I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my chest. I know that times are still tough and we have to get through the next few months, and this is bad week for COVID cases, but I feel like maybe we can do something different in our country.

Fall is here, and it’s been a gorgeous month. Having more time to enjoy it on the weekends has been nice too.

The leaves are so gorgeous and the weather this past week has been unseasonably warm and wonderful!

COVID cases are bad here…I keep waiting for another shutdown. I’m already working from home still so hardly anything more can affect me, but Louie has been teaching classes in person. Exponential growth is a scary thing.

 

I do feel like the days are all the same though…I can’t decide what exactly I miss about my old life, but I miss it. I miss the freedom of it all the most. If everybody wore masks, we would get some of our freedom back, but that’s not the country we live in.

I thought about trying to book some sort of getaway for us over Thanksgiving, but if we are going to go somewhere and just be stuck avoiding people who aren’t taking the virus seriously I’d rather just stay home. I’m hoping the weather will be nice over Thanksgiving (it OFTEN is) as we have a couple of hikes further away that we might try. I also have a little more frozen fruit in the freezer that I want to turn into jam, and there are always baking ideas! There’s no shortage of things to do: my reading list is long, there’s plenty to do around the house, etc, but as far as things that take you away from the everyday…it’s harder. I just have to remind myself that I’m lucky to still be so busy with work, lucky to have a nice home to live in (not everybody would agree, but I like it), and lucky to have so many things to do.

I’m enjoying the semester for the most point: my new teaching position has given a focus to my days, and makes me get started really early in the day (class starts at 7:15 am) which means nights have gotten earlier as well. It works well, but makes some days long. At some point it will be in person rather than in my living room, but not this calendar year. And I had a great time teaching a tiny Improv/CAD class on Saturday, and plan to go to weekly classes in the spring.

This week I’m recording some music for a Christmas Concert, and I’m waiting to hear the final recording of the play I helped create music for last month. I also finally finished all my MMTA judging (so many fantastic student performances!) and I’m still participating in some teaching seminars. I’m getting tired of it all and need a break soon, so Thanksgiving can’t come soon enough. I’m not sure what we are doing, if we are going to just do Thanksgiving the two of us, and cook or order takeout dinner from somewhere, or try to do some sort of dinner with Louie’s parents where we mostly wear masks and stay far apart. We know just the two of us is the safest, but there are inherent risks in other activities, such as driving in a car for a three week road trip, and perhaps having a mostly masked dinner with a few other people who have also been being quite careful is okay? I also like the idea of getting a dinner from a restaurant and supporting them (I don’t want to make Thanksgiving dinner for two). 

What are you doing for Thanksgiving, do you know yet? How are you holding up?