Saturday, May 16, 2020

Week 9 of Quarantine ~


I had a lovely Mother's Day. It started with bagels and cream cheese from my favorite shop. My husband had them all laid out for each of us to pick.

It is tradition for my mother, daughter and myself to go out for part of Mother's Day on a little "girl's adventure". Usually we go out for lunch, not allowed during quarantine, so this year we decided on a hike. However, we wanted to go somewhere very close and not very crowded. We decided to go to my favorite local graveyard. I took the following paragraphs from a blog I wrote in 2009. However, it still remains true. I love graveyards. I am very Victorian in that way I guess. 

"So here is a confession for you. I love graveyards. I love walking through them, looking at all the gravestone styles, thinking about the history and lives that have gone before me. I love doing little math problems in my head to see how long people lived. I love moving the leaves and weeds away from old graves to reveal their names to the world again. I love reading the old names that aren't heard much anymore: Prudence, Horace, Constance, Judd, Jedediah, etc. I love how time slows and ebbs in a graveyard.

My kids and husband think that I am a bit strange in this way, but they play along and go with me to graveyards. They even have learned to like them, too. Of course, I have found over the years how to make it more interesting to them. I have taught them how to tend graves, walk through a graveyard properly, and do grave rubbings. "


So it just made sense to go to such a calm and beautiful place for our Mother's Day quarantine. Our cities largest graveyard opened for the first time in weeks on Mother's Day and it was more crowded than usual. Even so, it was still very easy to avoid others. We had fun finding unique graves. We only covered a few of its 87 acres and I am already itching to go back. 





O'Henry's Gravestone (He was buried under his birth name.)
My Mom just wanted a hug for Mother's Day. We covered ourselves in sheets fresh from the dryer and had a hug. It was nice to be near her again.

The rest of the day was lovely as well. For my gift, the kids cleared a large area of weeds for our planting grass, and my husband replaced three doorknobs inside the house that were worn out and didn't match well the original doorknobs in the house.  We wrapped up the day with takeout from a local Mexican restaurant. 

The rest of the week sped by in a blur. I decided to work on painting baseboards and the inside of closet doors. Everything always looks better with a fresh coat of paint. We are getting so many projects done. The kids did school work (there isn't much to go). Anne took two online dance classes. David worked from home this week (he is at work one week and works from home the next). We went to to grocery store (Sam's ) and found almost everything we needed/wanted. I even got Clorox wipes!!

Lastly, I perfected my homemade bread. I am very happy with the latest version. It does take about 6 hours to make and 20 minutes to eat!

Blessings, Dawn

4 comments:

  1. Such beautiful bread! Happy Mother's Day to you. I think that your love of graveyards is lovely. The fact that the people matter, and how you want to know them . . . I like that. :)

    Wishing you joy in your remaining school weeks!

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  2. We love visiting graveyards! It sounds like you had a lovely Mother's Day. The bread is making me hungry!

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  3. I really need to repaint baseboard and it's a chore I've been putting off for a few years now. I know once I suck it up and do it I am going to wish I had done it sonner.

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  4. That bread looks so pretty, and I'm sure it tastes amazing. I like looking through graveyards and seeing the interesting things people put on them. There's a churchyard here that has a grave marker for an 8 year old boy who was a drummer during the Revolutionary War.

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