The last hurrah for PC projects

Brian declared that this was THE LAST SUMMER HE WANTED TO WORK ON IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS AT HILL STREET. But there was a plumbing leak he HAD to fix first and there are a few rotting boards on the deck... so we'll see if we wrap up everything this year. When we reflect, however, it is amazing how much we've accomplished there since 2015. And it's one of our favorite places to be. So worth it.

COVID kills a career

Regular work days changed dramatically in March. Hours were long, stress was high and often I was the only one in the office. Then, the first week of April the ball dropped: our newspaper group was devastated by the drop in revenue from business advertising and forced to stop publishing some papers and lay off about 30% of the workforce. And I was one. After surviving the 2008 recession I didn't think it would happen to me, but it did.

The month of April the weather was fine and I spent many hours here, on our front porch. Working on a freelance story and cruising my computer for work/unemployment took part of my time, the rest was spent trying to destress with reading and chatting with B. 

I also jumped into house projects I never had time for, like stenciling these walls, organizing our digital photos and gardening like a maniac.

I also took up hiking with the vengeance, finding exercising to DVDs at home to be too boring. It had the added benefit of taking me to many parts of the city unfamiliar to me.

In which COVID kicks our ass

COVID hit Oregon in early March 2020, right at our backdoor (city where L works). In early days all it meant was long work hours for B (who was dealing with cybersecurity issues related to crisis and L (public health crisis means news cycle goes into overdrive). B started working from home all the time and L most of the time. Schools closed, stores closed, streets became deserted and highway commutes were a breeze!

Luna LOVED having everyone home all the time. She got extra loves and extra walks from her stir-crazy humans.

When colleges shut down Jess came for a visit and we took one appropriately-distanced (from others) walk in the spring sunshine. Luna loved that too.

When the CDC changed their tune on face masks I dusted off the sewing machine to make a bunch for the family, including those that didn't live at home. We got used to them.

The new normal was odd, to say the least. No dining out (lots of home cooking!), no visiting friends, no travel, no movies, no impulse shopping for things we really didn't need anyway. We canceled our big trip to Europe (a heartbreaker) and hunkered down for the long haul.

Pre-apocalypse

By May, we opted to head out for a long-overdue firewood outing with friends Steve and Debbie; we'd burned through our remaining stacks in 19-20 even though the winter was mild. Debbie has wooded acreage in Battleground area and we quickly filled the trailer and afterward relaxed by a creek nearby. Wood still needs to be chopped and stacked but we're halfway there!

As mentioned previously, winter of 19-20 was weak, no ice storms, little snow and no big freezes. My annual fuchsias actually came back in spring! And of course, it happened because I stocked up on Icemelt last year and had plenty.

Garden art at Emmanuel Hospital

I opted to get  a new group of chickens this year, to learn best practices of blending flocks of different ages. I named them Abagail, Harriet and Amelia, for female heroines in history. So far, so good. Two Ameraucanas and one Copper Dominant.

Winter/spring also brought a near health crisis, with a suspicious ovarian cyst and wonky test results. Scary stuff but by the time summer arrived it seems like it was a false alarm. Yay me!!!