Had a good time today celebrating my baby turning 13. We went and spent the money my mother in law gave DH to get a gift for her at a small
lego store. There were two other customers in when we walked in but they left almost immediately and two employees working. She picked out a minecraft sheep farm set which was right at the amount she had to spend from Grandma and Grandpa. Afterwards we stopped by the store so DH could run in and pick up some cupcakes and a small container of ice cream which we took over to DH's parents' house and had a small party. Mother in law had a small decoration that said happy birthday in a vase on the table and we just kept everything low key. She got to open a gift from us and show the grandparents what she got from them as well as open another small gift from them and her card. We will have a small party with my parents and possibly my sister if her schedule allows it on Saturday evening sometime. She will get to open her gift from my parents, my sister, and a 2nd gift from us along with if DH can find something a card from us. She doesn't really care much about cards now so I might just sneak it into things later when this is all over and I can go to the stores more.
Wearing a mask is difficult for me especially since I have actually blacked out. Luckily both times either my DH or 15 year old was with me and were able to steady me and get me outside where I could remove the mask and breath. I have tried doing practicing but it is a no go. Technically according to the mask mandate in my state because I have a medical condition that makes wearing a mask impossible I don't have to wear one. However we have a county health officer here that is just stay home and is encouraging people to be maskholes and call the county health office to report businesses that are allowing people to not wear a mask. I just found out that if our numbers do not go down by the end of the month that the county health officer is going to put resturants, churches, ect back to 25% capacity which a number of resturants have stated will essentially close their doors for good. Yes the number of cases are high when you look at just the numbers but when you look at them as a percentage of the population (not even taking into account the number of people from at least 4 neighboring counties who commute here daily for work) we are actually on the lower end in the state.
I have been doing curbside pickup, sending my DH or 15 year old into the store to get items, using drivethru, services, and ordering online with delivery to my door. Really not liking that we no longer have our regular ups driver because she alway put out packages at the door off the driveway even though that one is not at the front of the house and just to the open side of the door. The ones we have now put it sometimes at that door anywhere on the deck usually where I have to step outside, or at the actual front door which we don't use except to let the cats out.
Ok maybe a little bit more but due to ground settlement and having to put blocks under to keep it up and level with the house we are going to need to get another set of steps built. DH has not gotten around to doing that. Plus you would think people would figure out we don't use that door with 2 large planters right in front of the deck opening. That is on the list of things that I need DH to get done that he is procrastinating at doing. At this rate maybe someday I will have the funds to not only get enough material for the steps but money to purchage enough material to make a larger multilevel deck in the front and to hire someone to build it for me. There are spots from when we had the house built 12 years ago and built the dirt up so that water would drain away from the house especially if we ended up with a heavy snowfall winter and heavy spring rains about the time we were getting the runoff from the snowmelt.
That way we wouldn't have to worry as much about groundwater getting into the basement and causing flooding. A wet private road/driveway is a lot easier to deal with especially since it is gravel. Those spots the grass never really grew in though the russian thisle sure in creation has.
I have a non chemical solution that I need to mix up and send my 15 year old or just go outmyself and spray the spots in the yard and the garden area once we get everything harvested.