What I Learned in April 2020

It was a full month here in Shafferland! I learned more than I expected - and I accomplished more than I expected, too, despite all the strangeness. Here's what I have to offer you this month! First up...the things I learned.

1. It is a strange thing to own a mask.

I received my first-ever-in-life mask this month, and it hangs on a corner of my dresser, in a fashion that reminds me of sunglasses or car key storage. Though I was mostly home-bound this month and didn't need to use it often, I still felt that life entered the next level of odd when I became a mask-owner.

2. Generosity lives.

I've seen it so much this month - pointed straight at Ryan. Churches and businesses donated free meals to hospital staff. He had sandwiches, pizza, fried chicken, snacks, and more throughout the month - all through the kindness of people he didn't even know. Other people wrote encouragement notes in sidewalk chalk for staff to see as they arrived for and left work. Friends and family emailed encouragement notes to the hospital, and office staff printed and delivered them. The hospital itself bought lattes for front line workers one day. He scored a free pair of Crocs - donated by the company. Subway and Starbucks gave away free subs and fresh brew to health care workers. Volunteers made masks for workers to wear when they weren't directly interacting with patients. Other volunteers made straps for the back of the masks to pull the pressure off the ears. So much generosity. It meant more than those giving could ever know.

3. Ryan being back on coffee put the world back on its axis.

Don't misunderstand. Ryan never complained once in his 21 day coffee fast. Not once. He made a whole pot of coffee every day and filled my cup for me when it got low. Other than mentioning a few times that he had a headache, and coffee bags lasting way longer than normal, I'm not sure I would have known he wasn't drinking it. But I missed enjoying coffee with him. I mentioned it daily. It was our thing, and when the fast ended, I breathed a giant sigh of relief.

4. I can bake bread. In a slow cooker!

Right at the beginning of the pandemic, when food was in short supply and everyone panicked, one of my friends posted a recipe for homemade bread...in a slow cooker! We don't normally keep bread in the house, but I wanted Ryan to be able to have some, and if we couldn't find it in the store, I wanted to be able to make it. I'd never made bread before, and I wasn't sure I could do it. But I made a loaf, and it was good!

5. I'm responsible for feeding my own soul.
I'm a hymn lover. I wasn't always. You know how it goes...teenage rebellion against what I heard growing up. But as an adult, I have a deep love and appreciation for hymns, and one of my favorite things about our church service is the abundance of hymns. In the days of livestreaming, the music our church has offered has trended toward the modern worship end, and while I'm not knocking it at all, I began to miss my hymns something fierce. I lamented, whined, and pouted - and ultimately I realized it is my job to feed my soul! I found hymns on YouTube and began listening every single day. It was like water poured into a dry sponge at the bottom of my heart!

6. I love the dimmer switch in our renovated bathroom.
When we overhauled our guest bathroom earlier this month, Ryan put in a dimmer switch for the light over the sink. I had no opinion on it one way or the other; if he wanted a dimmer, it was fine with me. It has become my favorite thing about the whole room. Sometimes when I go in there early in the morning or late at night, I don't want to be blasted in the face with bright lights. I just need a tiny bit of light to see as necessary. Dimmer for the win! Every bathroom needs one, I've decided.

7. Easter was extra meaningful this year.

Ahhh, social media. You cause us to begin every single thought with a disclaimer so we don't risk offending those who don't share our viewpoints - or worse, want to twist our words to mean something we didn't intend. I saw tons of posts after Easter that began with "Of course I missed my family fiercely, but..." I noticed that after the disclaimer was out of the way, the general consensus was that people enjoyed a slower Easter this year. They appreciated the rest and the calm that washed over an ordinarily crazy day. I told Ryan this was one of my favorite Easters ever. Sure, it was different. Sure, it was unexpected. But it wasn't bad at all. Not at all! I told him I think I genuinely worshiped more this year than any other year because I had the time and space to do so. This Easter will be one I'll never forget, but it's not because of the quarantine. It's because of the extra worship.

8. Proning teams are a thing. 

I'd never heard of a proning team before a virus took over the world. Maybe they were always a thing and maybe they weren't. But Ryan is now part of one, so now I know what they are! I've had several people ask me what it means that he's on a proning team, and it basically means that he helps turn patients over in bed so they can spend part of their day on their stomachs, allowing their lungs to work with gravity instead of against it. The teams are trained to turn patients who are on a ventilator, which as you can imagine, is a whole additional complexity!

9. Descriptive Video Service is a thing.
Ryan and I were working on one of our projects the other day and we had the TV on, though we weren't actively watching it. The channel happened to be playing Friends, and after a few minutes, I said to Ryan, "Who is that lady and why is she telling me everything that is happening?" In between all the dialogue, this random voice would say things like "Monica turns to Chandler with a look of disgust." I had to look it up, and it turns out it's called Descriptive Video Service. It's a narrator that fills in gaps for the visually impaired, so they can know details that would be helpful to fill in gaps not covered by actors' words. Who knew?

***

And now...for a few things that we accomplished (or didn't) this month! The results of the April goals...

1. Leave the house - to move about freely and at will...failed before it began.
When I wrote this goal on the last day of March, I immediately found out the shelter-in-place orders had extended through April, so I knew I would fail on this one. But I will say that as my respect for the intensity of this virus grew, I didn't so much mind staying home. I think in the month of April, I went out (beyond just walking the neighborhood) three times. Once was to pick up fabric masks from someone who had made them (no contact drop) and once was to drop off masks to someone in need (also a no contact drop). The only other time was when I went to the church with Ryan while he recorded the drama for Easter Sunday. There were only three of us at the church, and I kept about a quadruple distance from the videographer and Ryan throughout the entire time. (And I sanitized about 1500 times that night.)

2. Finish our anniversary scrapbook.

Done - and ordered - and arrived!! And I also finished our first quarter of 2020 book - and ordered it too! I found out Picaboo had an unlimited pages sale over Easter weekend, so I was excited to knock out and order both books. I also kept up 100% with our second quarter of 2020 book. All the quarantine days start to look alike, so I have to keep up or I get confused.

3. Archive the rest of the 2012 blog posts and begin archiving 2013 posts. (Specifically complete November 2012-March 2013.)
Overshot that goal, too! I finished 2012 as planned...and went ahead and did ALL of 2013...and through May of 2014. All the extra time at home helped me knock out that goal plus some extra.

4. Make a fun plan (and plan B) for Ryan's birthday.

I skipped right over the fun plan, since I knew we couldn't go anywhere. I'm keeping it in the back of my mind to do someday when we can get out and about again. I LOVED my plan B idea, and my sister helped me pull it off so Ryan wouldn't see any of the orders on our credit card! (Here's the recap I wrote earlier this week if you missed it and want to see all the details.

5. Make one new recipe.

Overshot that goal, too! I made bread in the slow cooker as I mentioned above - and it turned out quite yummy! I made deviled eggs for Easter -first time ever in my life to make that! I made a berry cobbler for Easter too, and it was really good. I'm pretty sure there were 2 or three other recipe experiments in the month, but these were the ones that stick out most.

6. Make plans for a uniquely memorable Easter.

As I said above, it was a delightful Easter. I recapped it all here, if you want to read at length, but being able to watch the Easter Pageant with Ryan, see his hard-fought drama video play during our service, have a special dinner together for just the two of us on our sun porch, and enjoy a day of rest of the heart and mind was an absolutely delight.

April was a strange month in the grand scheme, but oh so delightful in its own way.

Dreams and Goals for May 2020

Well, here we are again, at the end of one month and the brink of another, and I'm excited/clueless about making goals for a new month! Excited, of course, because I love fresh goals. Clueless, of course, because how does a person even make goals right now?

In our state, we aren't quite sure what the next month will bring. There has been talk of opening things back up a bit, but I also know in our county, our cases doubled over the weekend, bringing the biggest spike since this whole thing began. We've not seen a jump of that number ever. So even if our state relaxes its rules a bit, it's hard to tell what our county might do in light of this spike.

So.....with the goals.

1. Finish our next round of home improvement projects.

Ryan has been itching to start the master bathroom renovation that we've had planned for quite some time, but I asked him to hold off on it because of time and money. So we're doing a little run of much smaller scale projects that don't require nearly the time or money. Well, they take a decent amount of time - but I guess we have that! So in April, we ended up starting a guest room spruce-up. It is done except for some final decorating touches. I want to finish that in May. We also started a board and batten project in our foyer - and that in and of itself is pretty much done, but it required some additional painting above the board and batten, and that isn't done. (Who knew settling on the perfect paint hue could be SO HARD?) We also have a feature wall dream for our living room, and I think Ryan wants to knock that out in May. This is like scrapbooking for him. It's his happiest place. And it is simultaneously providing lots of scrapbook fodder, so there is that.

2. Plant flowers outside.

We usually do this around Mother's Day, because it seems like the safest time to keep flowers alive. Usually the worse of the frosts are done by then. I'm excited to see a little color outside the house again! The one saving grace of spring in making the front of the house pretty has been our pear tree. It has bloomed heartily for almost a solid month. I think that's the longest I've ever seen it hold its blooms. But they can't last forever, so I'll be glad to bring in some other flowers.

3. Soldier on with the blog archiving.

April was a SOLID month for blog archiving. All the time at home gave me extra time to work on it, and I far surpassed the goal I set for myself. I would really like to knock out a full year of archiving in May. (More if I can, but we'll set the goal at twelve months.) I am actually LOVING the excuse to read back through old posts and see what life was like in a very different season from the one in which we live right now.

4. Plan (with hope) details for a tiny getaway.

Before any of this quarantine stuff began, we had booked a tiny getaway, and now we don't know if it can happen. It's far enough out that I feel we stand a chance, but we hate to put any eggs in any kind of basket, just in case. Nevertheless, I'd like to prepare the itinerary in hopes that we can go.

5. Prep a talk for Mother's Day.

What? Speaking?? Yes! I actually had a speaking engagement on my calendar for Mother's Day and the church that invited me has very creatively moved this activity to Zoom! So I need to finish prepping that talk for Mother's Day weekend. I'm excited to see how it goes! I've never formally spoken via video conferencing before. I guess I only have to get ready on the top half, right?

6. Write something suitable for submission.

One of the good things that has come out of this quarantine time (fueled by the blog archiving project) has been an increased desire to write things that matter beyond the scope of my little brain. I have a couple of places I've found that I'd like to submit some pieces to, so I'd like to work on that in May, also.

I think that's about as much as I can plan, since I (once again) have no idea what to expect out of the weeks ahead in terms of health and permissions!

How about you? Are any of you making goals, dreams, plans, wishes, you name it? Anything on your heart for May?

Just for Fun Tuesday

One of my friends posted yesterday that her day had been the Mondayest of all the Mondays. Same, sister. Maybe you had a Mondayest kind of Monday, too?

Sometimes when I have "a day," it cheers me up to go back through my phone and read some of the funny memes and such that I've kept for occasions like this. (Does anyone else do that?)

So as I scrolled to look for myself, I thought I would share with you, too!

(And that was a pre-quarantine find!)

Isn't. That. The. Truth.

Mmmmmmmm.

This is 100% Ryan. I have seen this ACTUAL face more than once (matched with those ACTUAL words).

Bahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Don't act like you don't agree...

I mean you gotta admit...it's kinda funny.

This is actually true. Just make a note of it.

This is also true.

Ha! Oh it reminds me of those blessed purple ribbons on field day in elementary school.

Hence the participation trophy...

And then there have been a few gems from the quarantine. I'm sure you've seen most of them, but they are still good...

Hope you got a smile or two out of the cameral roll stash!!

Making the Best of a Quarantined Birthday

I had a whole plan envisioned for Ryan's birthday, which was this past Friday, but I had to scrap it, because it involved leaving the house. :)

But I have to say, I was super excited about my Plan B birthday idea, and I'll share it with you here in detail in case you need to plan anything for your immediate future!

Ryan did have to work on his birthday, so we didn't get the entire day together, but that was okay. I think he had fun with his current work team.

Ryan went to the store the night before his birthday, and I had crossed my fingers that he would be able to find the frozen bread dough I needed to make sticky rolls for his birthday. Bread/flour/yeast have been hot commodities around here, so I wasn't confident, but I hoped. AND HE FOUND IT! So Thursday night I put together sticky rolls and the morning of his birthday, I got up and baked them so he could take them to work to share with his buddies! My only sadness was in not being able to go to the hospital to celebrate with him there!

Even though they're new as co-workers, they had a mini party for him, and his picture-loving team member kept me well supplied with photos of their celebration. (He scored a free lunch, too, from a donation to the hospital. BBQ from one of our favorite local places.)

Normally we go out to eat for our birthdays, and while I thought a picnic sounded fun, I wasn't sure I could count on fickle Indiana weather to cooperate, so I didn't even begin to try.

Ryan loves Giordano's pizza, and because we don't have one around here, we don't get to have it on the regular. In fact, I think the last time we had it was two years ago on his birthday when we drove to downtown Indianapolis to eat at the location there. Deep dish pizza isn't really a car-friendly fare, so even though I knew I could order Giordano's and we could drive down for carry-out, it didn't seem like the best plan. BUT!!!! They ship. Yep. They ship it frozen. 

My sister helped me with this so Ryan wouldn't see the order on our statement. You have to order a minimum of two pizzas for shipping - and I won't lie to you about the cost. It's not a frugal pizza. But it is a DELICIOUS pizza, and it was his birthday, and we did get two, so I declared it worth the splurge. I ordered early to make sure it arrived in time and then hid them in the freezer under  towel with a note that said DO NOT PEEK!!!

Since the day of his birthday ended up being pretty, I thought it would be fun to enjoy porch dining. So while he was at work, I set up a table on the sun porch and transformed the space (as much as I could) into a birthday pizza parlor. I made little menus and everything. It was so fun.

I made this little person of the year cover (slightly doctored up, since it was for a 40th birthday) here and printed and framed it. (That was a free download.) I also found this sign and this one on Etsy. Both were really inexpensive and download to print, so I was able to get them printed and framed (shopped frames in the house) right away. From there I used balloons and a handful of other random decor I found in our party supply tub in the closet. It wasn't extravagant, but it provided a good touch.

I didn't have anything else to serve other than the pizza, because it is RIDICULOUSLY filling and calorie-laden, and I also had dessert plans. I did ask him if he could stop on the way home from work to pick up fountain Cokes, because a proper deep dish pizza celebration needs Cokes on the side.

And because he loves pie more than cake, I baked a razzleberry pie (his favorite) for dessert to have along with ice cream and coffee. You can put candles in a pie just as easily as you can a cake!

 When he arrived home and saw the theme of the celebration, he was so excited! We took tons of pictures - most of these were his own request. Enjoy!

 He was fascinated with the shipping process of the pizza. I hadn't been able to throw away the box it came in, since it was labeled as a Giordano's box, and I knew he'd see it in the trash/recycle bin. So I had to hide it under the desk in our office with a bath towel over it until he knew about the pizza. Apparently it was photo worthy!

 While we waited for the pizza to bake, he opened the cards that had been coming in the mail for a few days. We'd stacked them all up to open on his birthday. The first one here is from me. I wasn't able to go to the store to buy one, so I found a download on the Dating Divas website that allowed me to purchase 10 downloadable cards (for less than I probably would have paid for one card at the store). So that's what he got from me!

Then it was time to eat!!

Then it was time for presents! I gifted him an online escape room adventure and a movie. More on these in a moment...

I hadn't realized that his birthday fell on NFL draft night (silly me!) so before we did anything else, he wanted to watch a bit of that. Perfectly fine with me!

My parents thought he should have a proper quarantine birthday parade, which was something I had not put together, but they gave him a one car parade anyway!

That was pretty fun!

THEN we got to the escape room. I got this idea originally because one of the pastors on our staff had linked this to his wife's Facebook page and told her it sounded like a fun date night. It's a DIY at-home date night, perfect for quarantine life. But before I could purchase it, my sister told me about this at-home, online escape room that was created by a library - and it was free! I decided to go that route instead, because free is Ryan's favorite word. LOL!!

The room was really fun to do - but it was relatively short. That was fine for us, because we already had other fun things in our night. But if it had been the ONLY thing in our date, it might have been too short.

We did escape, though! Yay, us!

The movie part of the night was supposed to be renting I Still Believe from the theater. (I had checked and AMC still had it playing.) We both wanted to see it and hadn't yet. But we were not sure we could stay awake (hello, pizza coma) and we didn't want to pay for a movie and then sleep through it, so we have yet to do that part.

Ryan said it was a really fun night! He asked if I could tell him what Plan A had been, and I told him no...but after we finally do that date someday, I'll tell him it was Plan A. LOL!! But I think he found Plan B to be the perfect celebration.