Crazy Times Scrapbook, May 2021

 May certainly was full of crazy times, but crazily enough it was more in my own life than in the world! Maybe not, but so it seemed. Finally, the Covid hysteria was starting to die down. Now, three months later, it would be a wonderful thing to be able to go back to those times again! And maybe that will happen (but going into fall and winter, I'm not counting on it).

Covid numbers were down in MA, and Bill and Melinda Gates were getting a divorce. {Welcome to the club!}

Covid protocols should have been different for the elderly and vulnerable instead of the ineffective and extremely harmful blanket policy of social distancing and vaccines for everyone.

Another terrible Biden idea

"Biden's Families Plan replaces individual striving with middle-class entitlements." He wants to make Americans more and more dependent on government.

"When Joe Biden and the progressive Democratic Party demand 'equity' everywhere, they are proposing a lowest-common-denominator society."

Another tragic effect of the Covid hysteria

Probably not this year, but I believe it's coming sooner rather than later.

Funny how three months later, no one really mentions herd immunity anymore. This says that >40% vaccinated could have been the magic number. It wasn't, because the vaccines clearly don't work as well as advertised.

Massachusetts is very vaccine-compliant and is one of the most vaccinated states in the country. This is one way that I do NOT fit in in my beloved home state!

Why?

The fuel problems didn't affect MA, thank goodness.

Yay! The arrows in stores were annoying!

See above re: Biden's terrible ideas.

Another yay!

A conspiracy theory that scarily enough, seems to be coming more and more true with the spread of the Delta variant and the vaccines' relative ineffectiveness against it. Some critical thinkers believe that Delta might be caused either directly or indirectly by the vaccine and the vaccinated (as opposed to the government and mainstream media narrative that it's all the unvaccinated people's fault). We will see.

👍👍👍

John Makes Music

 One of John's secret talents is that he plays the trombone and he's pretty good at it. He started learning it in fifth or sixth grade, and he's continued to do it through middle school and high school. I want both of my children to be able to play an instrument because I think it has a lot of benefits, so I'm happy that he's stuck with it. He'll continue to play for the school band through his last two years of high school, and who knows, maybe into college.

I've really missed going to his band concerts during Covid since they haven't been happening. But finally, he had an outdoor concert in May on the high school football field. Hooray!

He's in there somewhere!

Ominous clouds were rolling in towards the end of the concert. It started pouring soon after it was done as we were walking back to our cars. Not bad timing if it had to rain that afternoon. It would've been awful if it happened during the concert!

I really like the band teacher, Mr. Hay. He's such a nice guy with a great sense of humor and the kids (and parents) really like him.

Relaxing to the music 😴🎜🎝

There was another outdoor concert two weeks later at the town common for Memorial Day. This one was smaller but John was in it. My patriotic heart swelled with pride to watch him play the national anthem that I love. I'm not being sarcastic; it really did!

Do you see him? Hint--look for gray camo.

There he is!

I hope there will be the usual lineup of concerts this school year, especially the winter one in December. I really enjoyed that one when he was in 9th grade. Of course there wasn't one in 10th grade because of Covid. Fingers crossed for 11th (and 12th!) grade! 🤞

The Pinkerton Posse

 Some of my friends and I did a fun interactive mystery scavenger hunt game in Worcester on a sunny, warm Saturday in May. It was through CluedUpp and it was really fun. I'd never done one before and I'd love to do it again, maybe in Boston. It was fun to come up with a team name and costumes. We finally settled on being "The Pinkerton Posse" with an Old Western sort of a theme, in keeping with the Pinkertons. I think we looked cute, but most importantly, we solved the mystery in pretty good time! Not winning time--and it turns out my brother Nate was there doing it with his team and they beat our time by quite a bit!--but still not bad!

We met at Shelley's house (she's in the middle) before driving to Worcester together. She has chickens and the chicken house turned out to be a great backdrop for some group pictures.

Meredith, Shelley, and I held chickens for one of the pictures. Marjorie and her daughter Elizabeth are not animal fans (neither is Meredith) so they said no to the chicken-holding opportunity, but I enjoyed it!

We started out at this beautiful building and then made our way around the surrounding streets, following clues and making deductions through information on the app.

I don't do hats, but I had a cute bandana-style headband that was perfect.

An accidental shot I got of the side of my fanny pack. I'm liking fanny packs more and more all of the time. 

I'm pretty sure this car must have been a prop for the game. It was too perfectly placed!

So of course we took a picture with it.

The culprit turned out to be a killer nurse, with a scalpel. We had guessed correctly.

We were in eighth place when we finished. I don't remember where we placed after that, but it was  lower on the leader board than eighth (teams can get started whenever they want during the day, it's just whoever solves it the fastest).

The Pinkerton Posse ate lunch at the local 110 Grill and then headed off into the sunset. It had been a productive day of crime-solving and criminal-catching for these spunky sleuths. 

Until next time! 🤠

Around the House and Yard in May

My nephew Shane in Sam's old hot dog costume, proving once again that hot dogs can indeed be cute.

My good friends Meredith and Shelley surprised me with this cute owl planter that we'd seen when we were out shopping together. Unbeknownst to me, they went back and got it and planted basil and cilantro in it before giving it to me a couple of weeks later. How thoughtful was that? It was such a nice surprise and it really made my day, and whenever I see it I'm reminded that I'm so blessed to have good, kind friends who care about me and love me.  

  

Breakfast with Sam

My first CSA box. This is one of the only ways I can get myself to eat more fresh veggies!

Hi 👋

I sold John's gymnastics mushroom since he doesn't use it anymore. I was in the process of clearing out the basement for my sister to move in this summer.

The pool was so gross when it was opened up by the pool guys. Sometimes it feels like one thing after another with this pool! But it's still worth having overall. We definitely use it and enjoy it. Just not when it looks like THIS!

This is a pool, not a pond! (or is it vice versa? 😆😩)

 Sam has continued to do well with piano even though Zoom piano lessons have been kind of challenging. He and his teacher have made the best of it, but it's not the same as being in person. He starts in-person lessons in two weeks for the first time in over a year. 🙌

Being silly

I got these patriotic mums for Memorial Day.

Violet snoozing by my side on a Sunday afternoon. She knows what it means and where to go when I say, "Scripture time, Violet." It's really cute. She's a good Latter-day Saint dog. 😊

The Beginnings of My 2021 Garden

 My motivation wasn't nearly as high to do a garden this year as it was last year, but I still wanted to do one.     I should have started seedlings earlier than I did, but I had a very hard spring--much harder than the infamous Covid spring of 2020. Next year I hope to do better, and to have a better spring than the previous two years. Anyway, pictures of the beginnings of the garden, of which there are very few...

Tomato seedlings coming in (or up) hot! I was looking forward to trying to grow my own tomatoes, one of my favorite veggies (no blasphemy about it being a fruit--it's not a fruit!).

I did bean seedlings too, and I transplanted them into their outdoor bed a few weeks later. They were looking somewhat promising.

I didn't do cucumber seedlings this year and I wish I had. I will next year. I directly planted the seeds in the bed, and soon after, the seedlings popped up. I planted too many seeds in each hole, though, as you will see in future posts. 

I tried peas for the first time. They were starting to come up well and I had high hopes for them, but now that it's August I can tell you that they turned out to be a complete failure. Or rather, I turned out to be a complete failure at cultivating them correctly.

The Garden Chronicles will continue next month. Get excited!