Quarantine Week 2 Wrap-Up

Another week of working from home is in the books.  In a way, I like working from home.  I can sleep in a little later and still start work at a time I prefer.  I don't have any traffic to deal with. (A-hole drivers are my least favorite thing in the morning.  Or at any time, but they seem to be more abundant in the mornings.)  And the best part is I don't have to deal with any annoying office mates.  I do have a co-worker here who is a bit of a slacker.  I caught this one napping at her desk.  Amazing how she can do that while sitting up.  I'm sure she's perfected it so fool the boss.

Spring is officially here.  It warmed up nicely a few days this week.  Ed and I took breaks in the afternoon and walked around the block.  I had the windows open on Thursday to get some fresh air in the house.  It was wonderful!!  Thursday evening it started to turn grey and Friday we had rain.  Before the weather hit, I cut some of my daffodils to brighten my kitchen.  I love their color and bright faces!

I finished the Audition shawl last weekend.  I was playing yarn chicken in the last section.  I knew I didn't have enough to do all the rows called for in the pattern and I had none of the dark color to do contrasting rows.  After a few repeats of the pattern, I did one garter ridge and started the bind off.  During the bind off, I kept checking my yarn and saying a little prayer that I would make it.  At 25 stitches from the end, I lost the game.  I had to rip out the bind off and the garter ridge row to get enough yarn to finish.

It doesn't match the pattern exactly but I like it.  I'm not really sure why I ended up not having enough yarn.  While knitting the Jimmy Beans shawl last year I learned I knit a lot looser than my friend.  Since I didn't check my gauge for Audition, maybe that was the case here.  I'm not concerned, though.  It is still pretty.  I haven't blocked it yet.  I'll do that in the next week or two.  Or three.

The cruise ship we were on the other week had several sea days.  On those days, they had a craft time scheduled in the afternoon.  I didn't notice this until the second to last day.  The craft I started was a paint by number kit.  It is a very pretty picture of poppies in a vase.  It was too large to finish there (they only had the activity for an hour) so I brought it home.  I'm glad I did because it gives me another activity to do while quarantined.

The other afternoon while working in the sunroom on the painting, Squeaks ran out of the room and then came running back in a minute later.  I didn't look up.  I just figured she was starting her daily energetic time.  After a couple minutes I did look at her and saw this:

Obviously, the little stinker had run into the living room and grabbed the ball of mohair from my Bird of the Feather project bag.  When she originally ran out of the sunroom, I'm sure she had just realized that I wasn't protecting the mohair any more.  Luckily that ball was not currently attached to the project.  Otherwise I would have had a huge mohair tangle to deal with.  I've learned my lesson.  I need to keep the project bags tightly closed to prevent a curious kitty disaster.

Oh, and on a health note, Ed is fully recovered and I'm close.  I have a little residual cough but nothing bad.  The fever is gone and we're both sleeping soundly.  I'm sure we are past the contagious stage but we are not taking any chances.  We've told the kids that we are going to still keep to ourselves for another week to make sure we are fully over this.

It's 6am and I've Been Up For 3 Hours

Yep.  Another night of very little sleep.  Not the best thing for a body that is trying to regain its health. It's been hard to find a position that induces sleep without also inducing a coughing fit.

Yep.  That's right.  I've been sick.  Ed has too, but he's better.  In fact I haven't heard him cough all night.  That is a first in 2 weeks.  I'm glad he isn't coughing anymore.  His coughs are ear-piercingly loud, followed by a stream of throat-clears.

Me?  I've been sick for a week.  Dry cough.  Low fever.  Is it Coronavirus?  Don't know.  Neither of us have been tested.  It's possible.  It's also possible that it is not.

I thought I would be tested on Monday.  While Ed had only a cough and no detectable temperature, my symptoms were slightly more severe. I've had a low fever with my cough.  I also developed a burning sensation in my chest.  After a call to my doctor, I went to the emergency room for a chest X-ray.  Three hours later, and after an EKG, chest X-ray, influenza test and blood draw, I was sent home with no confirmed diagnosis and told to continue doing what I had been doing:  rest, fluids, Tylenol for the fever and cough medicine when needed.  Oh, and the burning sensation is probably just acid reflux from coughing so hard, which is what I thought it was when I called my doc.  

Back to the question Is it Coronavirus?  Probably, but they didn't test me in the ER because I was not deemed worthy.  While I had the symptoms, I don't have other factors that put me in a higher classification.  The tests are being saved for the high risk cases.  They need to do that in case the number of cases spike like everyone fears.

So here I sit at the computer, drinking my tea and finishing the banana pancakes I made myself.  It's too early to log into my computer for work.  And besides, I don't feel like working just yet.

Working from home is OK.  It has it's perks.  I don't need to put on make-up and spend an hour of my day in the car.  I can wear my pajamas if I want and have music on in the background if I wish.  But there is also a downside.  I spend the day looking at all the things I need to do around the house and still don't have the time to do any of them.  And it isn't making things any easier by seeing all these people on social media doing all sorts of craft projects.  When I'm done working I'm still as exhausted as I was when I went into the office.  (Right about now my husband would be making a comment like 'Boy!  You have it rough'.)  I know I have nothing to complain about.  But like I said, it's 6 am and I've been up for 3 hours.

I just want to feel healthy again.  I'm tired of feeling sick and tired.  Once I know I'm over this I'm going to take a long walk outside.  Not doing it now because I don't want to come into contact with anyone and pass along my germs.

Well, I could go on about how the quarantine is going or what my opinion of this whole thing is, but I'll save that for another time.  Maybe tomorrow, if I wake again at 3 am.  

Self-Quarantine Wrap-Up

Not quite a week.  It'll be a week at the end of the weekend.

We spent most of the week working from home.  I picked up my laptop on Monday and spent most of Tuesday resolving connection issues.  Wednesday through Friday were productive work days.

I thought working from home would be more restful, but it really isn't.  By the end of the day I'm just as tired, if not more, as I am when I go into the office.  I think it is more because I'm not getting my morning and afternoon walk in.  I park about 3/4 of a mile from the office and have a nice walk twice a day.  Thinking I should walk around the block a few times a day just to get some fresh air and exercise.

I finished knitting a baby sweater for my niece.  The buttons I bought are too big so I'll have to wait until all this craziness is over to get some new ones.  I'm going to wait to block it until then.  Picture will come later.

I'm binding off the Audition wrap.  Should be done today.  It should have been done last night, but I was playing yarn chicken and lost.  I frogged the bind-off  row and the previous row and started again.  It uses Channel Island Bind Off which is pretty but slow.  Picture of this also coming later.

Last fall when my enabler and I went to The Wool Gathering we both bought kits for Birds of a Feather from Destination Yarn.  I picked the Valencia colorway.  I can't remember which colorway Cindy purchased.  I cast on Thursday night and only got a few rows in before getting sleepy.  Ed asked if I was making a leprechaun jock strap.  It does look that way.  Or maybe a bikini bottom.

Squeaks is thoroughly liking having us at home.  She's started a new habit, though, that is a bit annoying.  She tries to drink the water out of my glass.  Last night she managed to tip the whole thing over. Good thing we were right there to wipe it up right away or else our hardwood floors may have been damaged.  Lesson learned is to not leave any glasses sitting around.

I hope everyone is hanging in there.  I saw this the other day on social media and shared.  It really puts our plight in perspective.

Remember to practice self-care.  Take advantage of this unprecedented time to catch up on sleep, learn something new, spend time with family and deepen your relationship with God.  Peace!

Pre-Quarentine Summary

It's been a month since my last post, and what a month it has been.  There were two trips, a birthday and a complete upheaval of life as we know it.

At the end of February, Kristin and I went to Austin to scope out housing.  We spent two days driving all over the town, visiting apartment complexes and houses for rent.  It is too soon for her to sign a lease, but she did narrow down her choices.  In a month or so, she should be able to select a place.  The above picture was taken from the Oasis Taproom, overlooking Lake Travis west of Austin.  Good beer, warm weather and beautiful sunset.

Three days after coming from that trip I was on the road again, this time with Ed.  We headed out on a cruise.  We were scheduled to sail to Puerto Rico, Tortola and St. Maarten.  Bad weather caused a cancellation of Tortola.  I spent my birthday on St. Maarten.  And the US COVID-19 outbreak made the last few days of the trip extremely stressful.  I'll skip the details.  Let's just leave it at I'm very glad to be home and pray fervently that the disease and the rampant panic subsides soon.

Now that we are home, Ed and I are working from home for a few weeks.  After two days of chaos, I now have the right access set up so that I can do my job from my kitchen table.  I think I'm going to like working in my pajamas and slippers, with not worrying about my hair and make-up.

I'm going to count yesterday as Day 1 of our 'quarantine'.  Ed stayed home all day, but I had to venture out to get my work laptop from a remote location.  I was not allowed to go to the office because was in a panic over my cruise.

This morning (Day 2), Ed and I woke up early and hit the grocery store just as they opened. I should say 'stores' because we the one we usually shop at was  almost barren.  The second store had quite a bit on their shelves still. We stocked up enough to keep us in for at least a week or two now.  Since we potentially have been exposed, we wanted to make sure we wouldn't need to go out.  But I want to assure you we aren't hoarding food, sanitizing wipes or toilet paper.  A trip to Costco back in February replenished our TP supply, we only bought what we thought we would eat and there wasn't a single wipe to be found in the stores.

Time now to sign off, do a little knitting and say my prayers.