2020 Life Logs, Day 351: Fun in the Snow and Late Day Good News
Date: Thursday, December 17, 2020
Weather: Snow Overnight, Wintry Mix Today: High 36, Low 28 Degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
I’ll start with the good news. Around 5:30 this evening Heather heard from Jed that Sam’s Covid test results came back negative. WooHoo! The quarantine is over. Heather was so ready to go home and sleep in her own bed, so she wasted no time packing home for the move home. It took both cars to get everything back home—clothes, school backpacks, Heather’s work paraphernalia, musical instruments and music stand, snow gear (pants, sleds, multiple pairs of gloves, boots), various things to play with, food . . . the list goes on, but you get the picture. Heather, Jonah, and Ollie have been here for 10 days. That is a long time for a family to be separated, but Ollie was insistent that he was staying here. Heather finally talked him into coming home, but he insists he is coming back to spend the weekend. I think once he gets settled in at home, he might change his mind. But, of course, he is welcome to come back if his parents agree. I am just so happy that they all back together. I loved having them here and will miss the liveliness of having two boys in the house. During their stay we have done everything from raking leaves to building a snowman. We rearranged the house to make remote school spaces for two boys and a workspace for Heather. We walked and played with Shadow and each of the boys had special times with him. We fed swans down by the dock, made Christmas cookies, fenced with wooden swords, had remote music lessons, and today we spent a lot of time outside playing in the snow. We had many Zoom dinners together with Sam and Jed, as well as watching a movie and the Hip Hop Nutcracker with them. Whew! It is going to take me a day or two rest up. And we owe Shirley, my landlord and friend, for allowing us to use her house next door during this time. Since Shirley and Doris are not living there right now, the house was empty. So, Heather worked over there on some days and we used Shirley’s washer and dryer. The dryer was especially helpful today. The snow that fell overnight was a wet one, so playing in it today was a soggy affair requiring the drying of everything before we could go out again.
Out play in the snow started early this morning. Heather had a 9 am meeting and Jonah’s first remote meeting was at 9:30 am. That is an hour later than normal as there was a delayed start due to the snow. We were all up and ready to go a little after 7:30 am. Heather worked on building a snowman with some support from me and the boys. The boys also worked on building a snow fort wall. We were all very proud of the results, but by day’s end, the snowman had lost his carrot nose and looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Heather laughed heartily when she saw the state of her snowman. She said he looked like she felt at the end of a hard day. But with the boys helping, she was able to get the snowman righted and the boys put his carrot nose back on. Hopefully, he will survive the strong winds we are experiencing tonight and be with us for another day or so.
Tomorrow I have to focus on preparing a presentation on the Voyage of Windbird that I will give on Sunday for the Cape Cod Maritime Museum. It will be done via Zoom and I need to spend tomorrow shortening it a bit and making sure all of the photos and videos are in place. That can wait, however, as I plan to sleep in.
