunrise Moments

Sunrise pictures involve timing…a morning with some clouds but not too many to block out the light completely at the critical time…and I have to be in the right place at that time. I know the locations at our house: the front door looks to the east and the forest behind our house gets great morning glow.

I stand on the front porch and use the zoom to get pictures without houses or power lines. The big oak in our front yard is always in the foreground.

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On some mornings – the light coming down the trees as the sun comes up is more spectacular. The trees get an orangey glow. Again – I use the zoom on the camera to frame the image without a house or deck in the image.

The seed pods of the tulip poplars look more like flowers in the colorful morning light.

On the morning I took these pictures, the clouds were on the move and the glow on the forest only lasted about 5 minutes…the clouds blinking out the magic light just as I finished with my camera.

Decorating for December

My husband and I opted to decorate for our at-home holidays – perhaps not as much as some previous years but enough to remind us of the season.

I replaced the Zentangle tiles under the plastic tablecloth on our kitchen table with Christmas cards. I’m glad that I have a good collection of cards from prior years because fewer people are sending cards…following the same trend we’re in sending holiday messages via texts or emails rather than cards.

There are also cards with magnets glued to the back that I put on the refrigerator, the metal door out to the garage, and the frame of the French door in the breakfast area that we rarely open. I had a small wire tree that I previously used to display hangable art glass; I put the Zentangle coasters I made last year on the tree and am very pleased with it (it was a lot easier than putting up our larger tree that requires moving of furniture to make room and then circling around it with the lights…carrying up bins of ornaments from the basement).

Overall – we put the inside decorations where they can be enjoyed over meals and shared time in the den.

We put the artificial wreath on the front door and are still working to get the timer set to come on just after dark. That decoration is to add some cheer to the neighborhood. Our across-the-street neighbors have decorations in their yard – maybe more than last year; their young children are probably full of anticipation for the coming month.

I’m already beginning to think about special things we’ll do – maybe driving around to see the lights one evening, buying a red velvet cake….or maybe it should be a carrot cake, having logs ready for a fire in the fireplace, making sure the ingredients for snow ice cream are in the pantry. It is looking like a December that still includes most of our favorite things!

Ten Little Celebrations – November 2020

Thanksgiving. The holiday is different this year. We are celebrating with the usual food cooked for two and phone/zoom calls. There is a lot to be thankful for. Life has been different during this pandemic time…with a new set of joys…and the family has – so far – managed to stay healthy. Easy be thankful.

Sunny days and new hope. We had a series of sunny days as the news came out about the COVID-19 vaccines doing well in trials…becoming available soon. And the news transition away from dystopian stories/views of the future toward plans to distribute the vaccine equitably, how the recovery of the economy could be supported,  anticipating our society becoming more equitable, and addressing climate change seemed to go along with the weather in brightening my mood just before the holiday. It is a more profound celebration overlaid on the regular holiday.

Neighborhood pond. There is always something to celebrate at the pond…a little less controlled than the yards of the neighborhood. Of course – the fall gingko leaves found along the way were a delight as well.

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Crane Fiesta. I celebrated the sights and sounds of the birds from the video of the morning flyout. It would have been even better to be there…maybe next November.

Bluebird at the feeder. They are infrequent visitors, so I celebrate every time they come.

Finding paper towels and toilet paper. I had just bought my usual large packages (lasts us about 4 months) when I started hearing that there might be a shortage again. I celebrated that my timing was proactive…the shelves were full when I shopped.

Donating monitors. It felt good to donate two monitors for local teachers (makes it easier when teaching virtually). I celebrated that I saw the newspaper article…gleaned enough to find the person working to find/distribute monitors to local teachers…had 2 working monitors we no longer needed…and the monitors now have a second phase of useful life.

Mother. My mother celebrated her 89th birthday this month. I would have been in Texas for it without the pandemic. As it was there were telephone calls and videos. She had special food for a week! Maybe that is not such a bad way to celebrate --- no single day of over eating….thoroughly enjoying special foods over an extended period. We are trying that for out for this Thanksgiving week.

Pumpkin roll. I found it at my grocery store – a two serving package which is perfect for a special treat for my husband and me. I plan to buy it every time I shop through the rest of the year…a little celebration planned for shopping days!

Eating lunch outside. My strategy of having breakfast on the deck works great for the summer…too cool for it to work now. Lunch works on some days although we are fast approaching a time when outdoor activity is what I want…not siting around. Getting outdoors is good on so many levels….always finding something to celebrate about our neighborhood or favorite places nearby.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Our Thanksgiving Menu:

• Brisket

• Baked potato

• Applesauce spice muffin

• Cranberry orange relish

• Brussel sprouts (for me…my husband won’t eat them)

• Pumpkin pecan custard

Birdfeeder Camera – November 2020

The action captured by the birdfeeder camera has been more than black squirrel antics. Raccoons visit a couple of times a month, usually around 2 AM…they have gone away frustrated so far. They leave poop on the deck or the steps between the deck and ground. I wonder if it is before or after they attempt to get a meal at the bird feeder. Also – is it the same racoon or different animals? I know that the river (Middle Patuxent) is like a highway for young racoon seeking a territory of their own.  

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There are two new bird visitors to the feeder I discovered when I reviewed the videos:

Red-breasted Nuthatch. This is the first year I’ve seen this bird in our yard. I had seen it fleetingly on the deck several times. It was at the feeder on the 20th and was gutsy enough to stay there when the Red-bellied Woodpecker showed up.

Eastern Bluebird. Birds are not frequent visitors to our yard – and I’m glad it came to the side of the feeder visible to the video camera. It flew to the feeder while white-breasted nuthatch was there. The nuthatch left and the bluebird took the perch where it had been. Then the female red-bellied woodpecker flew to the feeder and the bluebird departed. Shortly after the woodpecker left the bluebird returned.

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I’m thrilled that the video camera managed to capture some birds at the feeder that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Applesauce muffins. I am making holiday foods a few days early…and we’ll begin enjoying them early too. The applesauce spice muffins will be great for breakfasts.

Oatmeal cookie bars. I use the recipe from the Quaker Oats box but this time I added the rest of applesauce that I’d opened for the muffins into the batter. The cookie bars are more cake like – very yummy with chunks of apple from the applesauce. They’ll work for breakfast, snacks, or dessert.

Holiday Groceries

I have done my grocery shopping for Thanksgiving. It will just be myself and my husband…with family members on Zoom or the telephone throughout the day. There were some holiday extras that I purchased:

Brisket – It’s our tradition rather than turkey….my husband’s preference. It has a characteristic in common with turkey – lots of leftovers. We cook it in the slow cooker for the day then make barbeque with the leftover. Sometimes we have so much that we freeze some of it….just as I would do with turkey.

Christmas cactus – I skipped ahead to the next holiday because the display in the store had so many plants in bloom. I got one that has white and red flowers. It’s in a small pot so I might need to move it to a bigger one after Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin roll – The store had it packaged in different sizes. I bought a two-serving size, and I my husband and I enjoyed it on the morning I brought it home! It was a tasty treat and not overwhelmingly sweet. I hope they have it when I shop two weeks from now. Maybe it will become a tradition until we shift to red velvet cake for Christmas.

Chunky applesauce – My husband suggested that I make apple spice muffins for our big dinner since pumpkin custard is our favorite dessert (so pumpkin muffins would be too much orange veggie!). I also remembered to replenish my ground cloves, since I had used all I had the last time I made pumpkin custard.

I continued my winter strategy of buying a bouquet of cut flowers every two weeks. I picked one that had more deep red, white and pink rather than orange and yellow…acknowledging how different this Thanksgiving holiday feels in the midst of a raging pandemic…very aware of the value of consciously doing things to sustain our positive mental attitude.

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I’m letting the sunflowers I bought 2 weeks ago dry in the Blue Tulip bowls…they’ll add some color to the windowsill in my office for the rest of the month.

30 years ago – November 1990

30 years ago I was settling into working full time again even though the work assignment was still very much in flux; the first project was cancelled before it could really get started and I was closing down the work and looking for the ‘what next.’ Concurrently – my 15 month old daughter had acclimated herself to being at day care for the full day 5 days a week…was enjoying cheerios and spaghetti and bubble bath and light switches (not at the same time)…and we flew from Maryland to Texas to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family.

That flight was probably the first flight since she had become mobile; the flight was not full, and she enjoyed small toys and books I had packed to keep her busy on the plane. There was a child a couple of years older in the row behind us on the way down and that helped too; they interacted via the slight crack between the seats. She was still small enough that I could carry her in on my back (we only used the backpack frame for a relatively short time…but it really worked well for those few months); I maneuvered through the airport and onto the plane easily although I noted that contorting myself to get the backpack on and off without assistance caused me to be sore on the travel days.

At my parents’ house, the mulberry leaves had been mostly raked away – but there were still a few to catch the interest of my daughter.

That was one of the few ‘quiet’ times of the visit. She and her cousin (the same age) did a lot together…enjoying the attention of aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

A very memorable experience happened for me that Thanksgiving Day. I was carrying may daughter into my sister’s house and I slipped in the entry way – almost falling backward. My mother saw the whole thing and commented that she was surprised that I was able to stand back up rather than just sitting down hard. I felt sore in my left hip a few hours later as I helped clear away the dishes after our huge meal. It didn’t bother me enough to see a doctor, but I’ve had some reduction in range of motion in that hip since then.

The day after Thanksgiving, my husband – who had stayed in Maryland – called with the news that his mother had died. I immediately changed my flight home to come back that evening. My daughter must have sensed my emotional stress or simply mimicked my subdued demeanor. She was very quiet…cuddled…then went to sleep on the plane. That weekend we took her with us to plan for the funeral and assess what we needed to do for her grandmother’s apartment. The real work and funeral happened while she was in day care the next week. We brought some of the flowers back to the house after the funeral and she looked at them over the baby gate. They were the only part of the funeral ritual she experienced…my husband pulled out one of the carnations for her to smell.

And so – from November 1990 onward – we have a tradition of putting flowers at the grave on Thanksgiving or the day after – silk flowers or a wreath at Thanksgiving, fresh cut flowers for her birthday in June.

8 months in COVID-19 Pandemic

It’s a challenge to stay vigilant with masks…handwashing…distancing from other people – but even more important now with the cases spiking all over the country. Maryland is back to numbers we haven’t seen since June and the trend looks like it will go higher. The metrics that were established to open restaurants and bars are now indicating that the capacity needs to be reduced…and the governor did that this week.

My husband and I got our first haircut of the pandemic in mid-October; our logic was to get it before the anticipated increase in cases as people began spending more time indoors….anticipating that our next haircut would be after we are vaccinated. Our timing was good based on what is happening now…just 3 weeks later.

The CSA ended the third week in October. That was my only weekly errand away from the house and it was one I enjoyed. I am considering some kind of outdoor foray that I can do every week --- someplace not far from home…but a change of scenery once a week. The end of the CSA impacts my grocery shopping as well. I’ve already started buying more produce; it will increase as I clear out the veggies I froze over the course of the summer. I’ll still be shopping every other week rather than my pre-pandemic weekly habit; I’ve discovered that every other week works well for me.

After the CSA ended and I didn’t have a dusty gravel road to traverse, I got my car washed (drive thru) --- it’s a joy to have a clean car. It’s good for the winter now. I also bought gas – the first tank since January. So now I am back to charging the car and doing my driving as an EV. It was low risk since everything was self-service and I wore a mask just in case someone else pulled into the slot next to me; and used hand sanitizer after I got gas…and after I put the code in for the car wash. My car is probably set with fuel and maintenance until after the vaccination is available.

I had a porch full of stuff to donate. It feels good to get rid of items we no longer need. We also made a trip to the county landfill for some larger trash items and hazardous waste (large fluorescent bulbs). The charities and county facility are probably at lower capacity but functional at this point. Their processes for protecting their employees and the public are established.

My husband and his doctor have changed his prescriptions from mail delivery to pickup at a local pharmacy based on the challenges with timely delivery from the postal service in our area. I’m not sure if this is related to the pandemic at all…but it is all happening at the same time. There are layers of anxiety that sometimes are separate…but tend to meld together over time, stretching our ability to cope with more and more and more.

We made a field trip to Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant for birding. It was outdoors, small group, distanced, mostly masked. It was OK…but now that the cases in our state are spiking, we might not do something like that again. We can still go to places like that but just on our own.

There were joys of virtual events over the past month. My favorite was the Hawaii Island Festival of Birds. It was good for the moment…and gave me ideas about the future…things I want to do post-pandemic.

It’s fall. We thought we would take some fall foliage drives but we missed the peak so the main fall activity has been mowing leaves in our yard! Still – the continuity of the natural cycle is something that buoys my spirits.

Right now, I am aware that there are multiple anxieties beyond the pandemic. After 8 months – the pandemic is the one I am coping with the best; I know how to reduce my risk and I have developed habits that are easy to maintain because they incorporate activities in my every day activities that are joyful…it is easily sustainable until the vaccine is available.

My hope for the next few weeks is that several of the other anxieties will reduce dramatically (since I have not discovered good ways to cope with them – who would have guessed that the transition from one US President to the next would be so fraught) and that we’ll be settling in for Thanksgiving and then Christmas with lots of virtual interactions with far flung family and the usual good food/decorations…savoring home and health…looking forward to a post-pandemic sometime in 2021.

9th Anniversary for my Blog

I started my blog on November 11th, 2011.

The very first post was about making Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins. Maybe I’ll make the recipe again this year. Brookside Gardens and Longwood Gardens had wonderful displays for fall gourds and squashes that year. I was doing some photography then, but a good portion of the blog posts weren’t illustrated. Now the majority of posts have a illustrations and sometimes the topic is the illustrations themselves.

Travel has continued to be a blog topic all along…which has made this year different from all the preceding ones; it’s been a year dominated by being ‘at home.’ The most frequent destinations in previous years were where my family lives – the Dallas, TX area for my sisters and parents….and then a sequence of places for my daughter: Tucson, AZ for grad school, Pittsburgh and State College, PA for post doc, and Springfield, MO for faculty position. During some of the years I travelled with my sister…to South Carolina, Tennessee, and Rhode Island. My husband and I discovered Birding Festivals as a travel focus beginning in 2016 with Bosque Del Apache’s Festival of the Cranes. As soon as the pandemic wanes (probably with the wide availability of a vaccine), we’ll be traveling again and the blog will pick up that thread again.

Books have also been a blog topic all along. The trend has been toward eBooks which are now about all I read. The botanical eBooks list has grown to over 2,000 volumes at this point and is still growing! I’ve become more interested in images of all kinds – photographs, paintings, etching, sketches – and I appreciate viewing them online rather than in a museum or physical book; I like to take my time, sometimes enlarge a particular portion of the image, view them on just about any device and almost anywhere!

I have made pattern-like doodles for as long as I can remember, and they have been part of the blog posts for most of the 9 years. Now they follow the Zentangle tile process – most of the time. I’ve diverged in several ways and that will change over time. At present I am making tiles in black ink with the idea of coloring them….adding white highlights as the last step. I am not using a pencil at all (for strings or for shading).

Gleanings have also been in the blog for most of the 9 years. My feeds have changed slightly but are still skewed toward science related topics. One trend I noticed is that the solutions to address climate change have matured over the past 9 years. There are a lot of effective technologies available to choose from (see Project Drawdown) – which add some hope to an otherwise dystopian future for the Earth and humanity.

My outdoor volunteering ramped up over the 9 years and I enjoyed writing about it…then that aspect of life came crashing down with the pandemic. I am hopeful about it starting again sometime in 2021. Giving back to the community, interacting with schools on field trips and people visiting Brookside’s butterfly exhibit is a joy I’ve missed in 2020.

I’ve been in my same home office for the entire 9 years and the view through the window is always fabulous – out to the bird feeder/bath on our deck and back into the forest. The view is inspiring and pictures I take through the window often make it into blog posts. Probably my favorite sequence is of bluebirds bathing from back in February 2018. I collected a sequence of ‘through the window’ pictures from 2012 through 2019 for the slideshow below. The feeder was added in 2015 which was a big attraction for November birds. I also noticed that the zoom on my cameras improved over the time period!

The very first post about little celebrations was back in August 2012 and then I started the listing of 10 each month in September 2012. Noting the joys of life is one of the ways I keep myself optimistic…which I’ve needed more than usual in 2020. Stream through the ‘celebration’ posts via this link.

The blog continues on….documenting my post-career journey. These pandemic and political upheaval months of 2020 have probably been the most unusual – and anxious - of my life; I am looking forward to the new year and documenting the events that unfold – finding celebrations.

7 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

Today marks the 7th month since the WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic. I started a monthly post taking stock of the impact on my day to day life back in July (previous posts: July, August, September). Here’s the one for the 7th month!

There were few ‘new’ activities for us in the past month:

Propane taxi. We are using our gas grill again! We were glad the service to get it delivered was available in our area since the pre-pandemic process required a lot of contact with other people to trade in the old tank and get the replacement.

Voting. We would have been voting at this time even without the pandemic but we requested a mail-in ballot and put it in a Maryland drop-box at a nearby early-voting place rather than voting in person. We are checking the ‘status’ online; right now they are listed as ‘received’ and we anticipate that they’ll be ‘accepted sometime after the 12th when our country begins counting.

Conowingo field trip. We ventured out on a short road trip to Conowingo Dam which is a little over an hour from our house. It was the first time since February for an outing like this. It was good to get outdoors in a place other than the immediate neighborhood where we live….and we did some bird photography. It turned out to be very easy to wear our masks the whole time we were out of the car and we had plenty of hand sanitizer. The visitor center was open; everyone wore masks, and the bathrooms were clean/well supplied (as they were pre-pandemic too).

Gathering a pile of stuff to donate…to be picked up from our front porch. Charities are beginning to pick up donations again in our area. I have accumulated a pile of stuff and realize there is a lot more that I am willing to part with. The key decision questions for me are:

• Have I used it in the past year?

• Does it give me joy?

Indian corn on the front door. I put the three ears of Indian Corn we’ve had for years on the front door to provide some seasonal decoration. There are some fall related chores as well like mowing the leaves that are falling. I have ended the work in the flower beds and brush piles to let overwintering critters settle in; most of what’s in the beds will be easy to clear away in the spring when the early spring flowers start to emerge.

Overall the ‘new’ activities, have continued our strategy of choosing low risk ways to go about our lives. There are things that we’ve continued -

• Cape May Fall Festival (virtual). The fall is full of birding festivals that have gone virtual. The Cape May event was intense and we learned a lot….are all ready to go in person sometime in the future. There are others coming up that we are looking forward to. These have become our alternative to travel during the pandemic.

• Groceries every other week and CSA pickup every week and curbside pickups. The routines of replenishing our supplies are functional and also provide us an opportunity to leave the confines of our neighborhood. Sometimes I use the opportunity to photograph a sunrise or the plantings at the CSA. As the weather has cooled, wearing a mask has become even easier.

It’s always good to have plans. We’re assuming that the pandemic will be the status quo at least through the end of the year (and probably beyond) and we plan to continue our strategies to reduce our risk. We are also assuming that the area of Maryland where we live will continue to adhere to CDC guidance as well as is happening now.

• We’ll probably take a few fall foliage road trips like the trip we made to Conowingo – maybe to Catoctin/Cunningham Falls or Dan’s Mountain.

• At some point we might get a POD container to load up with non-essential furniture and boxed items to make it easier to re-carpet our house as soon as COVID-19 is controlled.

• And then there are the holidays….with special food and creative ways to enjoy our family even though we will not be in one location.

Chinese Teahouse in Newport

I was browsing through the Architectural Record publication for 1916 (via Internet Archive) and discovered the June issue featured the Chinese Teahouse that I’d seen in Newport RI behind Mable House in 2014. In 1916, it was relatively new – having been added to the Marble House grounds by Alva Vanderbilt Belmont. According to Wikipedia – she hosted rallies for women’s suffrage there.

According to the article in the Architectural Record article, the structural members had lacquered surfaces written in Chinese characters. Two examples:

A woman of strong character is said to be a hero among women.

Women with pretty faces and fascinating manners really may overthrow cities.

How appropriate for this 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage! I’m belatedly disappointed that the teahouse was closed when I visited so I didn’t see them.

Here are a few pictures that I took back in 2014. I think I remember that the Treehouse has been recently renovated at that time and we being used as a place where tourists could get refreshments/take a break from tours of the Newport Mansions.

Ten Little Celebrations – September 2020

Another month in 2020…celebrating that we’ve stayed healthy (keeping up the mask wearing – distancing – hand washing regime)….and finding plenty of little celebrations during September.

Finding Monarch caterpillars. After not seeing Monarch butterflies or caterpillars much during the summer…there were caterpillars in September. I never did find the chrysalises…but the caterpillars were so big that I hope they made it to butterflies and are now making their way south.

Watching Enola Holmes. My husband and I enjoyed the Enola Holmes movie on Netflix…celebrating having high quality movies available for low-risk viewing (at home).

Grilling again. After months of being out of propane, we finally got a full tank (via Propane Taxi) and celebrated with hamburgers and corn on the cob.

Watching virtual birding festivals. It’s such a treat to see and learn about birds vicariously (next best to being there). In September we enjoyed Yampa Valley (Colorado), Puget Sound (Washington), and Bosque del Apache (New Mexico). We are making plans for post-pandemic but celebrating that we didn’t completely miss September birds outside of our immediate area.

Collecting a maple seedling. I collected a maple seedling for my office window – celebrating the new life (although it came up in a place where there wasn’t room for a tree) and savoring its presence in my office through the fall.

Emptying crispers. I am finally not completely overwhelmed by the CSA share…which is good since the freezer is very full. It’s great to be cooking and celebrating the bounty of things like butternut squash and hot peppers.

Eating potato soup. Just as the CSA started providing potatoes…it got cool and potato soup was the perfect meal. I celebrated the great timing.

Getting car maintenance. Both cars got their delayed regular maintenance…in a relatively low risk way. We’re celebrating that it’s done….hoping the vaccine for COVID-19 will be available before maintenance is due again.

Appreciating Project Drawdown. The recent webinar was uplifting….the solutions available to address climate change are cause for optimism and celebration…and then action.

September sunrise. Celebrating a beautiful start to the day…timing is key to see it!

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Fitbit moved from wrist to ankle. My Fitbit was bothering me on my wrist, so I moved it to my ankle. It doesn’t measure my heart rate as reliably but seems to count the steps about the same. A side benefit - I am enjoying the freedom of being ‘watchless’ again (I also turned off the silent alarm). I seem to be the type person that does too much based on what time it is. When I started my post-career, I stopped wearing a watch for a time and now remember how good it is to be on my internal clock when I don’t have to sync to someone else’s schedule.

Racoon again. Our birdfeeder cam got video of a racoon in the early morning hours of 9/19 (between 2:43 and 2:54 AM). It does reasonably well in low light. The racoon clearly is attracted to the feeder…tries several approaches to get seed…and leaves frustrated. The feeder wins again!

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Ten Little Celebrations – August 2020

Celebrating that everyone in my family is healthy….staying vigilant with masks and distancing. And then there are 10 little celebrations for August.

There were three celebrations associated with melons which are always a big part of August – a sweet cantaloupe, a yellow watermelon, and the 6-part symmetry in a red watermelon.

Sunrise at the neighborhood pond. It was a celebration to begin the day.

Photographing a cicada. I always celebrate a cicada that I manage to see…and that remains still long enough for me to photograph!

The (clean) glass birdbath. The glass birdbath is always pretty….but when it’s sparkly clean it’s even better.

Sweet potato sprouts. Finding new life in the pantry….letting the roots start growing…planting them outside. I celebrated that it happened…would have been eve better if it were earlier in the season.

Best picture of our cat. The cat is 18 years old and I finally managed a picture of him in motion that captures his overall personality.

Dryer fix. My husband I celebrated that our dryer is fixed (that we didn’t have to buy a new one).

Kombucha bottles with flowers. I celebrate the flowers on my windowsill every time I look out the window. It’s a mood brightener every time.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Smartphone replacement. I noticed that the side of my phone has spilt….the case was holding it together; otherwise it might split the rest of the way. It’s over 3 years old (I posted about it here back in 2017). My husband ordered a new phone for me and I found a case that I like…ordered a screen protector at the same time. More about the adventure of getting a new phone in a contactless way over the next week….

Ten Little Celebrations – July 2020

I’m celebrating that everyone in my family is healthy and staying vigilant. We’re all in states that have a growing number of cases, though. As usual – I am looking back of the month and highlighting 10 little celebrations.

Large Monarch caterpillar. Toward the end of the month, there were caterpillars on the milkweed in our front flowerbed. One morning I walked out and saw a large one almost immediately.

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It was eating way…probably getting close to the size to pupate. I’ll look around for the chrysalis in the bushes nearby in a few days.

Cantaloupe in the CSA share. Yummy melons…one of the best foods of summer.

Regenerative landscaping webinar. Sometimes a webinar just comes at the right time. This one had so many interesting ideas. The one that I’ll probably try first is over seeding with mini-clover instead of grass seed in the thin places of our yard.

Morning hour on the deck. I love the quiet time on the deck first thing in the morning. I enjoy my morning caffeine, create a Zentangle tile, read a little….usually with our cat as company.

Neighborhood pond in the morning. Lots of interesting things at the pond --- different every time…birds, turtles, plants, insects.

Milkweed. Blooms, pods, insects (milkweed bugs and beetles, aphids (aargh!), Monarch caterpillars). The plants are little worlds of activity.

Summer sunrise. It’s getting easier to get up and out to catch the sunrise.

Mt. Pleasant. Venturing out just a little…early enough that there are not very many other people around.

Western Regional Park (Howard County, Maryland). A place I hadn’t been before but worth discovering.

Goldfinches. Looking out the window at the right time.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

NOAA Get into Your Sanctuary! Events. There was a post on the NOAA feed about this; relatively short notice but maybe ‘just is time’ is good enough. The events are live 7/31-8/2. I am planning to watch as many of them as I can. https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/visit/giys.html

Observations at the grocery store. When it got to the grocery store, the sun had only been up for about 10 minutes, so the short drive was scenic with the glow of morning light. As usual – there weren’t very many people in the parking area or in the store and everyone was wearing masks. I noticed that most masks were similar to mine but there two outliers: a woman that was wearing something that looked more like a gas mask and then a shield over that and a staff person that was wearing a mask that looked like it was very thin (had been through a lot of washings).

There was a sign saying that the carts were sanitized when I approached the area to get my cart – so I didn’t wipe the cart down again but did use the hand sanitizer station for my hands.

Things seemed well stocked although some of the store brand products we bought previously have not been replenished; the more expensive ‘name’ products are available.

I am enjoying the SCAN app my store provides. My bags are loaded as I shop (in the way I want them) and the checkout is as close to contactless as one can get inside the store! I wonder if all grocery stores will develop this kind of app for their customers.

Enjoying 4th of July Weekend at Home

No fireworks for us this 4th of July. Our gas grill ran out of gas a few weeks ago and we haven’t discovered a low risk way to get a refill…so we won’t be grilling either.  We’ll be spending the holiday weekend savoring home – like all the days the past few months. Two ways I’m celebrating: 1) I made a series of red, white, and blue Zentangle tiles in the days leading up to the holiday.

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2) And melons! When I did the grocery shopping this week, the grocery store had both cantaloupe and watermelon, so I bought both! Now that I am thinking about it – maybe I like melons better than much of the other ‘traditional’ 4th of July food!  And we’ll have corn on the cob when it’s in-season locally – because it’s another big favorite.

It’s going to be hot and humid here on the 4th so we’ll probably do our outdoor meal for breakfast on the deck (I’m thinking hash browns and sausage or scrambled eggs….maybe some zucchini muffins)….then be cool indoors for the hottest part of the day.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

3 new day lily stalks. Three more stalks cut this morning. I now have two vases of day lilies – enjoying them inside since they don’t last in the flower beds once the buds are large. They are deer candy!

Learn your eastern USA birds. Video flash cards of 84 birds…a quick 14 minutes. All of them were familiar (many come to our yard) …but this video will improve my ID skills for the ones I don’t see as often!

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Ten Little Celebrations – June 2020

We are still at home almost all the time, so the celebrations are mostly based there. There are two that celebrate the changes that we made in June that are away from the house….creating a sustainable new normal for the coming months.

Double rainbow. Seeing a rainbow is such a great way to celebrate summer! We’ve been having last afternoon thunderstorms and one of them was moving fast enough that the sun came out while it was still raining in the east….and it created a double rainbow! The arch was interrupted by our oak tree – but the colors were vibrant for enough time that I got a good series of pictures. I was so engrossed in taking pictures from our front porch that I didn’t notice our 18-year-old indoor cat escaping until he meowed; I was able to catch him before he escaped into the bushes.

Day lilies. I enjoy having flowers in my office. It’s a way of bringing a bit of the outdoors into a place I can celebrate at closer range.

Ice maker fixed. My husband and I installed the part he ordered to keep our ice maker from allowing water to overflow into the rest of the freezer…..and it worked. We are both celebrating that we were able to do it ourselves rather than requiring a maintenance person.

Deck drapery. The deck drapery turned out to be a great project for us and we are celebrating the extra time we are already spending on our deck.

Black squirrel. The black squirrel has only come to our deck once. I celebrated seeing it when visited because it was different than our usual squirrels….and it didn’t try to raid the bird feeder.

Fledgling red-winged blackbird. If I hadn’t seen the parents nearby – I don’t think I would have seen it or be able to identify it. It’s a celebration of new life at the neighborhood storm water retention pond.

Plastic containers. The cabinet where we keep plastic containers in the kitchen had gotten so disorganized that it seemed to be overflowing…with us not adding anything new. I took about 30 minutes to reorganize it – putting the things we use most in the easiest to reach places…and putting some things in the recycle, trash, or give away. Moving from disorganized to organized is always something I celebrate.

Pleasant early mornings on the deck. Even on hot days, the early morning is wonderful on the deck. It’s a great way to start the day – often feeling like we are in the middle of a bird celebration.

Grocery shopping. Beginning to do my grocery shopping again is worthy of celebration. I take precautions (wear a mask, lots of hand sanitizer, go in the early morning, use self-scan and checkout, shop for 2 weeks rather than 1) but getting out just that little bit has made the new normal a lot easier to sustain.

CSA season. I always celebrate the beginning of our Community Supported Agriculture veggies. Picking up the share requires a mask and hand sanitizer…just like the grocery store. It’s an adjunct to the grocery shopping that makes the summer foods easily and abundantly available.  

Unique activities for yesterday:

Rearranging deck furniture. The first afternoon I sat out on the deck to test the effectiveness of the deck drapery, I discovered that the table and chairs were not well positioned. They were in the patch of sunshine coming through the triangle of undraped screen near the ceiling.

It was too hot to rearrange furniture that afternoon, so I did it during the cooler morning temperatures. I am also going to buy another prong to tie back the drape near the bird feeder (in the far left of the above picture) so that we can see the bird feeder when the drape is tied back.