Living Creatively During a Pandemic

With cooler weather, we can no longer socialize on the porch and patio, so we have turned to creative endeavors.

As the “pandemic era” Amazon packages started to arrive, ABN could not let all that packing paper go to waste. Out came the paint and glitter, 

and Christmas wrapping paper evolved.

And there was a bit of "upcycling."

Captain has been busy in his shop.

It is almost finished!

And then there is this,

As a fixer engineer, Captain comes up with creative ways to fix problems; the problem, frozen fig tree branches. Hopefully the solution is foam pipe insulation.

Last, but not least, with the help of another local sewer, 10 purses are en route to the Sew Powerful headquarters.

These purses will be distributed to 6th grade girls in Zambia after they finish their health hygiene class. Filled with feminine hygiene supplies, the goal is to encourage the girls to attend classes during their menses. Not missing a week of classes each month will give them a better opportunity to pass the exam that allows them to attend high school. If you have a sewing machine,  ABN would love to tell you more (she kept two purses for examples)  or you can visit the Sew Powerful website.

Taking a break from creating, we made the difficult decision to visit Captain’s mom during Christmas. This may seem a bit of hypocrisy, as we have been staunch supporters of the CDC’s COVID recommendations. We had a COVID test 5 days prior (which apparently was lost, but now found during shipping and results promised by Christmas Eve,) and we have pretty much isolated for the past couple of weeks. Sometimes one has to weigh the risk with the benefits. The major risk is to Mom and she certainly thinks our visit is worth the risk. And who can say “no” to their mom. 

 Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas.  May you find peace in the chaos of 2020.

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Living Richly During a Pandemic

 

Doctor appointments, weeding, dental check-ups, cleaning the RV, removing spent flowers, maintenance on the RV, cataract surgery, pruning, sorting mail, mulching leaves; pandemic life has not been much different than any other time we return from a couple of months of traveling.

Sadly we were not able to safely host Tipsy Tuesday. But with the pleasant fall weather, we were able to catch-up with our local friends by inviting a few folks at a time for a socially distanced, bring your own dinner/lunch and support the local restaurants evening; we supplied the wine.  (Credit goes to our friends, Linda and John for that idea.) 

Social distancing on the patio and porch, we hosted 2-3 times a week in October and November. 

And we had travelers stop by!  Again, we kept our socializing outside.

Juanita and Greg stayed a couple of nights in our driveway as they were traveling from their home in Maryland to Texas. 

Heading home to Southern California, Ginny and Scott stopped by for a visit. As we sat on the porch, they shared stories from their 9-month, tour of the country in their 17ft. Casita. 

As always, when we are away from the garden in the summer, we come home to quite a mess.

This is how it looked when we left in August.

This is how we found it on our return in October.

The garden is ABN’s happy place and she was quite content to spend time getting it back in order. We saw our last monarch butterfly on Halloween; so ABN decided she could remove the zinnias, Mexican sunflowers and coreopsis. (We don’t usually have our guests work for a parking space, but ABN was grateful Juanita insisted on helping.)

Cuttings were taken from the geraniums, roses, lantana, lavender and succulents. Tender plants were moved into the greenhouse.

All is ready for a long winter’s sleep.

 

Okay, the blooms need to be removed so energy will go to the plant, but this is so hard to do!

Now that the garden has been put to bed, it is no longer warm enough to gather outside and it’s not safe to gather inside, how can we live richly during this pandemic winter? Fortunately Captain has a shop, ABN has a craft studio and we have plenty of wine! Seriously, we do have some plans for making the most of this time of isolation which we will share in future posts.

As we continue to live richly during the pandemic, we realize not everyone is as fortunate. We will wear our masks to do our part in supporting the health care providers working 12 hours a day wearing layers of PPEs. We will practice social distancing so our neighbor children can return to school. We will shop locally to help our community remain open. We will order take-out from our local restaurants so when the pandemic is over we will have a place to go and celebrate.

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Off we go on a midweek adventure……

On Thursday evening at Faculty Club, Scott says "Lisa wants a road trip." "Okay, where do you want to go?" "I don't know, where do you want to go?" Captain says "How about Lost Maples again?"  "Nah" says Scott, "we were there a couple of weeks ago." We say "Talk to Lisa and let us know." Next day Lisa calls, "How about Mustang Island in North Padre?" "When do you want to go?" "How about Monday", "I'll make reservations?" So that is how this week's adventure began. (The spontaneity of retirement, got to love it!)

We load The Wanderer, program the GPS and meet Lisa and Scott at 8:30 a.m. Monday morning. Scott says "Ever been to Goliad?" "No." "It's a neat little town not too far out of the way, let's stop there for lunch."

And this is Goliad.

We had lunch at

which got its name from the "hanging tree" across the street.

At one time court was held under the tree. If the sentence was hanging, justice was carried out immediately on the tree.

After a quick look at Presidio La Bahía in Goliad State Park,

we head on down the road, 

 

No, Ozzie didn't drive (but he wanted too!)

through (or was it around) Corpus Christi to Mustang Island State Park.

ABN with Izzy 










Lisa with Ozzie and Izzy 




                                                   

Scott and Captain were high school classmates;

Scott seems to know the whereabouts of just about everyone from high school, including Tom (aka the Handsome Sailor). Just so happens, Tom owns a Tiki Bar and charters sailboat excursions from Aransas Pass, just up the coast from Mustang Island. Off we go to see if we can catch up with him. 

And we did.

Captain hadn't seen Tom since graduation 45 years ago. Such fun catching up and knowing he is living his dream. Check out Handsome Sailor Charters.

Visiting Padre Island National Seashore,

we learn there is a Kempt's ridley sea turtle at the sea life rehab center, a must see since it is the  Texas state turtle.

 While there we saw other turtles,

tortoise

a bird (now what is it’s name?),

a monitor lizard,

and some snakes.

 Doc's restaurant was recommended by several folks, so we stopped for lunch;

and we understand why. The grilled shrimp with coconut cream sauce was over the top good.

Evenings found us watching the World Series (Go Cubs!) and eating Campfire Quesadillas. 

Heading back to College Station, a voice comes over the walkie talkie "Shiner Bock Brewery is just a little off the route, want to stop?" "Sure." Didn't get there in time for the tour but we did get the free beer samples and a tee shirt.

A little further down the road we stop at

Captain's dad used to stop there when he was roaming the state for the Texas Extension Service. He would always return home with a loaf of Cinnamon Raisin Bread.

So did we.

Another great adventure with great friends! It would have been perfect except something, maybe red tide, stirred up Captain's allergies. Those that know him, well you know what that means (hack, cough, snort, blow, etc.)

Before arriving back in College Station, Scott comes across the walkie talkie again

"Ever been to Enchanted Rock up near Fredericksburg?" (Love exploring with these two four!)

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