Day in the Life: June 2020

Throughout 2020, I'm doing a series of day-in-the-life posts, looking at each day of the week. For June, I'm looking at a Friday!

Date: Friday, June 5, 2020
Ryan is 41 years old, Bekah is 42 years old, and Braeya is 14 years old.
(I've had a birthday since the last DITL documentation, so Ryan and I are no longer the same age.)

Weather: High of 89, partly cloudy with a stray shower or thunderstorm possible. 

* Special note: We are currently in stage 3 of reopening in Indiana after the Coronavirus quarantine. This means we're encouraged to still work at home if we can. Face masks are recommended, and we're encouraged to continue practicing social distancing. We can have up to 100 people at a social gathering, and all travel bans are lifted. Ryan has one more week of work on his proning team assignment, and I am still working for our church - but back in the office once again. 

Midnight-6:00 a.m.

I fall asleep sometime after midnight and sleep very well until the alarm starts going off. I have yet to work a full week in the office since going back after quarantine. This has been a four day week for me because we were on our last day of our birthday getaway Monday. I still don't feel back in the routine of getting up and ready so early. I hit snooze for a while and finally get up.

I put 20 ounces of water in my tumbler and start hydrating while the coffee pot fills up. I hunker down on the couch and do a little journaling before opening my Bible. In my quest to read through Psalms this year, I've made it to the second half of Psalm 90. I open to that and get out my Exploring Psalms commentary to go along with my reading for the day.

Ryan gets up, makes the bed, and brings me a cup of coffee and then heads into the bathroom to get ready for the day.

6:00 a.m.-noon. 

After I finish my time in Psalms, I move on to my next devo, which is another Daily Grace Company book. This one is called Faithful and is a study of all the covenants in Scripture. My reading for today is a reflection and summary of what I've learned over the last five days' worth of study.

Ryan heads out to water our flowers. This used to be my job when I worked from home (in previous summers) but he's taken it over now. His hair takes less time to do than mine, so he has more time in the morning. It's trash day, so while he's out there, he rolls the can to the curb. He puts his lunch in his work bag, pours his coffee for the road and prepares to leave for his day at the hospital.

I showered and washed my hair last night to save time this morning. I plug in the old flat iron so it can heat up while I say goodbye to Ryan.

It's supposed to be hot and sticky today, and the temperature in the church office is always a gamble. I'd ALWAYS rather be cold than hot, so I choose a pink casual sundress for work. It's the closest thing to jammies I can find that is work appropriate. :) Ryan calls to say he's coming back home to get Calamine lotion. He can't tell if he has a tiny bit of poison ivy, but if he does, he'll be a full-body itching mess in no time, so he wants to be prepared with treatment in case he needs it. I grab the bottle from the medicine cabinet and meet him at the front door so he can get back on the road.

I straighten my hair, which turns out surprisingly well considering I didn't straighten it after washing it last night. (I know better, but I didn't want to stay up later.) I get really shaky while getting ready - a sure sign I need some protein, so I grab a little trail mix left from our hiking weekend and eat that while I work. I feel better pretty quickly. I throw on some makeup and earrings - and Ryan texts to say he forgot to pack his breakfast cookie. I have a little extra time and his work isn't far from mine, so I let him know I'll drop it off on my way to work. I pack my own breakfast, lunch, and snacks, and get my work coffee and water tumbler ready to go.

Before I head out the door, I start the dishwasher, get the house all ready for Braeya's day-of-fun (whatever that means...secret life of pets, right?) and load my work luggage in the car. The drive to work is sunny and easy, and I call Ryan as I turn into the hospital parking lot to let him know I'm on the property so he can meet me at the door. He picks up his breakfast, and I drive on to work.

I'm the first one to arrive, and today I'm actually filling in for Abagail - which means I'll be doing the same job I did as a temp worker at the first part of the year. I haven't sat at this desk in almost three months! I have no idea if I'll remember anything about how her job works, but I put away my lunch, get out my water, coffee, hand sanitizer, and Thieves spray, and settle in to work. I'm not expecting too many staff members in today (many have Friday as their day off) so I crank the radio to keep myself company.

A couple of people arrive and we catch up on life while I eat my own breakfast cookie. (My new office is in a different area of the church from where I sat in my temp job, so I haven't gotten to hang out with these co-workers for a while, even though we've been in the same building.)

The morning is mostly about answering the phone and letting people in the building when they stop by. It's not too crazy of a day, which is perfect for a Friday.

Ryan texts mid-morning to send a picture with one of his proning team members. He and the team are able to step outside to get some sunshine before going back in to work. Ryan's lucky he doesn't have to worry about humid hair! He says it's a good day at the hospital. He really enjoys his team, and I'm grateful this has been such a good experience!

The second half of the morning seems to go much more slowly than the first. I've forgotten what it's like to sit in one area without getting to move around! The last ten minutes are always the longest, right? I may or may not send countdown texts to Ryan. (I take my lunch more seriously than anyone I have ever met.)

Noon-6:00 p.m.

When the clock strikes twelve, I head to the church kitchen for lunch. Today Ryan and I are both having leftover Dashing Dish slow cooker fajitas. Because one of the staff pastors and I talked at length about breakfast foods, I'm extra hungry, so eating doesn't take too long! Ryan calls just as I'm finishing up and we talk for the rest of our lunch hour as I walk laps around the church. I get my step count up to about 5700, which is pretty good for a sit-at-the-desk-all-day kind of day.

At the end of lunch, I head to the Keurig in the youth area to make a cup of afternoon coffee. I use my own K-cup and I know I just replenished the water yesterday, but it does NOT taste right, so I'm out for afternoon coffee. Cue the sadness.

I check for voicemails and emails that might have come in while I was at lunch (there are none). The USPS carrier arrives with a big stack of mail, so I open the door for her and distribute the mail when she leaves.

In between calls, I scan the $5.00 sale at the Daily Grace Company and notice they're selling out of several of the studies. I want to have a few extra on reserve for future use, so I go ahead and place an order. Three cheers for $5.00 off coupons combined with $5.00 sales!

A couple of my co-workers stop by to chat for a while, and in the process of the conversation I apparently win the quote of the day with the following: "I have eaten too many donuts to walk on eggshells...and you can put that on a t-shirt!"

One of our church members is setting up for a small bridal shower and needs an easel, so I go on a quick hunt for one and find it right where it's supposed to be. A Christmas miracle in June!

As the work day draws to a close, one of the pastors suggests we have a Moxie break. (Moxie is a soda that tastes like carbonated cough medicine. We usually open a bottle once a week and split it among all the people there that day. One swig really is more than enough.) The pastor had gone for an ice cream run earlier in the day, so we can wash down the Moxie with ice cream! Ryan texts me and says he's getting off work, so I tell him to stop by and have Moxie and ice cream with us. It's his first time to try it, so I get a video of that. Unfortunately I cut off the video before the true aftertaste reaction hits him.

Ryan hangs out with the staff a bit and then heads out for an errand. I stay until the end of the day, lock up the office, and stop by the post office to mail a package for one of the pastors. It's my first time to wear a mask outside in stifling heat - whew! Not a fan of that at all.

I talk to Ryan on the phone as we drive home (separately), grab a package from the porch, and fall down on the couch. We sit for a while, watching Andy Griffith, which is our favorite thing to do at the end of the day. We both accidentally fall asleep for a few minutes and wake up when a new round of the theme song comes on.

I go into the kitchen to make our dinner, which is a Dashing Dish chicken gyro recipe. I fill up my water tumbler again because I got behind on water consumption at work. I only had one tumbler there instead of two. I finish up dinner and we eat while watching more Andy Griffith.

6:00 p.m.-Midnight

After we eat, we have our first cup of evening coffee and watch a show Ryan finds called "I Survived." (It tells the story of three people who survived life-threatening events.) It's still really warm outside, but after the episode is over, Ryan goes outside to mow the yard, and I get busy cleaning up dinner and putting leftovers in the refrigerator.

I decide to call Mom and talk to her for a bit while getting in a few more steps. I usually talk to her on the phone about every day, but I missed a couple of days this week. She's driving and can't talk, so I decide to unload the dishwasher while I wait for her to get home and call me back.

I catch up on some blog stuff and see Ryan has finished mowing and has moved on to trimming the yard. (He handles hot weather so much better than I do. If I'd been on mowing duty, I'd be on my 18th water break right now. He hasn't been inside once yet.) Braeya joins me in the kitchen to sit in the window while I work on the computer and Ryan works in the yard.

Mom calls back, so I walk the house and talk to her. Ryan finishes up the yard work and does a quick little air conditioning repair project on his truck. (It's always air conditioning with us, isn't it?) The sun is going down, so we decide to take a long evening walk, and it's almost perfect outside, even though it's humid.

We get home just before dark, and I fill up the water tumbler and coffee cup one more time. I finish the blog post for the next day, and we watch a really old episode of Undercover Boss while we work on our computers.

We take it easy the rest of the night, being living room bums. Ryan eventually gets up to take a shower, but I miss it all because I've fallen asleep on the couch. He wakes me up when he's done and we go to bed!

And so are the events of a just-after-quarantine Friday. (Side note: Often, in regular times, Friday would be a date night for us, but since we were just gone/out all of last weekend, and since most places still aren't open, we just had a regular night at home.)

Home Like the Wise Men

Normally I wouldn't devote an entire blog post to coming home from vacation, because, well...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

But we had to carry the craziness of this trip all the way to the very moment we pulled in our driveway, so I shall tell you.

As we drove to Ohio the week before, we drove through a crazy long stretch of road construction. Our side of the interstate slowed to a normal highway speed, but we kept moving. And as we drove, we watched the poor people coming toward us just sitting on their side. We knew there wasn't an accident, because we'd seen the front of the line. It was just a construction crawl that had stopped.

Ryan isn't a fan of sitting on the road. So we decided as we made our way toward vacation that when we returned home, we would take a lesson from the wise men and come home via a different route.

We also happened to think about the possibility of finding a Duck Donuts while we were out. You know how we love us some Duck Donuts. We discovered there was a location on the north side of Columbus, so we decided to come home that way, drive up farther north in Ohio, and then cut across to Indiana.

The best laid plans, right?

We got up Monday morning, packed up our cabin (for real this time, not just for the state park) and said our goodbyes.

We wanted to make one more stop at that little coffee shop we'd visited earlier in the trip, so we decided to have breakfast there and get some coffee for the road.

As you may remember, we always get a Christmas ornament on our trips, so we can add to our family Christmas tree story. Since none of the parks we went to had any sort of office or gift shop, the only place we'd seen ornaments happened to be this coffee shop. Ryan was ready to buy it when we got our breakfast, but I was still deciding on whether or not I also wanted a coffee mug, so I asked if we could wait until after we'd eaten.

Breakfast was delicious.

I decided against the coffee mug, so after breakfast, Ryan bought the ornament, and we got on the road!

About an hour after we left the coffee shop, we arrived at Duck Donuts. They didn't have any inside seating, but that was okay, because we were just going to get the donuts and leave.

I had to go to the bathroom, so while Ryan ordered, I disappeared. When I came back, he said, "I need your credit card. Mine's gone."

WHAT????

Ryan said not to worry - he knew he had it that morning at the coffee shop. So after we got our donuts, we ripped apart the car to see if it had fallen in a crack, and it hadn't. Ryan called the coffee shop, and sure enough, they had it! Apparently when he bought the ornament, he accidentally left his card in the machine. He has NEVER done that before! He said it didn't beep at him. I guess those annoying beeps must actually serve a purpose! We were too far away to drive all the way back to the coffee shop and start the trip over, so we canceled the card and asked for a new one.

Armed with donuts for later, we got back on the road and began again.

We stopped for lunch a little bit later and zoomed right over the state line back into Indiana:

And found this.

The road we were on when we entered Indiana should have taken us straight through to our very own town. Except about five miles into the state, we saw the road closed sign. Took the detour and got on another road.

It, too, closed. Took that detour and got on another road.

You guessed it! Closed!

By that time, we were fairly close to the interstate, so we got on that, and immediately it went down to one lane and stayed that way the entire time we were on it.

I think by the time we got home, we'd added a full hour to our trip - and we don't even know how many miles.

But we didn't sit in a construction backup!!

And we had donuts!! 

The credit card is now fixed, and we're tacking an automatic 20 minutes onto any out-of-town trip because we presume Indiana is fixing ALL the roads at once right now. ;)

Plan...Z?

It's been a week since we came home from our totally Plan B birthday trip - and I'm pretty sure our Sunday adventures moved far beyond Plan B and landed somewhere around Plan Z!

We got up early Sunday morning and drove about 45 minutes from our cabin to find this state park, so we could do some hiking and creation-enjoying.

We discovered when we arrived that only one of the trails actually looped. The rest didn't circle back around, so we decided to just do the looping one and then move on to another park. The view of the lake - all the way around - was beautiful, and we were the only ones on the trail, so it was quite peaceful.

When we finished the trail, we went in search of the next park.

Found the sign!

Know what we never found?

THE PARK!!!

We drove down the road for quite a while and never found a single trail head. So we gave up and put in another park's address and drove the 45 or so minutes back toward where we were staying.

That address landed us squarely in the middle of Logan, Ohio, right in front of a house.

Of course.

So we put in another park's address and it was 32 miles back toward where we had JUST BEEN.

Um, no.

So we tried another address and had success!!

We started out on a trail that went STRAIGHT UP!!!!

Just as we started this trail (early afternoon) a voicemail came through on Ryan's phone that was actually left about four hours earlier. It was from the cabin managers, and they said the security cameras had picked up footage of us loading our car. They wanted to know if we had decided to check out early.

Ha! Apparently we pack so much stuff for one day of hiking that it looks like we're packing up to go home!

We tried to call her back, but the reception was so bad we couldn't get the call to go through. So we kept hiking!

 There was a really cool old barn on the trail, so we stopped to explore it. There was another couple there at that time, and I told Ryan it had to be a first date, because no woman looks that cute hiking unless she's on a first date.

 Clearly it's not our first date. ;) But I sure do love exploring with Ryan. These are such delightful days!

 This lizard-y thing slithered out in front of me and scared me to DEATH! There was a family behind us that we had observed looking for fun things along the trail, so we called them up to see it and they thought it was pretty fascinating! I was happy to leave it to them and go on my way!

 Toward the end of the trail, there was a creek bed with rocky areas to walk, so we checked it out and Ryan did a little rock skipping.

We went back to our cabin and built another fire in the pit for more hot dogs and s'mores! It was our last night there, so we stayed outside savoring the peaceful hills for as long as we could! :)

The Shafferland Shuffle

We shuffled back home to Indiana and had what may have been one of our most "normal" weeks yet! Here's a quick peek:

* Last Sunday we were actually still on our vacation to Hocking Hills, Ohio, and we went on a couple of hikes. (If you missed my recaps this week, the park we have been planning to hike for months was actually closed entirely, so we had to do a whole Plan B vacation.) even though we didn't get to see all the big waterfalls and sights we hoped to see, we did see a lot of beautiful pieces of nature!

* We said goodbye to our beloved cabin on Monday morning and headed home (via the coffee shop again). We took an alternate route home, partly to avoid a 50+ mile stretch of construction, partly to stop by a Duck Donut shop, and partly to see new things. We accomplished all these things, and found a hilariously maddening sequence of detours that added an hour and who-knows-how-many miles to our trip! We arrived home to find that someone was pretty excited to see us!

* Tuesday was not only our return to regular life, but it was also our 90th monthiversary! I realize it's not customary to receive gifts on a monthiversary, but we received the gift of repaired air conditioning. It was so very delightful, because we also received the gift of hotter temps once again! We enjoyed spending our evening together and even went for a walk and saw a beautiful sunset!

* Ryan texted me Wednesday morning to see what I was up to at work, and I sent him a picture with this caption, "Oh, just taking the music for a walk." Ha! One of my tasks involves filling the binders for the worship band each week, so I was walking the tub of music down to the sanctuary. I forgot to bring creamer with me for fresh coffee that afternoon, so Ryan brought me some nice, hot coffee to get me through the rest of the day! He's so sweet.

* Thursday was a busy day, complete with grocery shopping for the first time in a couple of weeks. We haven't been able to find fresh flowers at Aldi for a long time, but we did this week, and I was so excited! We didn't get around to it until late at night, but we squeezed in a workout. Most of us, anyway. Some couldn't be bothered to give up napping...

* Ryan forgot his breakfast when he left for work on Friday morning, so I stopped by on my way to work to drop it off to him. We had a skeleton crew at work Friday, but we did have an ice cream and Moxie break that afternoon - and Ryan got off work just in time to join us for it! I made Dashing Dish gyros for dinner, and they were pretty good!!

* Ryan worked yesterday, so he couldn't go with me, but I went to our bonus niece's high school graduation open house! It was held in a barn, and I was so impressed with how well they had thought through everything to make it a safe and clean open house. Too bad no one told the bird about that before it dropped a gift on my head! (More on this story to come.) On my way home from the party, I stopped to pick up Miss Phoebe, who came to see us for the first time since February, I think!! It was so fun to have her!

The Saturday Six

One.

I don't remember if I've talked about these on the Saturday Six before...but I love them so much that even if I have mentioned them before, they're worth a new mention. The ESV Journaling Bible set. There's an Old Testament set and a New Testament set, and I think both of them look absolutely DELIGHTFUL. Wish list!! Can you even imagine how many notes I could take in these??

Two.

We've crossed into a new month since the last Saturday Six, which means I have a fresh one-second-per-day video for you!

Three.

I stumbled upon this blog via Pinterest this week, and I had the BEST time hopping around the posts. I think I was extra intrigued because of our recent stay in a small cabin! This blogger is a young wife and mom who lives in a small cabin in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I enjoyed reading about full time cabin life in a much more remote area than where I live!

Four.

Last week I told you about the study I just completed through the Daily Grace Company. They are actually having a really big sale right now - on that study and others, too - and the price is just right! FIVE DOLLARS! Check it out if you want to stock up on some studies. I believe the sale ends tomorrow!

Five.

Ahhhh, letter writing. It IS a lost art, isn't it? I grew up with pen pals galore, wrote lengthy letters to teachers on my summer breaks, and now? Well, a Christmas letter and thank you notes are about all I crank out in the letter world these days. (And I'm behind on thank you notes, so that's embarrassing.) But I loved this post about the beautiful lost art of letter-writing!

Six.

Source

As you know, last year Ryan and I studied our way slowly through the Gospels (I've been sharing that reading program with you each month this year) and I've chosen to work my way slowly through Psalms in 2020.

I like to use a commentary when I study, because clearly I have much to learn about context and original language and such. I wanted a commentary on Psalms that was robust enough to cover all the verses, and I landed on a two-volume set called Exploring Psalms by John Phillips. I just finished Volume One last weekend while we were on vacation, so I'll give my quick review of it here.

Volume One covers Psalms 1-88 and is 732 pages long. (That constituted robust in my book.) I would be very interested to see if other commentators on Psalms would approach the writing from a different angle. MUCH of this commentator's focus is on how the words of Psalms applied to Jesus' life and even to future times beyond what we're living in. I wasn't expecting that angle, but it has really been interesting to see how the words have a much broader scope than I've tended to give them in my own reading.

This book was also published in the late 80s, and you can tell that much of the author's personal outlook is driven by world events of the 80s. I don't think I was expecting that, either. That part is actually a little startling, occasionally. I'm reading along about the Bible and suddenly I'm reading about world events from my childhood in Russia and the US.

Having said those two things, I will say I am learning much from his words. I appreciate how he explains original language meaning, and at times how one Psalm could easily be attributed to multiple situations in the writer's life. I've scribbled tons of notes in the margins of my Bible, and I'm diving into the second volume to finish out my study!

Would I recommend these? I would! I don't regret getting them, even though they pull from a different line of thought than I was expecting. Even so, I think I might like to study Psalms again sometime using a different commentary to see the similarities and differences from another point of view.