Ehlana and Ethan:
We’ve had another really good day, but we’re
tired too; and will be making this a short update.
Tai Chi by the river and breakfast-for-five
was great; though Cassie and Michael might have had the better food options at
his house today. Church-at-home just
doesn’t feel the same at all, but we watched Pastor John’s message and the
praise team song of the week; and then we got ready for a canoeing adventure –
including getting a picnic lunch put together and packed into our ‘supply’
canoe. We had a multi-family group for
that outing while sticking to social distancing too; so that added to the fun –
even if it wasn’t quite the same as normal for our family-and-friends
gatherings. Our departures were spaced
out a bit, but we were all on the river by eleven; paddled upriver for an hour
until we found a good spot for a spread-out picnic; and then we stayed there
for about an hour before paddling home again.
Even with putting canoes and supplies away; we still had time for biking
the trails and a park snack break; Naomi and Aiden stayed with us for that
while the parents and collegians did some work or studying; and then we headed
for our own homes in time for dinner.
The lack of Sunday night buffet dinners at
the Inn are another downside to our local lockdown rules, but the nice weather
and barbeque opportunities makes up for that a bit; so we enjoyed that meal;
and then it’s been another quiet evening as we’ve mixed some work or studying
with watching shows in the lounge and taking turns in the Jacuzzi or tubs while
winding down and getting ready for another busy work week. That’s all of the news for our day, but we
have one added note to make about birthdays.
Our special day isn’t until late-June, but
we do think about the chances for a non-celebration every time there are other
birthdays around town or with our extended family. That’s more-obvious on Sundays because
birthdays were noted each week at church and Sunday school; so we don’t even
have that happening for anyone – unless you include the online announcements. We’re not even mentioning birthdays in our
journal that we normally would include – and in this past week; that’s included
Leah’s 7th and Nathan Draper’s 41st birthdays. We still have gifts for our favorite people,
and Aiden’s parents got a kid-free night for his father’s special day, but we
feel sad for the kids and teens that don’t get to do anything special while
most entertainment businesses are closed and social distancing keeps parties to
the bare minimum.
Take that as meant – and not in any
connection to the earlier mention of kid-free nights! ;^)
We’ve written more than planned, so let’s
just wrap this up; and we’ll go and get some sleep. The first full week of May could get
interesting for virus-related reasons, but if the restrictions begin to ease
soon; we’ll hope that we collectively find the right mix of trying to get back
to a more-normal daily life with keeping everyone as safe and healthy as
possible.
Maybe we should re-phrase that to suggest
that we hope that we’ll do the second part of that while making our new ‘normal’
better than before for everyone too! It’s
a concept that might be too much to hope for, but it would be refreshing to
have our leaders use this crisis to fix some of our biggest problems in the
world instead of just helping the already-obscenely-wealthy to get more for
themselves at the expense of everyone else and without regard for the costs and
damage.
We don’t want to get into a rant, so we’ll
call it a night; and go get some sleep.
This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from
the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!
