Of Hail, COVID, and Cleaning Up a Mess

So you may be wondering about my absence over the last month. So much has been going on!  I do apologize for not posting; I just couldn’t find the time.  Even on reading, I have lacked time of late. So allow me to explain…

Hail on my deck

At the end of March, a hail storm hit my area and had devastating effects. The hail that dropped was baseball-sized.  As it came down, it sounded like artillery hitting our house! When all was said and done, our roof was practically destroyed.  The gutters and siding didn’t fare much better.  Then there was also damage to our deck and front porch. Thankfully, both cars were parked in the garage!  Many neighbor’s were not as fortunate and had cars with no glass in them and lots of dents; most had their vehicles totaled out. With such widespread damage in a sizable city, it’s been a struggle trying to get quotes lined up and the damage fixed.

Then add COVID-19 to the mix. For about 6 weeks in late

Hail stone next to my size 6 shoe

March and April, I worked from home.  Got a lot accomplished around taking phone calls and working on responding to emails, including deep cleaning and some craft projects. I also spent time then and still do making masks for family and friends. Then add in food shortages and lack of the ability to go to the bigger city for groceries and for someone with multiple food allergies, that has posed a problem too.

But the biggest time commitment of all outside of work is cleaning up one, great, big mess. Last year, my grandfather passed and my grandmother moved in to skilled care after a fall.  Since then, we’ve been working on clearing out their house.  While Mom has done the most work by far, I’ve helped each time I traveled home, which included 10 days in July, and done quite a bit of research for Mom from where I am.  I’ve also been tasked with selling some items on eBay. But during the July visit was the last big push to go through everything ahead of an estate sale and listing the house for sale. Both of my grandparents grew up during the Depression and Grandma also worked retail, so to say there was a lot was a vast understatement…

So there are two books I’ve been meaning to read and review that will hopefully be shared with you soon.  One was released back in May, while the other came out earlier this month. Stay tuned for those! And hopefully I’ll get back to NetGalley as they have their own app now; for the longest time I couldn’t get their books to open in other apps after a March update to those apps (Bluefire Reader and Aldiko). So I can read those egalleys again!!!

How has life been treating all of you?

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