Saturday Season-ing

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Good morning SHE-ville!

In Canada, this is the unofficial start to summer. It is the May the 24th, Victoria Day, or May two-four, weekend. May the 24th was Queen Victoria's birthday and it was declared a holiday in the UK when she turned 18 so she would ascend to the throne and her mother wouldn't serve as regent. Long story, probably messed up the history....

Her birthday was May the 24th so we celebrate on or before the Monday before May the 24.

In Canada beer is sold in cases of 24 which we call Two-Fours. Since this is an outdoor weekend, we also refer to this as the May Two-four weekend.

We can still have snow this weekend but not as often as Mother's Day.

It is also time for our Tulip Festival which has gone online this year.

Here's a 3 minute video of the early flowering. You can skip ahead 20 minutes to get past the titles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_bCh1YQISo

[LadyMaverick]

Sending Happy Thoughts and Best Wishes to those celebrating two-four weekend and Victoria Day!

The tulips are stunning! WOW! Thanks for sharing the video.

I am a bit excited about CathyS and DH abundance of flowers, vegetables and fruit planting adventures today. The care and nurturing of new life bring hope and joyful thoughts to me.

DS11 slept in a recliner in our bedroom last night because of the on-going thunderstorms. I woke him up around 2am and walked him to his bed because the storms were over. We continue to discuss the logical side of storms and learn more about the danger (or not) in an effort to help with his anxiety. It is a slow process.

Question - does anyone have experience wearing a clear face shield? I've seen studies they are 96% effective which is higher than homemade mask if I remember right. I have never worn a face shield so I don't know how it would be in comparison to wearing a mask. Not having anything touching/covering my nose and mouth is comforting to my claustrophobia thoughts. Not needing to adjust mask aka touching face seems to be a positive. Being able to see other people's faces is a positive to me. I guess the only way to find out is to get one and try it. But I don't know enough to know.....

Today's plans & accomplishments -
Done ** Health tracker
Done ** AM cards
** One thing a day done well
** Maintain the 8 previous One thing a day done well
** Zoom meeting 10 am - it is supposed to be a 1-hour meeting. This is a new group for me so I will be in newbie mode.
** Cronometer
** Play in the garden...hoping for minimum storm damage
** Keto tribe
** Active minutes
** monitor DS11 daily accomplishment list
** Monitor DD8 daily accomplishment list

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Question - does anyone have experience wearing a clear face shield?

I have. Ds bought two (one for him, one for the GF) for his work. The GF won't wear it.

This is mine:

https://www.busybeetools.com/products/s ... nsion.html

The one you linked to is much better and addresses many of my minuses. I'd go for it since you can afford it.

Pluses: easy to put on/off, no need to touch face to adjust, your facial expressions are seen (and people can lip-read you), much easier to breathe through than an N95, really effective to protect me (unlike a non-medical cloth mask), not as hot as a regular mask.

Minuses: mine gives me a headache when wearing a long time due to the tightness of the band to hold it on and the weight on my head, if it is cold outside, you may get some fogging (but regular masks can fog my glasses so this isn't unique to the shield), you sound muffled (no more than a regular mask), you can't drive in it without being distracted, you feel like an idiot or like you are wearing a robot costume.

Our building staff have been wearing them for over 12 weeks now. The long-term issue is the plexiglass gets scratched. But they are very happy with them.

For driving in a car, all people wearing cloth masks is my preferred solution.

If I'm going someplace I'm worried about being infected (i.e. if I had to enter a hospital), I'd probably wear the shield to feel safer since I have no access to proper medical masks.

I keep wearing my cloth masks (and have only really used the shield once) because I'm trying to set the example that everyone should be wearing a mask as we move around the building. BUT, the whole lip-reading thing has really made me glad I have this shield since hard-of-hearing people are completely cut off when we all wear masks. If I was working with the general public, I'd opt for the shield since I'd be helping out those who supplement their hearing with lip reading.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Lady M: on the Canadian Amazon the review of the product is poor.

this is an item made just from plastic; is not worth it. I sent it back as soon I opened the bag and try one, they were all bend it, there is no way that you can walk three steps with that.

If it is just made with vinyl, maybe go to Walmart and pick up clear vinyl table cloth cover and make one yourself.

[Ramblinrose]

I am a happy girl!! The other day Sweetie and I watched a movie about a famous Norwegian resistor during WW11 which reminded me of one of my all time favorite children’s book I had read when I was in the fourth grade.

Back then the Weekly Reader was a paper magazine we received in class every 6-8 weeks. In it was a list of books you could purchase for .25 or .35 cents. I always looked forward to it and would save my allowance so I could buy two to three books.

Through the years I’ve had vivid memories of two. One was titled The Lions Paw and the other was bases on a true story about how kids were able to defeat the Nazi troops by attaching gold bars to the bottom of their sleds and sliding down hills in front of them. However I could not remember the name Of the book.

After Sweetie and I finished watching the movie I decided to see if I could find that children’s book. I googled some key words and low and behold the book popped up and was available to purchase through Amazon. I immediately ordered It and it arrived last night.

When I opened the package I was struck by how familiar I was with the cover and the pictures within the book. It made me feel like 9 again.

Turns out Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan is a beloved children’s classic and has been around for more than 60 years. I probably paid no attention to that when I read it. But for some reason the story struck accorded in me.

So today I’m going to sit back and enjoy traveling back to my childhood. For me, this has always been the power of reading...It can take you anywhere in your mind if only for a little while.

[LadyMaverick]

Kathryn - Thanks for your valuable input on the face shield. I recently saw a picture of little kids returning to school in China and they were all wearing a hat with a built in face shield. It struck me as a great option for young kids instead of face masks which they are always touching.

I remain curious about how the brick-n-mortar schools will handle the social distancing when school resumes (I HOPE) in August. I know that seems a long way off but it is really just 3 months. That doesn't seem very long when thinking of the need to prepare for them to be wearing ??mask??? ???face shields??? everyday all day long. Maybe I'm overthinking this.....

I made a newbie blunder on the zoom meeting. I was ready to start the meeting when I noticed it said PST. Ooops. I'm CST zone so I was two hours early for the meeting. At least I wasn't late.....

Today's plans & accomplishments -
Done ** Health tracker
Done ** AM cards
Done ** One thing a day done well
Done ** Maintain the 8 previous One thing a day done well
Done ** Talk to Dmom for an hour (aka listen to Dmom talk)
In Progress ** Accidently discovered a much easier way to take Micro out to potty. I'm hopeful this can/will be repeated. It will save me about 30 minutes a day minimum
In progress ** monitor DS11 daily accomplishment list
In progress ** Cronometer
In Progress ** Monitor DD8 daily accomplishment list
In progress ** Fill daily vitamin containers for the next 30 days
In Progress ** Trim shrubs by front porch after the rain stops
** Zoom meeting 10 am - it is supposed to be a 1-hour meeting. This is a new group for me so I will be in newbie mode.
** Play in the garden...hoping for minimum storm damage
** Keto tribe
** Active minutes
** Plant strawberry roots that arrived in the mail.

[CathyS]

Dh had everything planted before I even woke up. Because I got to sleep late, I ended up actually sleeping in until 9:30! I wish I could do that during the week.

Dh said it was "his turn" to cut the grass. So I stood and watched him for a while. We both have our own way of dealing with going around all the trees and small bushy things. (We have a magnolia which is small now, but I hope it turns into a large tree one day, even with the mess! Rose of Sharon is also still small but larger than when we bought it.

BBQ steak for supper.

I have been working on the library this morning. Getting stuff put away and donating a lot of stuff to either a thrift store or a cross-stitching friend in the future.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I assembled the balance bike for dgs. And I tidied the bedroom and started a load of laundry. I need to hang it up in a minute.

I made a newbie blunder on the zoom meeting. I was ready to start the meeting when I noticed it said PST.

That's why dh sets all his meeting in UTC. That way time zones and different daylight savings times don't have to be figured out for the international participants. All they have to know is their own time vs UTC. So you never have to remember whether Europe has moved to the standard time or if Portugal is in the same time zone as Spain or England.

[Harmony]

RRose, I read that book also and loved it. It was the first book I took out of a public library. I went down there with Sunny and signed the book card with just my name because that's what I did in school. Sunny looked at it and smiled and said "I'll take it out for you" and gave her public library card to be used. I still remember that to this day.

I also remember reading one about children who took things on their skis (in baskets?) and when the Nazi's caught them they clumsily went down the hill to cover up their trail so they wouldn't be followed, and the Nazi's made fun of the 'clumsy' kids. Is that a different book? But I do remember the name Snow Treasure, so that was the first one I'm sure. What a great memory, and it must be over 60 years for me.

Ok, so I googled it but what keeps coming up is Snow Treasure. So I remembered it but I remembered it on skis instead of on sleds. Maybe there was a movie like this... but I definitely read that book! Apparently it was written about a true event a couple years after it happened, when they got the gold out of Norway to keep it away from enemy hands.

So, today I've cleared off my desk, answered a couple letters and just caught the mail lady. I'm going to suggest we go out for dinner today, take out, maybe chic fil a for a change. We haven't been out to eat since I can't tell you when, at least beginning February, more like January when DH's ankle went bad... and so many others have been doing this so maybe it's safe...I'd like to think...

And if I'm bored, can you imagine how bored DH is?

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I'm not bored I'm just....nothing.

Got the laundry hung up.

Downloaded a new countdown timer for my phone that has a restart button on the 'end of time' screen. We'll see if that helps. So far it hasn't. But it took me down a long distraction trail.

I was listening to a podcast while hanging laundry and it mentioned too much screen time is also too much talk time and it is wearing us out when we are online for skype calls, etc. We want to stay connected but we'd like to do it without feeling we have to talk. That struck a chord with me.

The solution also struck a chord. The person being interviewed set up a silent reading hour. Everyone gathered in a Zoom chat room before the designated start time for some chit chat, then at the start time, everyone turned off their microphones and sat and read for an hour. At the end of the hour, there could be more chat or people could go on to something else. It gave them time of togetherness, without having to engage socially with the others. You could glance up and see the others reading and then return to your book. You weren't alone but you weren't having to be engaged with others either.