Hope Everyone is OK

It seems to be a good time to take a breath and touch base with everyone since we are all now in various stages of quarantine. Since we are in western Washington, in one of the worst places for the coronavirus, I'm sure many of you are wondering how it is going and we, of course, are concerned about all of you.



We are doing fine and are trying to adjust to what seems to be the new normal. Seamus and Charlotte are both out of daycare and we fill our days assisting with the education/entertainment of the little ones here at home. Adults, children, dogs, and cats all under one roof is making for "cozy" days but we are grateful to all be together and are adjusting to our local population density.

We've stocked up on basic supplies in cans and the freezer just in case, but are still making visits to the grocery as necessary. For bigger grocery runs, we use the "Click-and-Collect" at the Fred Meyer so we minimize time in a public space. Restaurants here are still open for take-away and along 1st street parking spaces are reserved for curbside pickup customers. The local Thai place still delivers as does at least one of the pizzarias. I occasionally visit the local Starbucks drive-through for a cupa and we have gotten out once for a brief ride around the countryside near Snohomish.

When we landed at SeaTac airport on March 6, there was already very little traffic and it has continued to slowly get lighter with time. Any trip you want to make will take the time Google Maps says it will any time of day... no more traffic delays. This is not to say that everyone everywhere is in shutdown. There is more traffic on the highways than you might guess and lots of places you wouldn't expect to be are still open. For example, the hardware and the thrift shop...but most things are closed or only open for take-away service.

But otherwise, we're in. We're buying things by mail order. Anna and Seth have "social isolation happy hour" with the neighbors by taking chairs to the median along the sidewalk and visiting with them while they are in their yard. There was a Facetime with family on Seamus' birthday and the phone call volume generally seems to be up. We have a little cash on hand in case all the bank branches close rather than only some of them even though credit and debit cards continue to work. We see more young families with prams walking along our sidewalk to get out for some air. Neighbors that we've seen out for a walk twice in a year, we saw twice last week.

As I've told some of you by mail, sms, or phone, we finally decided to purchase a new car...a 2020 Honda CR-V. Contrary to expectations, we still have fewer than 200 miles on it and the bulk of what is there is due to a visit back to the dealer (about a 30 minute ride from here) for a blemish repair and installation of a dealer add-on. We were planning to have some time to explore Washington, but that is all on hold. I'm using isolation time to figure out all the fancy electronic and safety bits as well as get familiar with the important stuff like how to change a tire.

I'm sure y'all expected that after our long trip to Europe that there'd be some down time on the blog between now and our next trip. Well, no surprise, that down time has gotten longer. While I hope to be able to bring you a few images of local life as we go along on this adventure, the two house sits we had scheduled for summer are both cancelled. In both cases, either we can't get there (Tasmania) or our hosts can't leave (Arizona) because of international flight restrictions. Other trips either have been or seem likely to be cancelled. We're all just stuck being where we are.

All that to say, we're OK. And we really hope that you are as well. We have fortunately had some sunshine in usually cloudy Snohomish so our days have not been quite so gloomy as they might have been. I hope that you are able to find some literal or figurative sunshine at your location to keep your spirits high and a smile on your face.

I will do what I can to contribute to your smile with a few Instagram images and blog posts with photos that are guaranteed to either make you smile or wonder what the hell I was doing pointing my camera that direction when the shutter went off. The most important things we can do for each other is stay safe and stay connected. I plan on doing what I can from my end.