It’s another rainy overcast morning, and quite windy still in Corpus Christi.
We had a good and usual morning routine. Bia woke up and got going with school and got all her regular school work done by mid day. She’s been amazing with this project on Obama. It’s super long and she lost a week when we were in Terlingua, and she’s been working hard to catch up. What is amazing is that we don’t have to be telling her to do it, she just starts working on it and stays as long as she can. She worked on it most of the afternoon and a little into the evening, and only has like 2 questions to finish. She could not do it anymore, so she asked me to wake her up 20 minutes earlier tomorrow so she can finish the two questions. It’s awesome that she’s taking responsibility and initiative to get it done, that is what I am most amazed about.
Bella was up before her ELA as I’ve been trying to get her up by 8 with Bia now that we are in central time. Bella can join a class, but she usually prefers to join ELA only, so now she can start some of the paperwork she gets, and some of the online to dos before the live class. She was doing all kinds of things through the day, and here and there doing school work. She has not finished social studies from yesterday, but did the rest. At least she was working on things, not complaining, and getting some back log art things done.
Carol was the last one up, and most of the morning worked on folding and putting away laundry, then made lunch. In the afternoon she worked on some paintings outside, and the girls joined her outside for a good while. Bella was doing art projects, and Bia was doing her Obama project. We finally had some sun shine, so it was nice while they were outside, but it was still cold, mainly the breeze coming in was colder.
I woke up and was focused on getting caught up on writing posts, so I got some done in the morning. Then I had a call with an industry friend, and then I went for a run. I had a nice run through the neighborhood here, pretty flat and not a lot of traffic. I was running near a school, so when I was by a park, I felt like a police car was kind of following me hahahahaha… well, I don’t blame him. I was wearing a hoodie to cover my head as it was a bit cold, had a mask covering half of my face and didn’t see anyone else on the streets. Ahahaha… I ran just a little over 4 miles, easy run most of the run until I hit the last half mile. I had to pee so bad, I started running faster, and by time I got to the last block I was sprinting. I made it to the trailer just in time as I think another second and I would have peed my pants. Hahahahaha. Anyway, it felt good to be out running, and not feeling the dehydration impact from the last one. hahaha. After that, I helped the girls with school a bit and took a shower before we had lunch.
Carol had made sushi rice and grilled teriyaki chicken (on her Ninja pot), and it was great. We all had lunch together, and then Carol washed the dishes and I dried and put them away.
Right after lunch, I went outside to get the truck right rear blinker fixed. The dash was showing the blinker was out, and it sure was not working, but the brake light was working, so I was confused. Well, what I didn’t know is that they have two filaments in the same bulb, and the one for the blinker was not working. I had bought the replacement bulb yesterday, so I went that direction next, after checking fuses and all. I was lucky I had the hex bit that fit perfectly, took out the two screws, pulled the assembly out, then turned the bulb receptacle around to disconnect them from the assembly, and had just the lights hanging out of the truck. The reverse light was fine, so all I had to do was replace the other one. I removed the old one, got gloves to handle the new one, then put some bulb grease on the new one and replaced it in the socket. Then put the lights back in the assembly and tested. All working again, yay! And to finish, I just screwed it all back. While I was doing this, Bella was in the truck exploring all the buttons as she helped me test the lights. She was really into learning what the buttons and levers did, etc. Well, I’m happy this was an easy fix, and cost $10 (two bulbs and a small packet of bulb grease).
Then as Carol went outside to do her project, I continued writing and finished getting caught up. Woohoo… I’m caught up with writing again! Now, since the internet here is so good, I’m going to get some posts out and queued up. By the end of the day I was able to post one, and queue up two more. So now we are just past Christmas with posts. hahahah. There’s no way to get caught up on posts, but I’ll keep trying to not fall behind even further.
When I was done with posts and the truck, I cracked a beer open and I only had one left, so I went to the campground store to get some local beers. As I walked there, I saw a news pop up on my phone that the governor here in Texas will stop the mask mandate, and as I walked in there store seconds later, the two ladies working there had no masks on. And worse, they see me come in with my mask, and don’t really put an effort to find theirs. I was the only guest at the store, and that’s a big store, so whatever, but if that’s a glimpse of what’s to come in Texas, I feel for them if vaccines don’t come quick. In the end, they only had Shiner Bock, which is a great beer, but I’ve had it many times. I got that one anyway.
Carol and the girls finished their outside projects and went in. The girls continued working on whatever school work they had, and I continued working on posts. Carol then started dinner, and while dinner was cooking in the instapot, she took Maggie for a walk and play at the dog park here at the campground. Then we had dinner, the girls showered and then had some phone time, which they used to play roblox together, and then got ready for bed and were in bed by 8:30. Carol washed the dishes again and I put them away, then she worked more on the puzzle, which is almost done, and I got some work done on websites I manage.
Sometime in late afternoon, I setup a WhatsApp group with our group of friends from our old bubble, at least most of them, the ones that will be getting together soon in Florida. I wanted to start a conversation about us getting together and being safe, since we all have not seen each other in more than 6 months, and have each done different things, some have joined other bubbles, some of those other bubbles have other bubbles… and some people close to a few friends got Covid. We had a good conversation about the risks we all have taken, and how we will be open and transparent about what risks we take from now on, leading up to the meet up, and will continue discussing if we all want to test first, if we will just all wear masks or what not. It is a bit touchy conversation as we are really good friends, but really should be easier to have that conversation when you’re close friends. For us, it is not a big deal to wear masks, and our kids have no problem either. We’ll be there for some time, so we need to figure out how to manage pool time (we may have an option for that) and the kids desire to do sleep overs, that’s the one that will be harder. We can just say no to sleepovers, but if we can all agree on measures to take to maybe quarantine in some way ahead of meeting, than maybe we’ll be safer. We’ll see how this all works. Weird times for sure. Maybe the vaccine will be ready for us soon.
Then Carol and I finished getting ready for bed and just laid in bed, I was on Facebook and she was reading a book. And we called it a day.
We had a good catch up day here in Corpus Christi.