UPDATE: The winner is…Jeanine Lesperance!
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Just a quick note about what this day means to me, and then I’ll move on. One year ago today, my mom passed away. She was at home, being cared for by my dd and myself because she wanted to be home until the end and knew she wasn’t going to beat her pancreatic cancer. I’d just walked away to get a washcloth to clean her face and returned. I began gently cleaning her face, talking to her, telling her that my sister was nearly there, hold on, when I realized she wasn’t breathing. One minute later, my sister arrived, too late to tell her goodbye. It was such a sad, sad day, but the only thing I can be thankful for is that she didn’t live to see what was to come just two months later. She left in peace.

So, here we are…how many months in? We cope. We also find joy. Little things matter more. My 16-year-old granddaughter has become our hairstylist. She watched YouTube videos so she could cut our hair. Here she is giving her 7-year-old sister a trim last night.

And isn’t she lovely? All that lovely strawberry-blond hair. She’s going to be a redhead like her mama.

We mostly stick close to home. Get our groceries delivered curbside, pick up our takeout masked. The one place we frequent, because it’s a big open, well-ventilated warehouse is our local flea market. We make that an event. See the treasures we found yesterday?

My mother had a collection of that old-fashioned, mid-century white Corning Ware with the blue flowers. We’ve been slowly adding pieces (it’s very collectible!). We paid $6 for two pieces, now we’ll have to hunt down lids on eBay (something else we enjoy—the hunt!). My dd got rid of all our plastic storage dishes and mixing bowls, and we’re replacing them with midcentury Pyrex (also, very collectible!). That brown set with the mushrooms we got for $40. If you think that’s insane, see how much it goes for on eBay! See the bent glass serving tray? It’s midcentury as well by George Briard ($10).

I added some odd bits to our haul—the yellow tin ($1) that I intend to cut up for tin jewelry, the small wood inlay picture frame ($1.50) that I’ll fill with a painting, the ceramic disk with raised lettering depicting the Cherokee alphabet ($6), which I will use to set my brush pot on for use on my art table, and I think I’ll press it against a gel plate covered in paint for background marks. See the yellow swan? It arrived in the mail today, so I added it to the display. I used a picture of it for the last jigsaw puzzle I posted.

So, we craft and “hunt” and have family movie nights. We’re fortunate, and we know it, because we aren’t hurting for money or searching for food banks. This situation isn’t normal, but the kids are happy, learning to cook and cut hair, and we have a little farm of animals they care for. We’re busy and not feeling especially stressed out about the restrictions. My police officer SIL got the vaccine this week, which is a huge relief. Hopefully, sometime this year, the rest of us will get it, too. We have lots to look forward to—warmer weather, swimming this summer, working on flower beds. We spend evenings talking about the trips we want to make to familiar haunts once it’s safe—Beale Street in Memphis, New Orleans.

We’re enjoying simple pleasures. Grateful we’ve, so far, dodged the virus while missing my parents and grandmother, who left us just before all this hit. We are finding things to be happy about and grateful for during this long-ass pandemic.

I’d love to hear how y’all are coping and whether the vaccine is headed your way soon. What plans do you have for when we get back to something approaching “normal” again. Comment for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card.