What Day is This?

Hard to keep track of what day it is when most of them are the same, wouldn't you agree?

This morning I braved a trip to Publix and now we are get to go, at least for the time being.

According to my blog, it has been three weeks since last I shopped at Publix. When you are making 27 meals a week, you go through a bunch of groceries, something most folks are now learning. Dare I say, the hard way?

In the meantime, Nancy got some things while she was here, and Bruce went just two mornings ago, armed with cut outs from the weekly Publix ad. Most of what he purchased was for my stash as I've been using up things, either in meals or baking.

Bruce is one to never get sick so best he's been the designated shopper, but every now again, the cook needs to shop the aisles. I'd gone through, I don't know how many of them, before I noticed this on the ground.

As is the case many places are limiting the traffic to a one way flow in order to maintain social distancing. I typed that term as if I've been using it my whole life, didn't I?

Truth be told, there were probably folks looking at me funny because I was not adhering to the new way of shopping and I'm sorry folks. I just didn't even see it! Don't be fooled by the cases behind the Krispy Kreme display because, while they had lots of things, other cases were crazy empty, such as this one with frozen chicken.

For once, after Nancy sorted out my freezer, I had a place for a bag of tater tots, yet there were none to be purchased.

Lunch meats are cleared out,

perhaps because people are eating more lunches at home, although bread is still in short supply.

Honestly, when I look back at this post in a couple of years, presuming I stay healthy, images like the one below will hopefully seem unimaginable.

Some folks are getting home delivery, however, to date, we are still handling it ourselves. What you might be wondering is, did I wear a mask, and the answer is yes, as did most other shoppers. We are totally on the "better to be safe, than sorry" bandwagon these days!

How about that mask production I mentioned in my last post? Over the course of a few days, Bruce and I made sixty to give to anyone who needed one, including ten we delivered to our friend Ann because she had run out of elastic. Yippee....we drove over to hand them off and traded, ten masks for two jigsaw puzzles. Seriously, she had some in stock and was happy to share. Not that I am very skilled at putting them together but they are totally absorbing, just what we need right now to keep our minds off the horrible news. Currently this one is under construction on our dining table replacing the sewing machine.

Nancy sent me this fascinating article that demonstrates how they make puzzles and how the demand has soared in recent weeks. 

When Bruce gets involved with a project, he studies the situation, wondering how it can be made more efficient. As such, he put blue tape on the ruler in order to not have to search the numbers each time for cutting,

Meanwhile, I was digging through all of my fabric for what I deemed manly fabrics.

Mostly I was at the sewing machine while he turned them inside out and ironed them. Next I topstitched to close the opening and it was back to him to do the folding on the ironing board.

Blue tape kept it in place for the final stitching, using my walking foot which allowed me to easily navigate the folds.

Had I been left to my own devices, they would have been not nearly as neat!


Every night, before going to bed I enter the deaths and cases in Florida on the calendar to better understand the situation, with last night's total, 14,504 and 283 total deaths. Apparently we are still a couple of weeks away from the peak before the numbers should scale back. To my mind, While this is horrible, I can't help but wonder how many people die in Florida every day of cancer. Would I write that down? I guess it is the suddenness of deaths from the Coronavirus and how it spreads so easily that makes this so tragic. Having lost a sister, just a year ago, a death in the family is hard although in her case, we knew it was inevitable whereas these deaths have seemingly come out of the blue. Both of my parents died, one in an instant, while the other was sick for six months and I can't definitively say which was worse. I think we can all agree that all deaths, while inevitable as part of the life cycle, are never at the right time.

Today's paper was filled with bad news....traffic at the airport is down 97%!!! Darden, Bruce's long time employer, has had to furlough a large number of staff as sales plunge at their 1,800 restaurants. While they are a huge company, how will the little ones survive this downturn? In that spirit, after shopping at Publix, I drove across the street to the plaza where five new restaurants have opened in the last few months and it just broke my heart, thinking of people's life savings being wiped out. In that spirit, Bruce has gone to get our first take out during this time. Even though I now have a fridge full of food, it just seemed like the right thing to do. What will our world look like in a few months time?

One thing I do know, the ducks are clueless that we are in the midst of a global pandemic, bringing new, in this case, Wood Ducklings into the world.

Between nature, puzzles, walking, that sort of thing, we are doing just fine and thanking God every day that our family is good. I suppose you've seen the saying that is going around...."you are not stuck at home, you are safe at home." Yet another thing we can all agree on.

your friend,

Gail