March 15-21, 2021

  Happy Spring!  The first day of Spring arrived on Saturday the 20th and so far it has been very nice. Our daffodils and crocuses are all beginning to bloom. Of course, that means more pollen in the air-not good for the allergy sufferers. Doesn't usually bother me. Plus I mostly wear a mask when I am out and about anyway.  I imagine that may help with the runny, sniffly noses. 

We also celebrated St Patrick's Day this week, on Wednesday. I spent the day at home after attending my exercise pool class in the morning. I also made a corned beef brisket to celebrate which I turned into Reubens for Allison and myself(Tom is not a fan of sauerkraut). I was cooking a bigger meal since Allison spent the day with us. She came over early on Tuesday so she could join Tom and our neighbor Dan for a trip downtown for their second COVID vaccine. The appointment was early in the day, so Allison brought over her computer and set up shop in our basement after returning from the convention center where the vaccine site was set up. Turns out the site shut down open appointments after Tom, Allison and Dan had their first shot to open sign up. They reserved any further appointments for Baltimore City residents only. Allison and Tom seemed to be adjusting fine to the vaccination until Allison returned home after dinner. She called in a lot of pain, feeling nauseous and was not able to get her shirt off and undressed because her arm swelled so bad. I went and picked her up and brought her back home, filled her with some tylenol and put an ice pack on her elevated arm after helping her into her jammies. I put on an old movie "Father of the Bride" with Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor and afterwards she settled into Scott's bed and got some sleep. The next morning, Weds, she was still feeling bad and had a very swollen arm, but during the day her arm slowly shrank back to normal size and the pain subsided. They say the younger kids are having a harder time adjusting to the COVID vaccination. Allison is living proof. At least no fever. She was able to log onto work, but felt well enough to join a zoom meeting. However, she did not bring any casual dress clothes, so we pulled out a polo and sweater jacket from my closet and spiffed her up to participate. (Mom's have it all!). And she was able to stay for my St Patrick's Day dinner. 

I ended up working on Saturday again that week. This time to cover for my day off next Saturday when we will be traveling to Michigan to pick up Scott for Spring Break. Although he won't be returning to campus after the week is over. So I switched my day off and had a very busy, full day. And it turns out, a staff member at our facility tested positive for COVID on Saturday, so we went back into lockdown. Residents and patients have to stay in their rooms and we have to get tested twice a week again. Fortunately Mom B's facility has remained COVID free, although only 75% of the staff agreed to the COVID vaccination as compared to 95% of the residents. But since they are COVID free, I was able to sign up for another visit with her on Friday, and this time did not have to get proof of a negative COVID test. Also I was able to give her a hug again. We still have to visit with masks on, 6 feet apart and no sharing items. Any thing that is dropped off has to be sprayed with disinfectant or quarantined for several days. But we are now allowed to bring real, cut flowers-no plants. They are still concerned that COVID may be hiding in the dirt of live plants. And no visits from puppies. Sadly, even though Cookie is all cleaned up, she did not get to visit with my mom. Don't think I could keep a mask on Cookie either, but she would love to see my mom! Instead I had to show Mom B a photo of Cookie with her new haircut. I was just so happy to hear mom say "Kathleen!" when they asked her "Mrs Bozyk, guess who it is!" after she walked into our visiting room off the lobby. I was able to get a 20 minute visit since I won't be able to visit next weekend. She looks great and seems to be in good spirits. Also I'm kinda getting used to the red hair!

I visited Mom B after taking my van in to Costco to get my tires balanced. I had the Valvoline oil place rotate my tires the weekend before with an oil change and noticed a reverb when driving as well as a bit of a wobble. Unfortunately the back tires had worn on the inside of the wheels, which my van has a tendency to do, and they could do nothing except put them back where they were. The tread is still very good since I bought the tires in 2018. Can't believe that much time has gone by already. Just checking to see if I should replace the two tires, they cost $200 a piece! Guess I will wait awhile. I finished off my Friday with an acupuncture treatment(very relaxing!).  I would have gone to the pool again Friday morning, but turns out when I made a reservation, I was not the only one. You have to sign up for the class a few days ahead of time online. They still only have 20 spots available in the pool. I guess their computer system had a blip and the staff called and said 75 people had signed up for the class! They had to call 55 of us and let us know we were not signed up for the class. I did mention maybe they should consider adding more classes but they said they also are short of instructors.  On Sunday I was busy cleaning up Scott's room and a place to put all his college gear when he comes home next week.

March 22-31st, 2021

  This was a very busy week. I volunteered to cover for one of my coworkers on Wednesday and I had my hands full with new admissions. Plus our new rehab company decided to change our computer programs so it is taking longer to do all the paperwork. Unfortunately, no one really lets you know what is going on from this corporation and the changes just show up and you are left trying to figure it out on your own. So I muddled through and then we had news that a patient tested positive for COVID. So now we are locked down even more. And all the patients were asking us about the new restrictions, because there was no information provided by the facility administration. But it usually means no activities and no leaving your room. Which is not going well for our patients with dementia and the patients that just arrived. Looks like they weren't told they would have to spend two weeks in quarantine, even without the new outbreak and we were the lucky ones to break the news. And we have had a lot more people falling. I was happy to finally have a long weekend as we traveled to Michigan to pick up Scott!

Tom, Allison and I left on Thursday night. We stopped halfway near Pittsburgh in Cranberry. The town houses the Westinghouse headquarters and their building and the area is new and growing. We have stopped there before and on the way to Michigan we usually stop at Starbucks and a wonderful little bakery around the corner for banana choco chip bread and sconces. Yum. We arrived in Kalamazoo around 3pm. Scott had already loaded up his Jeep and he was able to get the rest of his items in my van. Just in case I reserved a storage unit again, but we were not bringing back his desk chair(he got a new one, less beat up at Christmas). And we sacrificed a small table, but it was a bit worn too, so no great loss. He can always pick up another one if he needs it. He has reserved the single room and single bathroom across from his old room for next year-I wish we could have just opened the door and set up his room and stored it there. We spent the night in Kalamazoo. We stopped in for dinner at the RoadHouse Tavern next to campus. It is a very popular place. Tom and Scott ate there during his drive up to school in January-they ate on the patio last time in plastic tents. The tents were down and the restaurant was seating people inside and out. In some ways, we noticed some places seemed to be more strict on COVID precautions now when more people have been vaccinated then during the previous year. We stopped into a local brewery that Tom and now Scott both enjoy, Bells Brewery. They sell their beer here in Maryland and the brewery, shop and small restaurant is located in downtown Kzoo. We stopped into the store-they limit the number of people in the shop and picked up some beer, although Allison found a competition style frisbee too. We were going to eat dinner there, but they had a line out the door. We were lucky to get into the RoadHouse Tavern when we did. We also stopped into Meijers to drop off some returnable bottles and check out any college souvenirs as well as hunt for a few pies from Traverse City Pie Company. I wanted to get Tom his Birthday pie and another for Easter dinner. Pickings were slim in their bakery though. We decided to wait and go to the actual restaurant and Bakery in the morning, so we headed back to our hotel for the night. 

Saturday morning we were up and headed to breakfast at our favorite Michigan coffee shop, Biggby. Then it was a trip to the donut shop, Sweetwaters. We stopped into another Meijers to see if they had more pies to choose from, but no luck. Instead, Allison and I waited 15 mins for the restaurant and bakery to open at 10 and ran in and bought Tom his beloved Coconut Cream Pie as well as an ABC-Apple, Berry, Cherry pie for Easter. I also picked up a small cherry pie for Beth and Barry for watching Cookie and one for a husband/wife couple that recently moved into my work facility. They were missing their trips to Michigan when their son was attending Grad school at MSU, as well as attending the Traverse City Cherry Festival. I thought a cherry pie would put a smile on their faces-it sure did. They were ecstatic when I dropped it off on Monday morning at work! Tom was surprised however to get his pie. He did not know Allison and I snuck in!

We had decided to make our way back home to Maryland through Dayton, Ohio and drop in and see our friend John D. I did not realize we were traveling through Ft Wayne Indiana on the way, so I gave our nephew and niece, Eric and Sarah a quick call, hoping to catch them at home. However, they were out enjoying Eric's first day of Spring Break from teaching and were out running errands. We will just have to wait and see them and their newest addition to the family, Emma and daughter Claire in June when the Seitz family gets together in Hilton Head. So we kept on to Dayton and arrived a few hours before dinner. I took Scott and Allison out to a local museum/zoo. It actually was more for kids, but fun to walk around and look at some of the displays including a disassembled mummy, Hopi Indian characters and a few animal and aquarium displays as well as bird watching treehouse. Unfortunately we missed the Planetarium show and the educational movie on space. But since we came later in the day, we got in for a cheap admission fee. Afterwards we walked down to their pond before heading back to the hotel. We also walked around the large mall next to our hotel and noticed the lines starting to form outside at the nearby restaurants. So John came and picked us up and we headed to a local Mexican chain restaurant near the Wright University. We were seated right away and had a great meal and time to chat before ending our day. We continued our visit Sunday morning over breakfast at a wonderful breakfast cafe that Tom and Scott found on their last visit to Dayton. Wonderful Banana Foster pancakes and Crab Cake and Egg Benedict. And way too much food the whole weekend!

We headed out in our separate vehicles and spent most of the time navigating through wind and rain storms. Surprisingly Allison and I beat Tom and Scott for the first time ever I believe. Mainly because Tom and Scott attempted to stop for lunch and most fast food places had long lines, or people waiting outside. Again, restrictions seem more intense now as we are trying to wind down the COVID crisis. So Allison and I picked up Cookie, and then started to empty my van. We left the big, heavy stuff for Scott when he arrived. But then so did a huge storm. We managed to get everything in the house, or at least the garage before the storm blew in and fortunately did not lose our power. Scott got busy setting up his computer in his room. He was busy with classes right up to the day we left. Western started Spring Break on Friday with no classes(and no food-all of the dining halls were closed except for one across campus that Scott skipped). Some kids still had quizzes or assignments due online. Scott was able to wrap up some tests and a group presentation and paper the week before packing to go home. But he still has lots of work to keep him busy over Spring Break. Plus he was asked to house and cat sit for some friends starting Easter weekend, so he had to run over to their place for 'orientation' on the care and feeding of the house, cats and plants. Allison was going to do it, but decided Scott had more freedom to travel back and forth to their place (and could use the spending cash!). 

The rest of us were busy back at work, although I still had Weds off. I scheduled my mom for a dentist appointment. Her facility is currently COVID free and is allowing family to take residents out for medical appointments. She badly needed a dentist appointment since she usually goes every 3 months and it had been a year since her last visit. The staff brought her down to the front door and mom hopped in(with help). I was able to stay with her during her appointment which went as well as it could-mom does not tolerate xrays-putting the film into her mouth. So they did the best they could and everything looks good so far. Afterwards we stopped off at the house for a quick visit with Cookie and wave to Scott(he is still not vaccinated). I kept mom in the van, especially since it was pouring rain. We then picked up some Burger King at the drive Thru and ate our lunch sitting in the van at a park near one of our local ponds. We also called my brother Mike so he could chat with mom on speaker phone. It is hard to catch her at her apartment on the phone, so this was a great opportunity. Unfortunately she has a difficult time putting words together, but does understand most of what you are saying. I think she especially enjoyed just riding around in the car and being outside. The last time we were together, we were shopping for Easter candy and cards in 2020!I also think she enjoyed her burger, fries and chocolate milkshake! I dropped her back off to her place as well as a lightweight transport wheelchair that I ordered so they could push her down to the lobby during visits. It takes her awhile to walk all the way downstairs as she gets out of breath. They often push her while seated on her rollator, but I would prefer if she could sit in a wheelchair. Especially during our visits in the lobby. Not sure when we will be allowed inside the building, but we can bring cut flowers now. So when I was out shopping at Costco I picked up a spring bouquet for her. 

I pretty much missed Palm Sunday as we were busy driving Scott and his school supplies home that day. 

Sending Dad Seitz Birthday Greetings as he rolled another year on March 29th! Happy Birthday Dad!