Nestled at home amid pandemic

My Life at Home

This is a very hard time for the world trying our best to keep this horrible Covid-19 corona virus at bay. It is a family and neighborhood time. We are supposed to stay home except to go to the store once a week, to the pharmacy for necessary drugs or doctor appointments.  Everything is canceled or has switched to virtual, zoom or livestream.  I miss seeing friends at church, choir, DBE, knitting, lunch bunch, and ballroom dance.  I normally am like a social butterfly, always going here and there.  Well I'm staying at home, I even stopped going to the store because I'm trying to protect my Mom who is 96.  She lives around the corner and I visit her every day.  I worried about her getting sick if I would get it and not be aware at first.  Ryan, bless him is now doing shopping for all of us.   I share my vegetables with my neighbors instead of choir members.  I pick flowers and take them to neighbors passing them arms length so we can be sure to be at least 6 feet apart.  I'm trying to do home school science at a distance as Faye doesn't think we should be together that close.  I gave her the magnet and electrical box so we can still do experiments.  Not as good, but workable.  I have to say that I'm just as busy each day around the house.  I have been enjoying my yard, making jam, juicing oranges, making masks and cleaning out shelves.

I'm making masks for nurses at Maricopa County Hospital

Jules Magnet box I put together

Electrical box for home school experiments

Nasturtiums from my garden

My Roses

Peace rose from WW2

Orange zest

Bob's very cherry 3 berry Jam

 This jam has a story.  Bob was our family yard guy for years and years.  Mom and I visited him when he was sick.  He said, go over to my apartment and take anything you want out of the freezer.  So I got mostly frozen fruit and many frozen cherries.  I told him I would make jam and bring him some.  He, sadly died before I could do so.  However, I made jam using cherries and several other berries.  It is so, so delicious.  Jules named it "Bob's very cherry 4 berry jam" and the name continues in his memory.  This time I used only 3 kinds of  berry's,  cherries, blueberries and strawberries. 

My new system for making sure that I use all my canned goods before they become outdated!

White Iris

Snow Peas and white onion bulbs

We have had a lot of rain this spring.  This was a double rainbow

Now I must go back in time and see what happened in the Fall of 2019

Well I would but can't seem to upload pictures from my computer.  The pictures above are all from my phone and it was really easy to do.  So, I'm going to post this and try again another day.  Time for a cup of tea!

 World War 2 War Brides Reunion in San Diego

  The War Brides group is getting fewer, but they are still mighty!  They have great stories and really great voices as they belt out the old songs.  Mom is always a big hit as she does the hand motions to Waltzing Matilda!  I made a video of her, but couldn't figure out how to load it.  We always have activities in the area.  We went on a tour of the USS Midway which was so amazing and interesting.  If you go to San Diego you should definitely tour it.  We went to Catalina Island so Mom could sit on the beach and stick her toes in the Pacific Ocean, the same ocean that is on the east coast of Australia where she grew up.  She loved it!

Standing in front of the kiss sculpture and and USS Midway

 

Sweet WW2 ladies, part of the greatest generation!

 

Kelsea, Philip, Romey, Archer and Beckett visit in October!

Singing Happy Birthday to Gary

Gary blowing out candles as you can see he's 2

We of course went to Carolinas for Mexican food

 MacAlpines for Ice Cream

 Carolinas and MacAlpines Soda Fountain are a family tradition!  Carolinas is a little hole in the wall in the hood and still only has evap cooling.  It has the best Mex food and you can't beat the service which is self!  MacAlpine Diner and Soda Fountain was a favorite of Phoenix Union High School when my Dad grew up in Phoenix.  It was the only high school and the only soda fountain at the time.  It's still a favorite with our family.  We took the kids to RiverView Park to climb on the amazing structures.  All the kids including Philip had fun climbing!  They also spent time in Flagstaff and northern AZ.  It was so amazing to have them here and the time went entirely too quickly.  They got a AirBnB half way between Mom and I so it was perfect!  Love you guys!!