Sylvia's Scenario

Tonight, we had Pumpkin Bean Chili for dinner which I thought was appropriate for fall and also because Bruce needed some homemade comfort food.  He just returned from the Midwest where his dad has been infected with the coronavirus from the retirement facility where he lives.  They thought it was pneumonia so he was taken to the hospital and then tested positive.  He is 94 years old so needless to say he is not doing well.  He is the first person that we know that has been infected with the virus and it's been a very stressful time.  Bruce and I are now living separate so he can quarantine.  He is living in our finished basement and I'm upstairs on the main floor.  He was in contact with his brother who was with his dad before they knew he was positive for covid so Bruce has potentially been exposed.  They were wearing masks there, not necessarily keeping a six foot distance, they did eat at restaurants outside, and basically did everything we've...

Today is my sister, Barbara's, birthday that we celebrated a couple days ago before the rain set in. I think it might have been our last "dinner on the deck", as we've come to call them. By following covid guidelines, we are able to keep our six foot distance when eating on the deck, our visitors bring all their own eating utensils, plates, cups, etc. We don't even serve drinks. I don't prepare any food but we order takeout so we each get our own container of food. I disinfect the bathroom so our guests can use it safely and Bruce and I use a different one in the house. It works out great and we've done this several times. It was after  this article  from the Washington Post came out in July that we figured out how to do this correctly. They interviewed five of the health experts on the coronavirus from around the country and asked them how they live their lives knowing everything that they know about this virus. The article was a game changer for us. I st...

Have you started eating fall food yet? We had our first soup dinner tonight during the Seahawk game for Sunday Night Football (in an empty CenturyLink field thanks to covid). It wasn't really a soup-kind-of-day but was actually a beautiful day in the upper 60's. But fall is in the air so I felt like soup. We set up our new deck furniture in preparation of fall since we can feel it coming.  We ordered our furniture on May 5th and only got it last week, September 11th to be exact.  That was when we were in the midst of the wildfire smoke so our furniture came, they put it on the deck and we never even went out there because of the smoke.  All we could do was look at it from out the window. So disappointing after waiting so long!  Supposedly, anything that is ordered is taking a very long time due to covid, except Amazon, of course. Amazon just continues to save the day, don't they?  Thank goodness because I've been using them so much since covid which is why ...

Before After Before After  We had smokey skies here in Seattle for the past week from the wildfires in Washington and Oregon but this morning, after a rainstorm and westerly winds chased out the smoke, we woke up to clear skies.  I cannot even tell you how happy we were today to know that it is safe to breathe again.  The above photos are what we could see from our house.  My neighbor immediately called me up and we went out for our Saturday neighborhood walk and it felt so good.   I wanted to take photos of everything because it all looked so beautiful after a week of smoke.  Our little friend, Jeb, was even out of his pen grazing in the vacant lot next door from his corral. We unexpectedly ran into Jeb during one of our walks when we decided to take this shortcut to see where it went.  And lo and behold, a little pony was living at a house there.  Who would guess in the middle of a city?  This is why we love our neighborhood.  What a c...

Today is Bruce's birthday but I feel like we have been celebrating nonstop.  Yesterday was the main celebration since everyone was off work for Labor Day so we went over to Nick & Sachiyo's house for a  barbecue.  I made Bruce's favorite carrot cake with cream cheese frosting , something he always looks forward to.  This year was extra special because we had the grandkids to help with the celebration which makes it all that much more exciting; like putting the candles on the cake singing "Happy Birthday" blowing out the candles opening presents serving up the cake and ice cream and of course, eating the cake.  This was the highlight of his birthday, but it started much earlier when we all met for breakfast at a well-known spot in Gig Harbor called NetShed No.9  that serves wonderful breakfasts.  We had to sit at separate tables because of covid precautions since there were seven of...