Once my birthday is over, I always feel like August can hurry up and be over. It's so steamy and hot and gross, and by then everyone is just over it. And I mean everyone. Nobody live in Florida for the second half of August, guys. It's like saying you love Ohio for the January/February time of year.
September won't be a ton better. But, there's just something mentally about knowing you're on the down-swing of the muggy, miserable summer. We can go back to walks, the pool cools down to a temperature not-so-bathwater-y, the sun gets a little less intense. It's just nicer. So, we've kind of just been hanging out, waiting for August to get over. And we're there. THE LAST DAY! Which means I also want to get the blog up to date. I just finished all the birthday blogs, so if you haven't checked those out, I recommend paging back. It was pretty epic.
But now it's back to the mundane a couple of pictures here and there. So lets speed through this!
Two days after my birthday, Calib was headed off to Ohio. I didn't want him going beforehand, just in case (you know, covid and all), and he figured it was just easier to ask off a straight 10 days from work instead of 6 here and 4 there.
So on Thursday, Calib was headed off to the airport. Coincidentally he was the last one of us to fly pre-pandemic (when he went to Italy over Christmas and New Years 2019) and was the first one back on a plane post pandemic. Good for him. My anxiety won't let me get on a plane these days.
Grandma stayed with us for a few days post birthday. Mostly though she had to catch up on all her school work she missed while she was partying it up at Disney with us. But she did order us pizza for dinner. We've been getting our usual works, and the "college pizza" (the pizza my roommate Emily and I always ordered: plain cheese, extra sauce) The boys are big fans of the college pizza.
And she also "took us" on a Costco trip. And by took us, I mean she paid to have it delivered.
Because not sure if you've heard, but things on the Covid front are a little crazy down here. Sure I went to Disney, but I was masked, and tried to stay outside. I limited my time around any stangers, didn't eat inside anywhere, do as many socially distant activities as possible, and made sure to mask and wash my hands a lot. Three weeks out, I can safely say I think we all stayed covid-free. I do have the vaccine, and that's great. But, it's fricken EVERYWHERE here. People we know, who have been vaccinated, are getting break through cases. It's just not good. So, we've gone back to mostly living like we did during quarantine. I am hoping we're starting to plateau (albeit at the highest rate of cases-hospitalizations-and deaths as we've ever had before), and that it will come down as sharply as it went up. 20,000 plus cases a day is just crazy.
On the upside, the doggies don't mind that we're home so much. They were just happy to have us back. And Etta did so good being left home alone. She may never have to go to the kennel again!
Since I wasn't home for my birthday, I missed a whole lot of my free food. No worries, on Saturday after mom left (just before a would-be tropical system that never actually came here), Asa and I went out to collect all my free stuff. I got desserts from Nothing Bundt Cakes and Panera.
We got my Red Robin burger to go and split for lunch.
I grabbed some free PDQ tenders to heat up later for dinner (we also both had a good coupon so we bought those too and reheated the tenders with our leftover chicken guy sauces for dinner).
I got my free Pollo Tropical Meal that we reheated for lunch on Monday (not bad two days later)!
And then we went and split my free Firehouse Sub, also picked up curbside.
And to top it all off: my bogo Blizzard.
Lunch on Sunday was a whole bunch of leftovers from the trip, including leftover dips from Sannaa.
Calib came home late Monday, and had to work Tuesday morning (and Asa works late both days). Finally on Wednesday, we got around to our closing ceremonies of the Olympics. (better late than never!)
And we also hit the pool. Good news: the kids are back in school so we basically have the place to ourselves. (Bad news: there is quite the battle going on about kids being masked at school in Florida, and we're seeing a lot more infections in kids than last year. Long story short, Desantis said you can't require masks in school, four counties did, he said we're going to withhold pay of the school board members who voted for mask mandates in schools, they went to court, Desantis lost, and then withheld pay anyway. So, fun!) But hey, quiet pool time!
And of course, with Calib back there was a lot of board gaming. Our new thing lately is Catan: Seafarers
And, as it turns to September, Hayden and I will be going back to a bigger school work type of schedule. But, we finished up with one more Finer Things Club for Summer of Shakespeare.
On the school front, I'm also still killing my Duolingo streak. (I did have to use a freeze streak one night on my trip- but I did it the rest of the time!)
And we've been finishing up a few of our curbside craft bags we still have laying around.
And I'm getting to work on a new long-term project. I'll fill you in on that later. For now, here's a hint.
Oh, and we also finally tried out that Pancake in a sheet pan thing. It totally works.
Calib also has gotten a Costco membership so he can pick stuff up from work if he wants. But he's also been shopping for himself. He's come back with everything from fruit snacks to a giant pack of Corona.
And he tried to peer pressure Hayden into taking a sip of beer.
Hayden wanted nothing to do with it, though.
Fun fact, I now just go to Instacart, find what I want and screenshot it to Calib, who brings it home, no extra fee attached. Win-win!
I did run into Publix once since we've been back (it was an emergency, turned out we had no spaghetti for chicken parm night), and I found these on an endcap. My kids had never had them until Cort brought some along, and then they were all about them.
Asa and I also went into Costco the other day. It wasn't too bad, but I nearly lost it on a bunch of people trying to get bottled water. The aisle was packed with maskless people, all stocking up on water- presumably because both Orlando and Tampa have had to issue warnings for people to reduce water. Why? because they use liquid oxygen to clean the water supply... and liquid oxygen is running low because of all the people hospitalized with covid who need it. So, not only are they asking people to reduce their water usage, they're also treating it differently and said it may have a funny 'taste or odor'. So, presumably all the people buying water knew what was going on- which is why they were buying it, but still couldn't put on a mask?!?
Asa has outburts about strangers (not TO strangers. Like you won't find any videos of him being crazy out there), but certainly to us about strangers. And I never got it until now. It took everything in me not to shout about all these maskless people.
Anyway, that was one trip to Costco. But hey, samples are back. Asa even got one, and quickly slipped the salami under his mask.
One more August blog and I am all caught up. Yay!
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