Quarantine Journals - Bikes, Birds and Blah

Today, Richard woke up and took the kids for a bike ride down the trail in Irving. They saw a bunch of birds, took pictures of some of them, and came home.  We looked at the pictures and use the Bird ID book that Penny got me for my birthday to try and figure out what all the birds were.

The kids really wanted to go outside to enjoy the beautiful weather, but I was afraid to get in the habit of always putting off her schoolwork, so we did that first instead. After the school work, we moved into lunch and a nap. The morning was hectic with me trying to get a bunch of little things done as quickly as possible, and it resulted in a lot of anxiety for me.

After Oliver's nap, we decided to take a bike ride as a family.  Penni really wanted to ride her bike to, which caused a lot of argument between her and Richard about what was possible with us on our bikes. In the end, we had a compromise of all of us going on a bike ride, and then coming home to go on a walk so she could ride her bike or scooter. She picked her scooter. I made it about 3 miles before asking him to go ahead and head home. The bike seat is just ridiculously uncomfortable.  We took a nice long walk, and Penny kept speeding ahead on her scooter and then when sit and rest and wait for us to catch up. Afterwords, Oliver didn't want to get out of the stroller, so I let them go into the backyard and play. They were having a fun time with their forte in the bubble machine.

Richard made pizza for dinner, and then we got everyone ready for bed. 

I spent most of last night dividing all of our plants into jars so that we can keep growing the ones that I had to thin out from the aero garden. We have about seven cherry tomato plants in seven different pepper plants growing between the aero garden in the jars.  Are used Penny's old leggings to cover the jars to keep the light out so we don't have algae growth. The plants outside seem to be doing well.

Oliver went to bed well after 11, and then I came in to clean up the kitchen. I was going to start an episode of shits creek when it occurred to me that I could call Diana instead. So I got her permission online since it's nearly midnight, and we spent about an hour and a half on the phone just talking about whatever. It's probably the first long phone conversation that I've had with a friend in a long while. Outside of the one conversation I had with Amy about a month ago. I really enjoyed it a lot.

I got a lot of ridiculous emails today from businesses that are opening up, as well as some notifications from businesses that are shutting down permanently. Dallas continues to beat its top numbers on a daily basis, and places like Sea life aquarium we're opening up for business tomorrow. Several small businesses and Coppell have close the doors for good.

I had a nice long FaceTime with my dad this morning while the kids are playing on their devices. He seemed happy and like he was feeling better. He's got the pool guy coming out again, and was not preoccupied with stock market news. We talked about my birthday, and he was expressing frustration over his cracked iPad screen. It's been cracked for nearly 2 years, and I've gone back-and-forth multiple times about buying him a new one. After we got off the phone, I decided to just do it. He's done so much for us over the last year, and there's so few hobbies that he enjoys. I called Brandon to find out what I needed to do to add it to the phone plan, and Brandon was adamant about fixing the old one instead of buying a I had a nice long FaceTime with my dad this morning while the kids are playing on their devices. He seemed happy and like he was feeling better. He's got the pool guy coming out again, and was not preoccupied with stock market news. We talked about my birthday, and he was expressing frustration over his cracked iPad screen. It's been cracked for nearly 2 years, and I've gone back-and-forth multiple times about buying him a new one. After we got off the phone, I decided to just do it. He's done so much for us over the last year, and there's so few hobbies that he enjoys. I called Brandon to find out what I needed to do to add it to the phone plan, and Brandon was adamant about fixing the old one instead of buying a new one. I pointed out that repairing an electron it device right now is not exactly simple with a pandemic going on. I can't take it into the Apple store for him, and he's not gonna want to mail it in when he's using it every day and stay connected with people. But Brandon didn't seem to hear me, and I know he will not be happy that I went ahead and purchased the iPad and send it to my dad. He should be receiving it on Sunday, but I just got a notification that the screen protectors will be there tomorrow. So let's see if I can keep from ruining the surprise. Anyway, I never got an a retirement gift, and our trip that we had hoped to take to celebrate his retirement is obviously off. As is a party. So this seems like a nice upgrade for him. I hope he likes it. I also sent him a cane to help with his back, so he can stop using his grabber tool as a Walkingstick. And, since he broke his grabber tool using it as a Walkingstick, I sent him a replacement as well. Unfortunately, he is already informed me that I bought the wrong kind. So I will see about replacing it soon.