April 1-April 11, 2021.
What a very busy start to the new month! We kicked off the start of the month with April Fool's Day. Fortunately no crazy stuff going on around here, but the weekend was going to get very busy.
Easter and Tom's Birthday landed on the same day this year, April 4th. I asked Tom what he wanted for his Birthday dinner and he said "pizza!". I put my foot down serving pizza on Easter Sunday. So we decided to celebrate Tom's Birthday on Saturday. Now my whole month is off! Anyway, Tom has been anxious to get to a hockey game, and it turns out the Hershey Bears allowed the general public back into the ice rink starting on Saturday. They were allowing some fans into the stadium, but only pass holders and everyone was very spread out wearing masks. And you could not get up and walk around. Food had to be ordered and delivered to your seat. But now they were allowing more people in, still with masks and spread out. And they opened a few of the snack shops that you could purchase food directly at the counter. Tom was very excited to get 4 tickets on the club level although their snack bar was not open. Just more comfortable seats and private bathroom. And center ice for great viewing. So all four of us celebrated Tom's birthday with a trip to Hershey and a very fun (and winning) hockey game and some stadium food.
We also decided to stop into the Hershey chocolate world store since it was the day before Easter to check out any candy specials. Little did we know that the park just opened that weekend and the area was packed. We saw a huge crowd outside the store and Tom decided it was not worth the wait, but we would check again after the game. I looked up their website online during the game and discovered you needed a timed entry to the store, so I put in our reservation. We had to wait about 30 mins before our timed entry. Tom and Scott went on a walk about to check out the newly designed entrance to the park. Looks like they put in a new store-reminds me of an outdoor mall. But no chocolate for sale in those stores. Anyway, we finally made our way in and we all had a great time picking out candy. I grabbed a small box of mixed snack sized candy bars and kisses for my mom's Easter basket along with several varieties of kisses to take into work, including new flavors like Strawberry Cheesecake and Birthday Cake(I was surprised how much I liked the Birthday cake flavor-it has sprinkles!). And everyone was terribly excited to have Kisses at work on Monday. Although our boss did buy us each a Lindt chocolate gold bunny. Very nice. And she also purchased us OT's a chocolate chip cookie cake for the start of OT month! I could not believe a whole year has gone by already dealing with COVID.
So after our hockey game and visit to Chocolate World, Tom tried to stop into a local brewery to try some of their beer along with Scott with plans to have Allison drive us all home. However, the facility had over an hour wait to be seated inside with limited capacity. And there was no service at the outside spaces, so Tom just bought a few bottles to take home and try with his pizza dinner. Seems like a wasted business practice not to try and serve more people, especially since there were small groups standing around in the parking lot and plenty of empty tables and seats outside. Oh well. We got home in time to order Tom's pizza dinner and salad and enjoy his Traverse City coconut cream pie. Yum! I am not a huge coconut fan, but this was incredibly fresh and delicious! We also opened presents-Scott gave him a gift card for a computer game and Allison had already paid for his subscription to AHL/IHL cable hockey games. I picked him up a few new shirts-a spring dress shirt for work and a Hawaiian shirt for vacation. I also took Mark Seitz's advice to purchase some new LED 3 way garage lights. Turns out, Tom had purchased 2 of the lights and installed one in our basement furnace room. So now he had 3 lights to put in the garage. And they are wonderfully bright and light up the whole space. Better than his LED shop lights. So he spent the rest of the weekend installing the lights as well as a new gift for himself. A new garage door opener. The previous Genie door opener he installed was just not working well. Looks like they changed the design and it just keep coming off its track and opening and closing, or not closing all the way. So he bought a more expensive brand and it works like a charm-very quiet. So he also bought a new coded garage door opener and installed that as well. And the biggest gift of all was a new Alexa. The one that moves and follows your voice with a much larger speaker. The voice tracking is a bit slow and not always consistent, but it has terrific sound, especially noticeable when playing music. The reviews said if you have to have the newest gadgets, then buy this. Sounded just like Tom! And so far he loves it.
On Sunday after my Easter tv mass from Milwaukee, it was time to search for baskets. Naturally Scott found all 3 baskets right away but left Allison's basket hidden so she could find it when she came for dinner. And naturally I made the kids decorate some Easter eggs for me. We had a wonderful Easter meal together with a traditional ham, mashed potatoes and asparagus, topped off with berry pie from the Traverse City Pie Company. After dinner we settled down for an evening of Disney + as well as viewing some home videos that I had transferred to DVDs. We watched Allison's big debut when she was born and first brought home to our Downey, CA condo as well as her first Christmas with Mike B. visiting, her Baptism and a visit from my parents. Tom threatened to show the home movies at Allison's wedding someday. I can't wait to see more, but Scott was getting tired of watching Allison take multiple bathes! Guess that was the only time we could get her to sit still!
Scott did not have much time to relax on Easter Sunday as well as during his Spring Break the week before. He still had lots of school projects, papers and exams to prepare for and some things were due right after break on Easter Monday. So he spent his "vacation" week before Easter primarily studying. One of his projects included designing and producing a casting piece for his Metal Casting class which he designed on his 3D printer and then formed out of foam. Tom had to buy a rotary saw to cut out the piece and then mailed it by Fed Ex to campus overnight since the project had to be turned in on Easter Monday. This is actually Scott's final project for this class. If he does well on this, he won't have to take an exam. He also took on the added responsibility of house and cat sitting for neighbors. They had asked Allison to spend the week at their house, but Allison was thinking it would be a bit much to balance the workload at the end/beginning of the month to try and run back and forth to their house multiple times during the day, or even to relocate her work computers to their place, so she passed on the job to Scott. Who really could benefit from the extra income and had more flexibility in his schedule to drop in several times a day. Mainly since one of the cats, Pickles, likes to go out during the day so Scott had to let her out in the morning and back in during the evening. She even caught a mouse for him! He only has to watch the house for 1 week thank goodness. It is a lot of running back and forth, especially 3 times a day. And Saturday evening he was stuck there for 4 hours waiting for the cat to come back in for the night! Such dedication. If only we could find him a summer engineering internship!
Scott, Tom and I have been sending out resumes for possible manufacturing engineering jobs for this summer in several states since January. So far no nibbles. The only people that are interested in hiring him have been for real live, full time factory positions. And there are a lot of manufacturing engineering jobs posted, but he's just not ready for that. Good to see though. Plus he is not sure what type of manufacturing will be interesting to him right now. Of course the automotive field is big in Michigan. Here in Maryland it is Aerospace. And Biomedical has taken off with the COVID vaccine. Most of their internships are searching for biomedical engineers, chemical engineers and of course there is always software engineering. I tried to see if I could find him his computer programming class to take online or in person this summer but no one seems to be offering it at this time, even Western. He needs a C++ programming class. It's getting harder for him to take online or remote classes since he is going to be a Senior next year and the rest of his classes appear to be specific to Western and the manufacturing program. So not sure how he will spend his summer months. For now, he just needs to finish up this term. I did not realize he had taken 5 classes. His metal casting class offered a written final exam or a hands on exam where they are instructed to build a piece of a 3D puzzle that the professor will cast on campus. If the piece is built to the proper specifications, it should fit. Scott opted for this method of testing. If it fails, he can always take the written final. But it meant that this portion had to be completed earlier than finals week which is the last week of April. So he was busy manufacturing a mold-first with his 3D printer and then Tom helped him cut it out in foam to be mailed Fed Ex overnight to the prof at Western. Scott also had to write up all the specifications of the mold, like a lab report(any problems it could have, other prototypes he considered, etc). First they had to buy a table saw to cut out the piece-Tom had given away our table saw a few years ago. Then they had to send it overnight(cost $80!). It sure better get an A! On top of all that, Scott was still busy with homework and tests. Plus he had to put together a brochure for his Sustainability class(at least it wasn't a research paper!). Now he primarily has to prepare for his finals. I still think he is happier working from home.
We all have been enjoying the warmer weather, although we did not need to jump too quickly to summer temps in the upper 70s. Sadly our Saucer Magnolia had filled out with beautiful pink buds right before Easter and when they just started opening we had a cold snap that basically froze all the flowers. So it was not as breathtakingly beautiful this year as only a few blossoms survived. Our cherry tree bloomed right after and looked wonderful this year but did not last long. We usually try to head down to DC around the first week in April for the Cherry Blossom/Kite Festival, but everything was cancelled again this year. Except for the cherry blossoms-they bloomed on schedule-maybe a little bit earlier. The peak lasts about a week-sometimes the blossoms are lost to wind and rain storms, which a few had started rolling in. Maybe next year.
Some places are just starting to reopen in our area, like museums, libraries and the schools. Restaurants and bars are open-seating is still separated. And some places still have outdoor seating which is nice as the weather warms. Church is still open with reservations and restrictions-socially distanced, masks, no singing or hand shaking. I continue to attend Milwaukee mass on tv at home. The kids have started back to school but on a limited basis with just a few grades at a time going hybrid. Our next door neighbor's son is a Senior at Mt Hebron High School and he went back to class only to discover that just 3 other students showed up in person and even the teacher was virtual! He decided he might as well stay home and continue to learn on the computer. And stadiums including the baseball stadiums have begun to welcome back the public. Maryland's positivity rate rose to 5.3% after dropping to 3.0 for a few weeks. Universities plan on students returning to school in person in the fall at least for smaller classes and labs. Large classes may continue online. At work, we still have a few employees and patients testing positive for COVID. There are still employees that prefer not to have the vaccine and we are constantly bringing in new staff which also may be a factor. Due to privacy laws they can't share any of the info on who or what(like did they have the vaccine). We continue to keep newly admitted patients in quarantine for 2 weeks with isolation precautions. We continue to wear masks and face shields around the general population and get tested twice a week. I continue to work in our Assisted Living building and cannot work in both areas of the building on the same day for fear of possibly spreading COVID. Therefore I continue to work 3 days a week and every other Saturday.
Last Saturday I went to work but got off in plenty of time to go to dinner with our neighbors at a local restaurant. The first time we have all gone out together to celebrate Tom's birthday. We enjoyed our meal and continued the evening with drinks at their house afterwards. I needed to get home and get to bed though because I was up early the next day to attend a Girl Scout rally at our local camp. Turns out our Girl Scout Council finally announced their decision to sell off our local camp to a housing developer in order to use the funds to help support development of another campsite south of us in Anne Arundel County. They have been talking about building several facilities at this campground and including cabins, indoor bathrooms and space for computer access. Sounds lovely, but it is not centrally located, and does not offer as much as our local campsite does for the community at large. In order to help pay for the upkeep of this campsite, they have rented out the property to other programs such as summer camps at the YMCA and providing environmental programs to local schools through the onsite nature center and raptor rescue program. Many GS troops use the site for camping and lots of members take advantage of the large community center and kitchen there for meetings and programming. Even our GS choir uses the community center for year round practices and performances. It would be a great loss if they decide to sell to a housing developer. Many years ago they started by selling off parts of the property on either side. You can actually see the homes while standing in the center, but you still feel quite isolated, especially when the trees and bushes are all in bloom. We are down to 20 acres but it is a well loved space and hidden gem in our county. On Sunday morning we held a rally at the site with a local congresswoman speaking and the local tv station, WBAL. I made a protest sign, picked up breakfast and Allison after tv mass and we headed over along with 200 other socially distanced members. We have posted on Facebook and have a site for signatures to save the camp. Our story aired on the news and I also posted it to my Facebook page. We are hoping that even if the council decides they have to sell the land, that at least it could be preserved as is with another conservation group rather than developed into a neighborhood and more houses.
We have not been too crazy with changes occurring in the Girl Scout organization. Allison has been on the Gold Award committee for several years now and decided to call it quits. When she started, the committee used to meet in person and discuss all Gold Award project requests-deciding to approve or disapprove. About a year ago they decided to switch to online, not meeting at all in person, before COVID forced us to meet through Zoom. And the committee no longer meets. Instead they divide the projects and send them out to the members for them to decide on their own. And rather than doing it once every quarter, it is a continuous process. So Allison usually ends up reviewing 2-3 projects each week. And they decided that the committee members would also become the mentors. So Allison has to walk each girl through their project, practically rewriting their submissions herself in order to pass. And the team leaders decided they really don't want to turn down any Gold Award proposals, so she has to work with the girl to get it through. So it has become a whole lot more work than she originally signed up for and decided she is done. They did not seem too broken up about her resigning, which is also sad. They don't appreciate what they have until it is gone. Which may happen to a lot of scouts if the GS board decides to sell off this camp to property developers.
In the meantime, we continue to meet via computer to attempt to plan our upcoming May 1st weekend camping trip for the Girl Scouts. Our program was cancelled last May and it looks like we can go ahead with the event this year, but still not exactly sure. And not sure if we can hold it overnight or just a day event. Not sure about all the restrictions, except we figure we will be wearing masks and wiping everything down after use. We are running out of time, so hope to know more soon! We actually have 16 girl scouts sign up. We usually have 50-75 girls attend. Definitely our GS choir events have been on hold. Usually in the spring we would be singing at GS Board meetings and other administrative events. Our girls have put on musicals and we usually march in the St Patty's Day parade in Dundalk. It will be strange to get back to "normal".
After our rally at the GS camp, Allison and I picked up lunch and ate back at her apartment. Then we enjoyed a shopping trip to Walmart together before going our separate ways. She had an evening of Dungeons and Dragons, and I had an afternoon of yardwork since the weather cleared. With warmer weather come weeds and long grass. Tom cut the lawn for the first time this year and put down weed killer. I was busy raking leaves(as usual) from under the bushes in our front flower beds as well as doing some weeding and trimming. I was tempted to purchase some flowers and vegetables and get busy with my gardening, but I am still concerned the weather may turn cold before May and kill off the plants.
Our neighborhood had a little drama as well involving Food Trucks. This past year one of the neighbors set up a schedule of local food trucks to come to our neighborhood to help out their businesses and give us all the chance to "order out" without worrying about going into restaurants. So once a week we have a variety of food trucks, one at a time, that park near our house on the road near a green space, under a street light. It is convenient for us since we can walk there. Scott and I get bored with cooking and sometimes run over on Thursday nights to pick something up, like Philly Cheesesteaks or Gyros and Calzones. Turns out, one of the neighbors complained that there were too many cars waiting for their orders in front of their house near the food trucks, as well as people standing around in/near their yards and threatened to call the police. So the neighborhood asked our church located at the front of the neighborhood if we could use their parking lot and they happily agreed. Just not an easy walk but still a good deal. We have an interesting neighborhood.
We also had quite a shock at the news of Tom's sister, Susan's husband John. He had a massive heart attack, collapsing while doing work on a neighbor's house-power washing early in the month. After a trip to the ICU at the local hospital, he ended up having arterial stent placements rather than open heart surgery and arterial bypass graphs. Thank goodness. He is now home recovering. We are so happy things turned out in his favor and wish him a quick recovery.
Sending out some Happy Birthday Greetings for Tom(April 4th), Sandra Bozyk(April 6th) and Dad Bozyk would have celebrated his 86th Birthday on April 8th!
Happy Jazz Appreciation Month! And most especially, Happy Occupational Therapy Month!
