Day In The Life: July 2020

I usually try to do a summer Day In The Life post at some point so I'd decided ahead of time to do one for this past Wednesday. And then late Tuesday night I belatedly realized how crazy Wednesday was going to be and I almost decided to skip it. Then I thought, "No, this is an unusual day, but it's real life." However, full disclaimer, I may decide to do a more "regular summer day in 2020" post again in a month. Until then, welcome to Wednesday.

Due to stress and the impending crazy schedule, I'd stayed up way too late and hadn't slept well the previous night. However, my alarm went off at 6:30 and after about twenty minutes of scrolling on my phone, I was downstairs, ready to hang out laundry. (Rachel woke up really early so was already playing iPad and Sam joined her shortly before 7am.)

By 7:20, I was done hanging out the laundry and I jumped in the shower.

By 7:45, I'd grabbed a banana muffin and drank some homemade iced tea and I was headed to the grocery store. I got there a little before 8. I randomly checked the baking aisle and they had yeast for the first time since March. This is a small sign that things might be getting back to normal. (We still have yeast from our new yeast place!)

By 8:55 I was done shopping. We hadn't shopped in seventeen days so this was a HUGE trip. I should have gotten a second cart because it was precariously stacked! I think this trip will last us about two weeks and then I think we'll start shopping every week again. I also got a picture of me with the mask I wore in the grocery store.

I got home around 9:10, hauled groceries in and started putting them away. This week is a modified VBS (Vacation Bible School) at our church. It starts with a half hour Zoom meeting and then optional physically distanced activities at the church. So at 9:30, I got the kids set up on Zoom and continued putting away groceries.

By 9:50 I was finally drinking my first cup of coffee hot chocolate.

Around 10:10 we left for the church. Before we left I made myself half a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese and some coffee-hot chocolate in a travel mug. My travel mugs are in shock every time I use them right now! They've mostly sat in the cupboard for the past five months.

By 10:30, we were at church. There are only about four or five families participating for a total of about ten kids. The kids do the activities and the parents talk. It's been so good to connect in person with our church family after not seeing anyone since March 8th. Sam and a friend usually play catch and Rachel and her friend did a scavenger hunt.

A few times a week this summer, Dave's parents have been taking the kids for Grandma & Grandpa Day Camp. They live in a small town about half an hour from us. So by 11:30, I was driving the kids to Dave's parents for the afternoon. We took a different way and the drive was really pretty.

I got home around 12:40 and ate a quick lunch of leftover hamburger.

By 1:15 I was walking on my favourite path to get a massage. This was my second massage since restrictions lifted in June. And I was sporting my second mask of the day.

I got home around 3:15. I checked Instagram and updated my virtual Camino walk. I don't think I've talked about this on here yet but it's an app which is set up so you can do famous walks virtually. Janice asked if I wanted to join her in walking The Camino from France to Spain. I decided to try and walk all 774 kilometres (480 miles) as "intentional walking" rather than just counting all my walking from the day. So I didn't count any steps I took at church, for instance. I'm behind because I started this before my headache-y June where I barely took any walks (or got any steps). I've set myself a goal of six months to do this so we'll see how it goes.

Around 3:50, I decided to descale the shower head (sitting in a bowl of vinegar) and made a snack of cheese and cracker and pickles (and Coke). I started to write this post and checked my two favourite news sites -- CBC (Canada's national news) & CNN. Checking the news is definitely a Covid related activity and I've never been as on top of it as I am now.

The kids got home around 4:40 and Dave left for an optometrist appointment. I did more blogging and, around 5:30, I made a last minute decision to head uptown for supper. On Wednesdays our uptown has started a market, closing off a street. We hadn't been before and wanted to check it out. And I thought we could just grab supper at the market somewhere, rather than trying to make supper with the kids. Also our optometrist is about a five minute walk from our uptown.

By 5:45, yep, we were on the path again!

We got to the market around 6 and it was disappointing. It was just a bunch of random crafts -- mostly jewellery, and no specific food vendors. We grabbed sandwiches from a fast food place and ate at a picnic table set up for the market.

By 6:30, we were in our public square, taking pictures and killing time waiting for Dave to be done his appointment. Sam was sad we couldn't just go to the library, like we normally would if we had extra time uptown. (It's only open for curbside pick up and not in the evenings.)

By 6:55, Dave's appointment was finally done so I ordered a sandwich for him before the restaurant closed at 7. He ate it and caught up with the kids, while I waited in line to buy ice cream. Yes, I'm wearing yet another mask. I feel like if I wear one for an hour, or more, then I should wash it before I wear it again. Also, Dave and the kids are at the picnic table behind me (on the upper right of the picture).

By 7:30, we all had ice cream to eat as we walked home. I had a lemon raspberry gelatto and it was delicious! Rachel got Spice Girls which tasted like cinnamon toast. Sam had the same as me and Dave got maple walnut.

We got home just before 8pm, and just in time for me to have a blog friends happy hour. A few months ago, Allena wrote about a physically distant happy hour and Emily wrote about Zoom drinking with friends and I emailed them and asked if they'd be open to having a Blog Friends Happy Hour over Zoom. We've read each other's blogs for years and live pretty far away from each other. With Covid, we're having to meet with our neighbours virtually so it didn't feel weird to suggest we meet virtually too. Thankfully Emily and Allena liked my idea and this was our fourth Happy Hour. It has been so fun to talk with them in person! This has become one of my favourite evenings of the month during Covid. One day we will do a Happy Hour in person, right guys?!?!

Happy Hour ended around 10 and during our conversation we talked about naming all fifty states. (We talk about so much stuff -- both really random and really deep conversations, by the way!). Dave remembered an episode where they tried to name all fifty states on Friends. We found the clip (you can see it here), and then we timed ourselves to see if we could do it. We each got 48 states in six minutes.

Starting around 10:20, we fell down the rabbit hole of watching random Friends clips on YouTube. I have seen the entire series all the way through about two or three times so it was fun walking down memory lane. Watching random Friends clips lasted way too late and I finally crawled into bed around 2am and collapsed into sleep.

And this was an abnormally full Day In The Life in the Summer of 2020. I really will try to document a more "regular" day at some point because, as I said above, this was an unusual day.