Hello friends! In another month, it will be a year since I was sent home from the university to work from home. At the time, they were saying 2-3 weeks. In my mind, I was thinking 1-2 months. I rigged a watering system for my plants and left most of my personal items there, only taking my work computer and the important paper files I knew I would need.
A month later I went back to the building for my plants and some other items. The trash had not been emptied anywhere and the campus was a ghost town. At that moment I knew I would be gone for some time. Here we are, almost a year later. Unbelievable.
Hasn’t the year gone by fairly quickly though? Time is funny that way, isn’t it? As most of you do, I busy myself with work during the day and then it’s cooking, so much darn cooking it seems, and then I surround myself with all the books I can to escape from reality. Okay, sometimes I read about pandemics but reading about the hardships of others is not the same as living through your own. Am I right?
Right now, I am enjoying Klara and the Sun which comes out March 2. I should be done with it today and the review will post next week.
Last weekend we made a rare trip to another city so I could visit one of my favorite bookstores. I found this gem in the Valentine’s Day gift section. This is the kind of humor my husband and I share. He told me to take a pic and to post it on social media. He thought it was so funny and I think it is too.
Valentine’s Day is coming up so why not surprise your loved one with this sweet sentiment?
Is anyone watching the Super Bowl this weekend? I am not a fan of either team. I was hoping the Packers would be in it but alas, it wasn’t to be. Now that I am vegetarian I am stumped on what snacks to make. I could make a meal out of seven layer dip and good tortilla chips. Perhaps, I will.
Tell me how you are doing and what’s new. How are your sweet pets doing? Mine is in love with me more and more every day but then she will turn a corner and be totally sick of me! She has perfected her canine side eye. She surely did not get that from me!
Book Chatter 
I love that Valentine’s gift. That’s totally my humor, but my hubby might not agree. I work remotely full time regardless of the pandemic, but our bosses in Chicago thought it would also be 1-2 months and here we are a year later. But some people are returning to the office and we have a scheduler and protocols, etc. in place to keep the numbers of people in the office down.
I cannot wait to get back to my book but I haven’t had time with the Festival doings. I did have some great poetry publication news. If you want links to them, I will share if you email. I don’t want to clog up your comments.
Send me the poetry news!
I am not a football watcher, so no Super Bowl for us. It’s my daughter’s last weekend before going back to school so we’ll probably do errands to get her all the things she needs. We were at work until March 12 last year, but that year mark is coming up, which is pretty amazing!
I was sent home on 3/20. I can so remember that day. Plus, a poor woman who was rushing to get home in her new truck full of groceries and supplies flipped right in front of me. She was fine but from the looks of the TP and paper towels all over the road she was probably panicked and not paying attention.
Hard to believe we’re coming up on a year, isn’t it?! Strange, but I feel like we’ve finally settled into a pandemic routine…and it’s going to be weird when we start taking the first steps back to normalcy. Glad you got a copy of the new Ishiguro. I know you’re a super fan!
Since COVID, I really can’t schedule or do too much in a week. I get easily overwhelmed. When it’s time to go back to work, it will have to be a slow transition. I don’t think I can deal with the commute or the traffic or the onslaught of people. I work on a college campus of 50K+ so on a normal day I come in contact with many. Plus, we were told that when we do return, there will be no lunch room or access to a microwave, coffee maker or fridge. Lunches will have to be packed and eaten only outside. Hmmm.
I’ve never had a big problem with having to “stay home” since I’m still working. I also still take drives so that helps. I don’t have to get out of the car if there are a bunch of people. I don’t mind going to the beach or lake and not getting out. At least I can see it. Not as good as walking beside it, but it beats not seeing it at all.
I love that stupid towel!
I love to drive to the coast, pick up food and then park by the ocean to eat it. Ha! I am not a huge fan of sand but I do enjoy the sights and the smells of the brine and ocean. We are going to the coast tomorrow! It’s supposed to be beautiful. Oh, and that towel. So many have commented on it. It was so funny to us and my husband never asks me to post on social media so he must have thought it worthy.
So hilarious thinking about the confidence of the first few days of the virus. I was also anticipating ~2 months, especially based on news from China, but then should have anticipated that it will be worse in the US than most other places.