More masks

L's mask-making business (with her friend, N) is booming. Here she is binge-watching "The Office" while she personalizes masks. The girls spent three hours driving around the village yesterday delivering masks. They plan on doing it again tomorrow. Today, L had us write out a check for $120, representing 20 percent of their profits so far, for the local food pantry.

Bare shelves

When L and I were out the other day we stopped by Walmart for a few things. This was where the thread is supposed to be. Yikes. I saw this on Facebook, originally posted Sunday:

So we don’t forget....
Today is Sunday, April 26, 2020
- We are at 40 days of social isolation.
- Schools have been closed since mid-March and are teaching remotely on-line. This will continue for the rest of the school year.
- There are lines/tapes inside the stores to keep people 6 feet apart.
- Bars and restaurants only for home delivery and pick-up.
- Parks, beaches and walk-in places are not accessible to the public.
- All sports competitions have been canceled.
- All festivals and entertainment events have been banned.
- Weddings, family celebrations and birthdays have been canceled. Funerals limited to 10 people.
- People are doing drive-by parades to celebrate birthdays!
- Young kids can’t understand why they can only see grandparents & other extended family and friends on a screen or thru a window if someone visits in person.
- Hugs and kisses are not given.
- The churches are closed or online.
- We have to stay 6 feet away from each other.
- Shortage of masks and gloves in hospitals.
- There are fewer ventilators than there should be.
- People are wearing masks, some places even require that you wear them to enter. People are making their own masks for sale or donation.
- Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, antibacterial wipes and anything Lysol or Clorox is in short supply and limited per person... IF you can even find them!
- Stores are closing early to disinfect everything.
- Store checkouts, pharmacies and even fast food drive-thru windows have added plexiglass between employee and customer.
- You can't find isopropyl alcohol easily.
- Australia, USA and Europe have closed their borders.
- No one is traveling for leisure. Airports empty. Tourism has the worst crisis in history.

This text is anonymous, it's not mine, but I copied because I want to remember it too.

It's a bee!

The cats were both pawing at the wall this morning. At first I couldn't see what they were seeing, but then a bee flew around the room! A big bumblebee.

I swatted it with a flyswatter and it was injured and fell to the floor behind the sofa. I thought it was dead. About an hour later it got up and began flying around the living room again. It was huge! It hung out on the window sill for a long time, under the close eye of Muffles who kept pawing at it.

Andy eventually came to the rescue and smashed a cup over the flyswatter until the bee gave up. Then he tossed it outside. Too much excitement for the morning.

I prefer bees that stay outside.

Four years!

Tulips are blooming

Stay-inside life

A day in our lives --

This is unacceptable.

We've been baking a lot.

FaceTiming with E while bagging up 14 (!) pounds of ground beef. It's been hard to find group beef so when Andy found some, he decided we should stock up.

Andy busy helping L make masks.

The cats wondering why we're home all the time.

Mask-makers

We posted this picture of Andy on the high school's FB page the other night. L thought a couple of parents might think it's cute. She almost immediately got orders for a total of 60 masks!

We used all the material we had on hand but she's on the search for more. Her friend, N, is her "business partner" and she's bought elastic which is very hard to find. L is using the Cricut to personalize the masks. Yesterday, the high school contacted her and asked if she could make 150 masks! Maybe, if we can find supplies. Meanwhile, orders keep coming in from the parents. The girls are selling them two for $20.20 (get it?) and will be donating 20 percent of their profits to the local food pantry.

These are ready to be dropped off at N's house so she can add the elastic straps. Once she's done, L will pick them back up and deliver them.

L's special order was from the bakery. They needed five masks so we fast-tracked those and got the elastic from N so we could sew it ourselves. Her boss picked them up this afternoon.

Grape hyacinth

I was looking for Schubert since we haven't seen him since Sunday and found these flowers in the flower bed by our sidewalk. Hope Schubert is OK.

Huskie cup

We bought some more vinyl for our new Cricut machine and L has been busy.

She made this Class of 2020 mug with the school crest and huskie logo on it.

Graduation card delivery

L and I took about an hour this morning driving to her friends' houses and delivering their graduation cards she made - all while keeping a good physical distance. Here she is at her friend B's house. As we were on the way to the next house he texted and said he was crying already. L said, wait till he watches the video.

This was the case of the CD she dropped off at each house with a video of their high school years set to music. I can't wait to grab some tissues and watch it. She even had sensei send a clip that she incorporated into it.

And her friend, M ...

... and N ...

and our last stop, J's house. They talked for quite a while. I didn't get a picture at every house. She made eight cards. For a couple, she had to leave the card on their porches.

Clear calendar

I've never seen this before. Our April calendar is completely clear after the Pilgrim Nursery School gala and Andy's golf outing on the 18th were both canceled. All that's on there is E's and Cindy's birthdays.

New Cricut

L talked me into buying a new Cricut this weekend. She showed me several YouTube videos of the machine and told me how it would keep her occupied, etc. We ordered it Saturday to pick up at JoAnn's but the email that it was ready never came. I looked at JoAnn's website today and it was priced $50 cheaper than it was yesterday. What?!?!? So we reordered at a different JoAnn's and got the email to pick it up in about an hour and a half. That was our Sunday drive. Destination: Bloomingdale JoAnn's store. We have no way to cancel the first order but if we ever get the email to pick it up we're supposed to ignore it and won't be charged.

Here are some of the first few projects L completed. She's edited that she'll be able to make shirts if we ever get to Disneyworld again.

And here's E's latest progress on her 365-day quilt.

Lovin' it

More snow

We got three more inches of snow today. Fortunately, it's melting. Temperatures should be close to 50 this weekend. That's more like it.

I went outside to shake the snow off of my daffodils. They were all bent over from the snow.

Andy and L went grocery shopping today. Our first time in the store in two weeks. They spent almost $200. Eeeek. It is interesting to see what I put on the list and what gets purchased. I need one jalapeno. He got three because they were so cheap. Yeah, but what am I supposed to do with all those jalapenos?

And the governor announced this afternoon that school will be closed for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. He even gave a shout-out to Staunton School District!

Too hot to handle

Never saw this before. When we went for a drive the other day we ended up by Pizzeria Uno and decided to get a pizza that we could bake at home. The instructions call for the oven and pizza pan to be heated to 500 F. for 20 minutes before putting the pizza in for another 20 minutes. When Andy took the potholder to grab the pizza pan, it burst in half. Melted, I suppose? That's Dollar Store quality potholders. Yikes.

BFF graduation cards

L has been busy working on her homemade graduation cards for her friends. She's using one piece of poster board for each friend so the cards are huge.

She found an artist online and had them make a caricature of all her friends. It's so cute. Can you spot L? (Bottom left corner).

She's printed the caricature and plans on putting it on the front of each card. She's so creative.

Snow & school spirit

We woke up to this - snow!! And it was sticking. What a weird year this has been.

It was a cold day. This was the snow situation at 3 p.m. We're supposed to get more snow Friday.

L bought this material the other day (curbside pickup at JoAnn's) to make masks. She cut the pattern a little close but we were able to make it work.

I made this first one by hand then pulled out the sewing machine and had Andy give me some pointers. He's my seamstress. After I got the hang of it, I was whipping them out. Had to use ribbon since we couldn't find elastic. I'm mailing one to B, which he says he'll wear.

Virtual birthday party

The family Zoomed with E tonight for her virtual birthday party. It was nice to see everyone and hopefully gave E a little mood boost.

We even lit candles and had E "blow" them out.

This pink frosting is so not E but it's all I had.

Edited to add this picture of the succulent cake she made herself. She showed everyone the cake on the video chat but didn't send me this picture until Thursday.

Signs of spring

Yellow flowers bloomed next to the purple ones that we already saw.

All three bunches of our daffodils are blooming.

And Schubert has enjoyed nibbling on our fresh grass.

Odd Easter

In a sense of normalcy, I made an Easter breakfast casserole for me and Andy. Usually, I'd be toting the casserole to the church's Easter brunch. No brunch this year. We did, though, watch our church service online. It was our new pastor's first Sunday. Talk about baptism by fire. What a time to start a new job. The rest of my day was very lazy. No family dinner. I had ham and Cheetos for lunch.

E, though, is busy on the West Coast. She made cinnamon rolls from scratch. She'll bake them Monday morning.

And she worked more on the quilt she's making. And she made a mask for herself.

Added Monday -- E sent this picture of the cinnamon rolls she made. She didn't add frosting because that typically makes them too sweet. They look good.