A Worldwide Pandemic and my cat hates me

So today marks 28 days that I have been at home without going to work or to Target for fun, or to my parents, or to church, etc. Work closed on March 10 temporarily, which then became permanent the following week. Church services are all online. Target is for essential things only. And I'm afraid to go home and visit my grandma or parents because what if I have something and I don't know it and I give it to them?? Ugh.

For a while I planned on going home for the weekends only because I wouldn't go anywhere during the week or see anyone, but then I still go worried about what if I took something home on my shoe, or my keys, etc. There is only one confirmed case in my home county. I don't want to be responsible for taking it there from the city.

My days at home are fine. With the exception of that first week, I haven't felt lonely at all. I feel I've had a good amount of house projects and facetimes.

The second weekend I was home I put new shelves in my walk in closet. That was something I had wanted to do for yearssssss. I painted it, new shelves, got rid of everything that was in there (aka - I took it all to my basement). I'm very pumped with how it turned out.

I also rearranged all my furniture in my living room, dining room and bedroom. Now I have a little vanity area in my bedroom, which freed up a lot of shelving in my bathroom that had been occupied by hair dryers, product, etc.

My dining room table is set up more like a table that someone can actually eat at now. There is one more piece of furniture that has to go to the basement that's in there, but then that room will be "done", too.

I still have a huge to do list, which I'm just working my way down while I'm at home all day, every day. It looks as though I may be here to mid-June at least. All my summer conferences are cancelled, etc.

It's honestly so strange to think that EVERYTHING is closed and cancelled. EVERYTHING. Celebrities aren't at parties. No pro sports. No concerts. No school. I guess not everything is cancelled because we have the hospitals that are still open, along with our essential businesses, but man. It's just hard to think about everything being still. I do not love the fact that people are sick and dying. But I do love that every night when I walk families are in their yards together playing ball and working on landscaping and everyone is being supportive of each other. It just makes me aware of everything we priorities in our lives that aren't essential and this time makes me realize what we do need to survive and what we don't.

Corona and Working From Home

This blog might get a restart if I work from home for very long. My current job allows for pretty much zero down time at work, in fact I always feel behind. Whereas my last job had a lot of downtime and I have a pretty detailed record of my life during those years.

So anyway, the USA has a Chinese disease named after a Mexican beer. Not really, but that's what it sounds like. We've been hearing about it for weeks, if not months now, and last Monday night (not even a full week ago from my typing right now as it's only 9:30pm) during the 11pm news, it was announced that Ohio State was going to online classes for two weeks after spring break and no events until the end of April.

Then on Thursday they cancelled March Madness, the NBA, MLS, MLB, NHL  have all stopped their seasons. Then Thursday evening it was announced that Ohio State would not be returning for the rest of the semester, online only and students in the residence halls would have to move out by the following Sunday. Events of more than 100 people were cancelled, so no church, sporting events, Ohio Beef Expo or St. Patrick's Day parades.

Then yesterday all bars and restaurants were closed because people don't know how to follow rules about no groups over 100 people. Today it was announced that all gyms, rec centers, bowling alleys, etc. were to be closed. A lot of stores are already closing - apple, Abercrombie, etc. Tonight PA announced that all non-essential stores will be closing. I'm sure that's next for Ohio. It's strange to think of everything that has changed in the last week. I saw a tweet tonight that said "I didn't plan on giving up this much for Lent." haha. So true.

So for now I'm working from home. I've got my desk set up on my dining room table. Tomorrow I need to be a little more productive than I was today. I also need to make a good list of things to do in the evenings so I'm not tempted to go anywhere, like Target. I joined a "Covid-19 Clutter" group on facebook for inspiration on what to do. Hopefully tomorrow I'll start tackling the closets so I can switch over my clothes from winter to spring. However, it will likely be August before I see anyone in person again. ha.

And now for some of my favorite tweets or memes of the week:

Wash your hands.
Emily

Sunshine and Summertime

It's officially summer.....well, not really, that will come in a few weeks, but Ohio State has been out of school for a month now (what?!) and most every K-12 district is out now as well. Isn't Memorial Day the official start of summer anyway?

I quit going to the tanning bed about a year and a half ago, so my tan is pretty much non-existent these days. I've been using self tanner pretty regularly. Today I went to Zoombezi Bay after work and my stomach saw the sun for the first time since last July probably. Needless to say, right now it's a nice shade of magenta. I'm lathering up on aloe lotion.

Ouch.

A few afternoons at the waterpark are going to be the extent of my "beach" time this summer. No vacation to the beach is planned - I'll be in Louisiana and Alaska (with a short layover in Los Angelos, might visit the beach that day) for my vacations this year. Alaska isn't really the place where you go to get a tan! ha.

And some pretty flowers on my run.

*Got around 8,600 steps in today.

The Memorial Weekend

Blogging has come up several times in conversation over the past few weeks and earlier today as I was trying to find a picture of a table on my old blog, I started reminiscing and realized that I haven't been doing a good job at keeping track of my life lately. And I miss the creative outlet a little bit too.

So rather that try to update on all the things, I'm just going to start from today.

This past week was a busy, but fun one. Monday was a holiday, so I was in Piketon with the family. We worked in the yard and such. Tuesday I was in the office. Wednesday was my work from home day (but I still had to go into work for a meeting). Thursday and Saturday I was at the Memorial Tournament and Friday I worked at the state track meet.

Wednesday night I went to Powell because my friend Jenny was teaching a free class at Nocterra Brewing. Jenny teaches at Shred415, so it was hosting and Jenny taught. It was raining pretty hard when I arrived, but we made it work. It was a good workout and I was still sore days later, so she did a good job.

Thursday I met Amber and Lori and we went to the Memorial. We had tickets to the Nicklaus Club on 16, so we watched as the players came thru there.

Amber, Lori and me

Thom is a great photographer

Friday was the state track meet and I worked the awards/finish line area. I loved it! I have always enjoyed working athletic events and over the past year I've volunteered for the NCAA Women's Final Four and have worked a few large 5K's, half-marathons and marathons in Columbus. I hope to continue to work this state track meet in the future, and maybe a few other high school tourneys too!

At the meet I worked the finish line, handing out water and getting the top 8 teams/runners to the awards podium. I loved being able to help them if they needed it (saw more people puke than I wanted) and see the awesome sportsmanship by MOST of the athletes. There were a few turds in the mix, but most were so supportive of each other (for the same team AND competitors).

The calm before the storm! We had to get there before the stadium opened.

All the awards team. 

Finally made it on the podium at the state meet. Only took me 16 years after graduation.

Saturday I woke up feeling like crap (perks of womanhood), and got to the Memorial way late. We stayed on 14 most of the day and watch everyone come thru. I had hoped to get some sun, but because I had done a spray tan a few days before, I'm actually paler now than I was at the tournament. 

Horrible picture of me at the end of the day, but that's what I looked like I guess.

Took my own beverage.

This guy was a huge Tiger fan, obviously.

Yesterday I slept in and did a lot of projects around the house. I cleaned up a lot, did laundry, washed my dishes and ran a lot of errands that I had been putting off.

My flowers out back. So proud of them this year.

Getting ready for Alaska by wearing my boots around the house.

Bowie is loving my new daypack for Alaska. (Not sure what's up with this face though?)

New Ornaments in 2018

I earned several new ornaments in 2018 from a variety of trips and events I went to throughout the year.
Here was my cute little tree. I LOVE my tree. I just wish I would have gotten the 7ft instead of the 5.5ft because I don't have enough room for all of my ornaments!!

And here are my new ornaments from 2018:

My nephew made these cute ornaments and I got it in 2017, so this was the first Christmas it hung on my tree.

My annual conference was held in Boise, Idaho, and while we were there we went to a potato farm.

And Amy and I drove to central Idaho, so I got this cute wooden ornament of the state.

I visited Cara in Texas in December and walked around the Texas Tech campus and Cara had this cutie waiting for me when I arrived at her place.

We left Lubbuck early one morning and made it to McKinney, Texas for lunch. I've read blogs for a while of a few families from McKinney, so I knew how cute off a town it was and that it was decorated really cute for Christmas. So we ate lunch, walked the town square and I bought a cute Texas ornament.

The first night of our road trip we stopped in Little Rock and the next morning we went to Bill Clinton's Presidential Library, It wasn't my favorite, but it wasn't my least favorite. But it was fun to see some of the things that I remember from when I was younger.

We made a pitstop in Memphis with plans to go to Graceland, but we would only have about an hour to walk around and it suggested 2.5 hours to see everything. So we opted to go to the Civil Rights Museum, which was awesome, and I got this ornament of the Lorraine Motel, which is where MLK was shot and killed.

On our way thru Nashville, we stopped for dinner at Loveless Cafe and man was it delicious. I got this ornament - along with some real life biscuit mix before we left!

Every year Layton and Roby have gotten me an ornament with our picture on it, so here is the one for 2018. It's from our visit to the Ohio State Fair.

 2018 was a good year. Cheers to more adventures in 2019!

2018 March Madness

I didn't enter a bracket pool this year, and I haven't in the past few years, but I did fill out a bracket!

In the past when I did enter pools I surprisingly did pretty well. My freshmen year of college I got third place in the whole Norton House pool!

And of course, I have a theory behind this that makes sense to no one except me. So below are my first round picks and reasons for picking them! :)

Virginia vs UMBC - I don't even know who UMBC is and Virginia is number 1. Virginia.
Creighton vs Kansas State - Kansas State has won one more game (22 vs 21) and Ohio State played Kansas State in a bowl game when I was in college. Kansas State.
Kentucky vs Davidson - Kentucky is close to Ohio. Kentucky.
Arizona vs Buffalo - I've been to Arizona and they've had a rough year. Arizona.
Miami vs Loyola Chicago - Miami is warm and ranked higher. Miami.
Tennessee vs Wright State - Tennessee is usually pretty good at basketball. Tennessee.
Nevada vs Texas - I went to Texas this summer and visited their campus. Texas.
Cincinnati vs Georgia State - How many schools are in Georgia with "Georgia" in the title? University of. Georgia Tech. Georgia Southern. Georiga State. Staying loyal to Ohio. Cincinnati.

Xavier vs Texas Southern - Also an Ohio school. Xavier.
Missouri vs Florida State - My boss moved to Ohio State from Missouri. Missouri.
Ohio State vs South Dakota State - Um, these isn't a question. Ohio State.
Gonzaga vs UNCG - Gonzaga is usually good. Gonzaga.
Houston vs San Diego State - I feel like I should pick an upset. San Diego State.
Michigan vs Montana - Big Ten allegiance. I can't believe I'm picking them. Michigan.
Texas A&M vs Providence - Texas A&M. I've been to their campus and had a great time. Jess went to school there.
North Carolina vs Lipscomb - My BFF went to Lipscomb and I really want to pick them, but let's be real. UNC.

Villanova vs Radford - 1 v 16, Villanova.
Virginia Tech vs Alabama - I will never pick Alabama to win. VT (roll tears)
West Virginia vs Murray State - Been to WVU campus. WVU.
Wichita State vs Marshall - My cousin went to Marshall. Marshall.
Florida vs St. Bonaventure - I've never heard of St. Bona ventura. Gators on this one. Florida.
Texas Tech vs SF Austin - One of my best friends is a Red Raider now. Texas Tech.
Arkansas vs Butler - I was a big Arkansas fan for a while. Arkansas.
Purdue vs CSU Fullerton - Big Ten allegience. Purdue.

Kansas vs Penn - Kansas is #1. Kansas.
Seton Hall vs NC State - NC State is a land-grant school. NC State.
Clemson vs New Mexico State - I hate Clemson. NMS is a land grant school and where my former boss went to school. New Mexico State.
Auburn vs Charleston - Auburn, fellow land grant and the one SEC school I'm ok with.
TCU vs Syracuse - I owe Syracuse a pick for razzing a 10yo kid at a Times Square bar during the Ohio State Syracuse game in 2012. Buh Bye. Syracuse.
Michigan State vs Bucknell - Big Ten. Even though Clay didn't pick Ohio State to win. MSU
Rhode Island vs Oklahoma - Time for another upset. That jerk football player doesn't play basketball, so Oklahoma.
Duke vs Iona - Duke. Even though I'd like Iona to win so they could say "we-ona you!"

New Ornaments - 2017

When I travel, the only souvenir I buy are Christmas ornaments. (And maybe some other cute thing for my gallery wall.)

Then each year as I'm decorating my Christmas tree, I can reflect on all the fun travels I've had over the years. This year I got a new tree from Target. It's 5.5ft, but I ran out of branches to hang ornaments on, so I think I'll need to get a bigger one in the future! Or maybe just not travel anywhere in the future?

This year, I added quite a few new ornaments. I tried to put them in chronological order, but that didn't work out. So instead, you just get them randomly.

Here is my tree:

I love it so much! I'm biased, but I think it's the prettiest tree ever.

In December I went to Disneyland in California and we did the "Walk in Walt's Footsteps" tour around the park. At the end we got a button for our lanyards (which I don't have cause I'm not a regular), but it's way too heavy for a lanyard and I'm never going to actually wear it as a pin, so I made it an ornament!

I found these really cute ornaments at Michael's on clearance (70% off) a few weeks before Christmas and I loved how they looked vintagy  but tied all of my colors together. And because one of the 12 in the box was broken, I got an additional 15% off!

 

Last year on my drive home from Charleston on New Year's Day.....the super long drive.....I stopped in an antique store somewhere around Rock Hill, SC and got six vintage ornaments. Pictured below is the yellow one, but there's also green and blue. The white stripes are actually white glitter! Love.

In February when Mom and I visited Charleston, we went to see the Angel Oak tree. I had tried to find it back in December, but was unsuccessful. It was a really cool tree and I got this ornament to commemorate our visit. 

When I visited my godsons last weekend to take them their Christmas gifts, the oldest one gave me two ornaments he and his mom made out of salt dough. One was a Block O and one was a snowflake. I love these! :)

When Cara and I visited Texas in June, our first stop in the Lone Star State was the George W. Bush Presidential Library. They didn't have a 2017 ornament yet, so I just ordered this one earlier in December and got it in time for Christmas. President Bush painted this ornament. (Well, the original picture was painted by him.)

While in Dallas we also visited the home of the Ewing family - Southfork Ranch! It was awesome and Cara and I geeked out in all of our Ewing love glory.

My godsons got me this ornament with a picture from the little one's baptism this fall. He got me one last year, too, so I hope we can start an annual ornament exchange!

In July I went to Florida for Alicia's bachelorette party. We stopped in Auburn, Alabama on our way back to Atlanta and I got this ornament. It came in a package of two, but I do not need two ornaments on my tree from that SEC team.

Back in May some of my students went on a study abroad trip to England and one of the girls brought this ornament back for me because she knew I collected ornaments. 

While Molly and I were in California we went to a variety of places on our last day and one of them was the Santa Monica Pier.

On our last day in Texas back in June, we went to the LBJ Presidental Library. For students, it was only $3 to get in! Bargain shopping!

To commemorate my trip to Disneyland, I got this Mickey ornament of Sleeping Beauty's castle.

I cleaned out a bunch of stuff in my bedroom at my parents house while I was home for Christmas/New Years and found this ornament that my grandma painted in 1992! How cute is this? She used to paint all of the time, so I'm glad that I have this. 

 

That's all my ornaments from 2017! One that I didn't add, because I just wasn't ready yet, was something for my grandpa. I know what I want it to be, but just haven't made it happen yet! Maybe for 2018!

My ornaments from other years:
Christmas 2015
Christmas 2013
Christmas 2012

(Apparently I missed a few years!)

Nerd Trip: Day 3 and 4

Six months later, I'll update you on the rest of my Texas trip!

Day 4:
Breakfast at iHop
Dr. Pepper Museum
Drive to Austin
Austin shopping
Texas State Capital
Dinner at The Hula Hut
House Bars

We stayed all night in Waco and our plan was to do the Dr. Pepper Museum and then head to Austin. The DPM didn't open until noon, so we did brunch at IHOP. We had to wait a while, but it was fine. I'm also like 95% sure that the man we saw on Fixer Upper the day before was there at IHOP! He was this adorable WWII vet and we made eye contact several times and he spoke to us as we left the restaurant. I so badly wanted to ask if he was who I thought he was, but I didn't.

I also had a little breakdown at IHOP (sorry Cara!) because we were talking about Dr. Pepper and I was thinking about how it was my favorite pop, and my Papaw's favorite. And then how he would also bring boxes of pop to the house when we were younger. Always a mixture - grape pop, Dr. Pepper, Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Mt. Dew, Crush. Basically he bought whatever was on sale at Kroger that week and he had a stash in his garage. And I thought of the coolers he'd bring to the fair - also a mix - in the cooler that was broken and wouldn't stay closed, but because he put a dowel rod in the hole where the button was, it worked. We even bought him a new cooler and he continued to use the old one! Gosh, I miss him so much.

The DPM was underwhelming (theme of Waco). There was no tour, just an old house that was a "museum". It was as if I'd printed out facts on my computer and then hung them on my walls with a collection of Dr. Pepper memoriabilia every now and then. Thankfully we got a student discount! The best part of the visit was getting a homemade Dr. Pepper from the soda jerk. It was made with syrup and it was delicious. It tasted a little flat cause it didn't have all of the carbonation, but great.

This was for you Papaw!

We drove to Austin and got checked into our "hotel." The Guild, as it was called, is an apartment complex that rents out some of its fully furnished rooms as hotels. We just stayed there one night, but if we were staying there for multiple days, it would have been awesome. 

We went and walked around at their version of the Short North and went into a handful of shops to look around, including the YETI and Kendra Scott flagship stores. I also made Cara swing by the Texas capital building to grab a few pic and ended up talking her into going inside, which was AMAZING!

Ann Richards - I met her one time at our county Democrat Party dinner.

Did you know that the first female governor for the State of Texas was in 1933! Turns out, her husband was accused of not being a good governor and someone she ran in his place, so he could still be governor without being the one in the position.

Ferguson - are we related?

The rotunda! It was beautiful.

The state seal on the floor.

During the two years I was in Junior League, Cara and I were friends with Jess, who joined at the same time as us. Jess and her hubs moved back to Austin a few years ago and we were able to catch up with her for dinner at the Hula Hut. The service wasn't great, but the company and views were gorgeous!!

Following dinner we went to this street of bars that looked like cute little houses from the outside, then on the inside each of them had a theme. It was called Rainey Street. We were super tired and had not planned on staying out late, plus, it was a Sunday night. So we just walked in a bunch of them to be nosey and then headed back to our cool little apartment we were renting for the night. It was a fully furnished apartment and we wished we would have been able to stay there for multiple nights. And the shampoo they had in the shower dispenser - I don't remember what kind it was, but it was minty and our scalps tingled for hours!

Day 5:
University of Texas - Austin
LBJ Museum
Lunch at The Shady Grove
Waiting at the Airport for hours



Early on Monday morning, we returned our rental car and got an uber ride from a nice man who told us he started driving uber to "save his marriage." He had recently retired and his wife told him he needed to find something to get him out of the house! ha.


He dropped us off at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum. It was so cool. I admitially didn't know much about LBJ before visiting his museum, but now I realize how much he did during his presidency that are important things in today's society - seat belt laws, civil rights, clean air, vocational education, food stamps, housing, childhood nutrition, GI bill, age discrimination, school breakfasts and so much more!

His museum was so cool. It was multiple levels and not as interactive as others, because it was built in the 70's, so no computers, etc. It was very visual though. One exhibit I liked were these old pay phones that you could listen to a variety of phone conversations he had had. He recorded all phone conversations. I listed to the phone call he made to Rose Kennedy after JFK was shot, one a few weeks later to Jackie Kennedy, and so on. We also got to see the Oval Office of his presidency, but we couldn't go in to it, just look from afar.

The outside of the building.

The inside. Those are four levels of his archives.

He was a close talker, so here we are chatting.

I love this quote.

LBJ's oval office.

Bird's office.

Us with LBJ.

After we left the museum, and took a bunch of pics of the water fountain, we walked thru the University of Texas - Austin and then went to lunch at this place called The Shady Grove. It had been one of our options the night before and we had driven by it earlier. It was basically an outdoor restaurant where all of the tables were under a grove of trees. It was beautiful and I'm sure at night it's a lot of fun because they had a stage and a dance/bar area too!

Not my picture, but one of the place a night.

I always take a picture with the "O" in front of other stadiums.

It was during lunch that we found out our flight had been cancelled and we were going to be put on a later flight, which would then make us miss our connection. So we hurried to the airport after lunch to try to get on an even earlier flight. It didn't work. And we ended up being at the airport for days. Just kidding, it was really just a few extra hours. But for real, it was probably 5 hours. But they did give us some chips and baby cups of water.


We did in fact miss our connection in Atlanta and arrived around 1:15am. By the time we exited the plan, walked to the service counter, rebooked a flight for the next morning (7am), got a hotel for the night, walked to the hotel shuttle, waited on the shuttle, rode the shuttle to the hotel, waited to check in, checked in and went to bed, it was almost 3am. We had to be on the shuttle to go back to the airport at 4:45am. (All the annoyed faces.)


We finally got home the next morning and drove to Ripley. I took a shower (and maybe a nap?) and headed back to Columbus!


It was a great little adventure to Texas!