Interesting Sunday

Today was the first Sunday of a period of uncertainty of whether Church will be held or whether we will avoid crowds.  Richard and I had a simple sacrament meeting with a prayer, a sacrament hymn and the ritual words read from the scriptures.  I learned that Mary was short on basic supplies and within a short time I loaded food and sanitary supplies into my car and drove to her home in West Jordan.  David added some other supplies in the form of a rifle and some bullets in a rifle case.  I knew about the bullets but no the rifle.  It's a good thing I didn't get stopped along the way.  I contacted all of my children in the past two days and each seems to be okay.  Nancy has a cough and decided to work from home, using the phone to consult with those who require her services, which is just as well because her daughter Miranda is suffering from a cold.  I have plenty to do in the following days as I finish up my chicken coop; installing the feeding wall and finishing the siding. 

Corona Corona

Officials seized fake corona virus testing kits at LAX airport.  This is how it is.  Government and private industry are having a real problem getting testing kits distributed but scammers have them hot and ready. 
I accomplished a bit today.  Mostly I talked to Annie, Meg, Sam and the two women I am supposed to minister to.  I mostly called to reassure them I'm okay.  I raked some waste from the coop, prepared a board to go at the base of the feeding wall and re-positioned the secondary roost.  I have mostly spent the day on the internet.  I guess I'm 'caught up in the moment' over the corona virus news.  The suggestion I made to the bishop about having family members with the appropriate priesthood take care of providing sacrament for their own families may have had some influence on the letter sent out this morning by the Stake Presidency.  As I had suggested in my e-mail to Bishop McMurray on Thursday, the priests will take the sacrament to those without priesthood in their homes.  They will do so by appointment tomorrow morning.  This means I will be having a meeting with Richard since David and his family are going up to spend Sunday with Taylor and his family. 

Nothing to get Dressed up for

I have a lot of attractive 'Sunday' best dresses, skirts and sweaters.  I wore them to Church and the temple, meaning I dressed up at least three times each week.  Now the temple and Church are canceled, unless someone wants my presence at their sealing, which is very unlikely.  On the other hand, with the cancellation of schools, I will not be required to get up earlier than eight each morning, and that is only because if I sleep much beyond eight my entire schedule of sleep will be tipped on its head.  My prettiest jewelry is not required since I wear it mostly for art meetings and going to Church.  It is now March 13 and I wonder if Church will start again before it is full spring.  Meanwhile my default daily wear is the comfortable yoga pants with boot cuffs that I also wear as pajamas along with a turtleneck shirt.  I altered some corduroy pants to fit me after losing quite a bit of weight last year, but they are still and not suitable for wearing at night.  I adopted the practice of wearing the yoga pants when I decided to dress in such a way that I could leap out of bed and quickly finish my usual morning ritual before driving kids to seminary.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays I would get up a half hour earlier in order to drive to the Provo City Center Temple to act as patron in an 8 AM endowment session.  So now my life is simplified.  The only thing I do now is drive up to Bountiful each Friday to take Hannah and Rudy to the park and McDonalds.  Today I had planned to maintain 'social distance' by staying in the car.  But Rudy was quite insistent that I join them in the park and I realized that my presence means a fair amount to him.  I would be more exposed to him by failing to join him. 
I am tempted to pack up all my fancy 'go to meeting' clothing, but things may change greatly before the season turns completely.  Today I faced sleet as I began my drive to Bountiful.  I stopped to get gas and my sweater was soon loaded with icy particles.  At least I got the plastic cut for my feeder wall.  I plan to finish it tomorrow.  I hope the weather cooperates.

Doing hardly anything

Today was chilly and after taking the kids to seminary and shopping for meat at Days Market I came home and prepared the roasts I bought to be cooked as steaks.  Afterward I went back to bed.  I have decided to self quarantine and therefore had no plans to attend the temple.  Tomorrow I will drive up to Bountiful to spend time with Rudy and Hannah.  I doubt my normal routine with them will change much.  I didn't eat my steak yesterday but it warmed up well for today.  I have browsed the internet a lot as I watched the slow reordering of things because of the threat of Corona virus.  There are definitely several points of view on the subject.  To those who are under very minimal threat it seems ridiculous that such seemingly Draconian measures are being taken.  For those of us under more immediate threat because of age or health issues it seems sensible to slow the spread of the virus by canceling large meetings and delaying events.  There are economic consequences either way.  As for me, I am letting my physical energy lead the way.  I don't believe I am actively ill, but I also believe I am fairly vulnerable. 

Semi quarantine

My experience at the temple yesterday was good until a woman entered the sealing room and proceeded to cough in her hand, which she then used in the sealing ceremony.  I realized that I have to avoid situations where I have little to no control about the actions of others.  The discovery that an active case of Covid19 from one of the cruise ships was being treated in the hospital where my daughter-in-law who shares the downstairs portion of my home, is employed in the lab made me aware of how close I could be to a risk situation. 
Today I had hoped to make more progress on putting in my feeding wall in the coop, but at least I finished up the gate gap closer.  Fortunately I have a small stock of suitable face masks, some hand sanitizer, and sufficient supplies of other items.  I plan to shop in the morning after dropping off the kids at seminary.  Day's Market has a good price on beef steak.

One run, one strike

I took a tube of hand sanitizer and a small packet of tissues with me to the temple today and my new dress pocket worked well.  On the other hand, the pocket I had sewn on what I thought was the left side of my slip was somewhat toward the back and I ended up not using it.  I had a pleasant time at the temple.  I did some shopping on the way home and indulged in some bananas and treats which left me with a very gassy stomach.  I stopped by Lucinda's house to visit with the younger children who I haven't seen in some while.  Later, after I had rested for a while, Lelia and Timothy came over and made a dice from clay.  Jared came over later in the day which put a stop to any plans I had of cutting my plastic piece for my coop feeding wall.  We had a nice visit, but he is still a somewhat confused man.  I have taken out the trash, folded laundry and now it is time to end my day.

Interrupted Post

I hate it when I have written quite a bit and something happens to erase it.  That just happened with a post I had nearly finished.  At any rate, to recap, I finished one of the projects I hoped to accomplish today; installing pockets in my temple dress and slip so I can carry a tube of hand sanitizer.  There is no way to avoid touching hands in the endowment ceremony or sealing ceremony so the best way to deal with that vector of infection is to use sanitizer as seems wise.  It will depend on the amount of sniffling and coughing I hear, or my own behavior.  I am feeling somewhat better than I did a week ago when I decided against going to the temple for two days.  I still have several active projects that I will do according to available energy.  I have some things to do with my chicken run and coop and I need to clean out the area near my storage sheds.