Around the House – Page 5

The Saxophone Has Arrived

Have I ever told you the saga of the Christmas Saxophone? Settle in. This story is long and weird.

Sometime in October or so, my sister called up and asked if Kid#3 was still interested in playing the saxophone. This is the kid that so far has learned to play the recorder, the violin, the guitar, the snare drum, the ukelele, the piano, and the flute. Yes, yes, he wants to play saxophone, too. So my sweet sister orders one around the end of October, early November from someone on e-Bay. The expected arrival date at this time was around Thanksgiving.

In December, excuses started pouring into her inbox. “I forgot to mail it when I went to the post office.” “I can’t find a box to fit it into.” “I’m really behind on everything right now. Isn’t Christmas time crazy?” So when the saxophone didn’t arrive by Christmas, no one was really surprised. Disappointed, yes. Surprised, no.

Post Christmas, the excuses stopped coming. My sister kept trying to contact the lady and not hearing back. We despaired of ever seeing this instrument and we told the sax teacher we’d lined up that we wouldn’t be able to take lessons yet.

Sometime in February, my sister got an email that said the sax was on its was on its way. Greg had pneumonia. The coronavirus pandemic hit. Mail delivery started getting weird. We honestly just figured wasn’t coming.

Then yesterday, nearly seven months after she ordered it, the saxophone arrived!

It wasn’t in a box at all. It was in a regular soft-sided case, smelling of motor oil, and wrapped a couple times around with duct tape. We immediately checked that there was, in fact, a saxophone inside the case, and a then threw that nasty, smelly case away. We washed the saxophone as best we could, transferred it to the smaller, gig-bag style case that had sat empty all these months, and then dropped it off curbside at our lovely local band instrument shop. They’ll do a deep cleaning, a tune up, and set us up with mouthpiece, ligature, and reeds before it comes back home with us again.

Around the House, Everywhere But Home, Exercise

Coronavirus, Day Sixteen

Today’s adventures included a trip to the post office and a walk around the neighborhood.

Because I’m a writer at home, I normally have very few co-workers. I joined a few groups of writers, editors and publishers just to have some socialization, as you do. One of them is a group that also enjoys planners, stickers, and all the stuff that goes with them. We have a few miscellaneous boxes that have been sent around a bajillion times, full of those kinds of supplies. When you get the box, you take whatever you want out of it and then put in whatever you think an appropriate amount of other stuff into it. It’s supposed to be at your house for like three days, max. I got mine on Friday morning, the same day we got a shelter in place mandate from our city. With that and the local postal service having recently stated that we had postal employees with Coronavirus, I really wasn’t sure that it would be open for mailing. I chose my stuff, nonetheless, and put more stuff into the box.

Yesterday I was going to go to the post office, but all thoughts of that flew out the window when I found out that my sister was hospitalized. Then I accidentally tore the top off the box when moving it to the front hallway. But today I got out of the house and went to the post office. I prepared myself with hand sanitizer and clorox wipes, waited until a few cars drove off from the parking lot, and then went in. There were two workers and one other customer. The customer had a mask on. The workers were wearing gloves. I wiped down the counter where I was doing the re-boxing, just to ensure that if anything touched the counter, it would be safe-ish. Nearly everything fit into the new, smaller box. During my packing, one of the postal employees explained to a lady that they weren’t wearing masks because no one could understand them with them on. A few people walked by while I was packing. Another one wearing a mask. One that laughed at him and also at my clorox wipes. I waited off to the side until they were done. Got my box mailed, almost made it out before encountering another human up close, but didn’t quite make it out. At least she had a mask and gloves and hand sanitizer as well. Went back to the car, did some more sanitizer and wiped down the stuff I was returning to the car. Drove home, changed clothes, washed up again, re-wiped my phone with sanitizer, since I’d used it during my time in the post office to look up the address. Managed to get this far without touching my face. Washed it, just in case.

Later this afternoon, went on a walk with my midkid. If you lived on one of the few blocks we walked, you sure got a treat! Ree danced the entire way, practically. He’s so funny! We did have one not-so-great moment, though. A car drove up exactly like David’s, so we walked up closer to it than we would have a strangers. We realized too late that we didn’t know the driver. He yelled at us out the window. It was not pleasant. Went inside, cleaned up again. Some days, it feels like all we do is wipe ourselves and our stuff down.

Around the House, What I Love, Writing

Co-working woes will continue

I had no idea my husband was on the phone so much. Or in meetings. No, really. I know what he does in abstract. I’ve seen the engineering charts, I’ve watched him work during family vacations. I just had no idea being my husband’s newest co-worker would be so loud. Thankful that today is a half day. I’m seriously starting to go nuts here. I have gotten very little writing done and writing is what I do.

Next week the kids will be home doing what they’re calling Distance Learning. The kids will have classes through their Google Classroom Portals, I guess. They’re making a plan this weekend and will let us know on Monday.

The silver linings are that: 1) my sister ordered my kids a Yum box, so we have weird snacks from Brazil to eat, 2) my dad randomly sent me an awesomely creepy Mouse King nutcracker/music box and the kids are mesmerized, and 3) we are ordering pizza from Top it Off Pizza for lunch today. YAY!

The funny box the Mouse King was shipped in.

Mouse King with dancing mini mice soldiers

Around the House, Computers and Internet, Writing

Writing Group, Facebook style

Back before all this coronavirus craziness hit, our public library had asked our writing group to consider having an online presence. People had complained that they weren’t able to come at noon on a Wednesday, not to mention for a two-hour period all at once. Some people in wackier places, like the Phillipines, wanted to join our group as well. A poll of the current group took place –the people attending said they couldn’t meet or didn’t want to meet in the evenings, so we were at an impasse.

The library decided to set us up with a Facebook Group page, with our four in-person facilitators (myself included) as moderators. Today we started our online writing group adventure a little earlier than we had planned for, due to coronavirus closing our library. One of our facilitators figured out how to pre-schedule posts so they could go up when she wanted them to, just in case she turned out to be unavailable at the right time. Prompts got posted several times over the two-hour time slot we usually met. People could come and go, writing at whatever time worked for their schedules.

Personally, I was having internet woes by that point in the day. Having extra people at home using the internet constantly means that sometimes the internet goes wonky when you least expect it. So I wrote on the prompts later in the day. Other people have joined in, several of which I haven’t met in person before. I think it went pretty well, so I’m going to volunteer to moderate for next week. 🙂 Let me know if you want to join us and I’ll shoot you a link to the online group.

Around the House, I Really Do Cook, My Own Personal Weirdness

St. Patrick’s Day, social distancing version

Today has been weird, y’all. Super weird. My Tyler Critique Group canceled their meeting, which I’d expected, as all four of us have immune system issues or family members that do. Nick’s workplace said they’d let anyone with immunocompromised family members start working from home. The kids and I set up a desk area for him in the corner of our bedroom next to my desk so he’d have a quiet place to work.

See? Right next to me. Also, he will need both lamps. That corner is dark, oddly enough.

Since I couldn’t go out for supplies like I wanted to, I had to be a little weirder with my St. Patrick’s Day things than I normally would have. We did start the day like normal, with Irish music blaring out of the living room speakers. I did not have an Irish style breakfast planned, however. I did have white chocolate fudge makings, though, so we made that instead.

It tasted good, but never set unless thoroughly refrigerated. Two minutes on the counter and it was ooze again.

I ran around the house like this, pinching everyone that wasn’t wearing green, which meant Nick. I also made people randomly wear headbands or hats with shamrocks on them. There were many complaints.

For lunch, it was green mac-and-cheese. Usually I don’t have to do lunch on St. Patrick’s Day because they are usually in school. No one would eat it. Ah, me.

By dinner I was too exhausted to do the kind of in-your-house- pub-crawl like my awesome friend Amie did at home. Instead, I sat on the couch and Nick occasionally brought me an Irish beer. Wheeeeeeee!

Dinner was an Irish style dish that I cannot spell now that I have had beer. Have a photo instead.

Hope you had a lovely St. Patrick’s Day! Good night!

Around the House, Family Time, Lifelong learning, Music, Parenting, Writing

Social Distancing

Today was supposed to be a several things that it wasn’t.

Kids were supposed to be back at school, but the district is having what they call a “Community Mitigation Period” instead. They’re cleaning the schools and we’re supposed to be back on schedule next week. Ree is a little bit wumbly over it because he left his instruments at school because of the wisdom tooth removal. He’s already heard from his band director that this weeks pass offs are still due. *sigh*

We were also supposed to have our belated Lindale Critique Group meeting today. Since we usually meet at a McDonald’s off a busy highway and two of our members are immunocompromised, we decided we should probably all stay home this time. So we exchanged critiques by email, which is never as enlightening as meeting face to face is. Ah well, hoping next time goes better.

I was supposed to finally have at least an afternoon at home alone, which didn’t happen. Instead I talked to kids about the coronavirus and what the schedule at home would look like. We’re going on a modified summer schedule for now. Morning are quiet movies, exercise, and chores. Afternoons are video games, some outside time, instrument practice, and reading. Evenings will be mostly as normal as they ever get. One teacher has offered online flute lessons. We shall see how that goes.

Finally, our East Texas Writer’s Guild had its usual Nutz & Boltz meeting online via Zoom. We had some good conversation about things. (I have notes if anyone is interested.) 🙂 At least one thing went off like normal.

Around the House, Computers and Internet, Everywhere But Home, Lifelong learning

Spring Break Summary

Yesterday Spring Break ended. It wasn’t that exciting. Nick and I were minorly sick the first weekend, then Ree had his wisdom teeth out that Monday.

I saw the Endodontist on Tuesday and they told me I needed a tooth removed and sent me back to my regular dentist to have that done. I got a new shelf for my desk area that I found on deep discount at Michael’s when I looked for planner stuff. I got it all set up the way I liked.

Wednesday was the writer’s group at the library, which sadly I skipped because we were trying to get everything done so we could leave on time the next morning for College Station. We got Greg a laptop computer so he could start typing most of his assignments, which we’d discussed with his 504 committee the week before.

We drove down to College Station on Thursday. By then the coronavirus crazies had started. Nick tried to go to the grocery and they had announcements the entire time about what you could and could not buy. A fight broke out in the parking lot, and he came home without toilet paper. The rest of us just stayed at the house and watched movies.

On Saturday, Steph and I were supposed to attend a Marbling Workshop at the Bookbindery. It ended up canceled. I went out with my dad and bought him a new computer so he could teach classes online for the next week or so until all this social distancing stops. His old computer was ancient, y’all. This was completely necessary.

Today I spent the morning fixing up the computer for my dad and transferring files and all that goodness. It took forever. Setting up two computers in two weeks. What was I thinking?! Eventually we drove back home. Bluebonnets have started showing up in fields now that weren’t there when we drove down. Could it be Spring?

Around the House, Everywhere But Home, health, My Own Personal Weirdness, Writing

Pneumonia and other disasters

My youngest has pneumonia — they diagnosed it on Monday. My family of five had four dentist appointments and one doctor’s visit scheduled this week even before that happened. We’ve been to the doctor every afternoon this week besides that. I still made it to a critique group on Tuesday and led a lesson on the Snowflake Method at the public library group on Wednesday. My eldest son sat with the smallest so I could go. Other than that it’s been pills and breathing treatments and trips to the pharmacy over and over. In one five-minute window, while sitting in the doctor’s office and overseeing a breathing treatment, I spoke to one other doctor’s office about how the scan from last week showed that my thyroid was “super enlarged”, the dentist about my husband’s recovery from minor dental surgery, and the endodontist to schedule an appointment for my abscessed gums, all while texting with the flute teacher about her own bout of pneumonia and the French horn teacher to say that we really couldn’t make it this week. Today I had to reschedule two other appointments because of bad schedules at the places I was going (how do they manage to schedule people onto days the doctor won’t be there?). All this to say that there has been no writing this week, other than the four-page document I wrote about the Snowflake Method. *sigh*

Around the House

Little disasters

Last week our clothes washer overflowed. Just a little bit. Once, twice, three times. We thought it was just because of the rain. Our neighborhood waste water system always backs up and we’re the last house on the line, so we always get hit with the weird smells and backed up line.

Thursday, the kids told me their showers had been slow to drain. Saturday I noticed the whole bathroom floor was wet after my husband’s shower, but I attributed it to a lack of bath mat.

Then Sunday, after my longer-than-usual shower, the flood hit. Water was everywhere and I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Nick eventually figured out what the problem was. We had to cancel our board game day. Everyone was sad. Well, one kid wasn’t, but he never enjoys game day anyway.

This stormy morning, I called the plumber this morning and a couple hours later two noncommunicative men came out and worked on the drain line. Thankfully it was not raining at that point. They said maybe four sentences to me. I missed my dentist appointment, but the clog has left now, life can go on.

Around the House, Family Time, I Really Do Cook, Parenting, What I Love

Halloween 2019

Our Halloween… over at my parents house around the corner, of course. 🙂 We had a pretty good turnout, but still had one whole bag of candy leftover at the end of the night. We watched HalloweenTown, but not HocusPocus because my children have decided to rebel and say they “hate” HocusPocus. Ah well, at least we had the traditional Taco Soup.