My COVID year: Staying busy and staying away from the virus

BY BESSIE KLOSE

Atwater — Last year, 2020, started out very good. My two daughters, a friend and I took a trip to the southeast United States. I was scheduled to receive an award at the National Farmers Union convention which was held in Savannah, Georgia.

We started our trip visiting my sisterin-law in North Carolina. We flew to Charlotte, rented a car and drove to their place. We had a wonderful visit and got to see all their kids.

From there we drove to Savannah for the convention, then did some sightseeing in South and North Carolina before going back to Charlotte to fly home.

The COVID virus was just starting to pick up and we were lucky to fly home when we did. A few days later all the airports were closing and directions were to stay home. What do you do to keep occupied? Well, luckily I have hobbies. I started out embroidering dish towels for two of my grandchildren who were getting married that fall. That kept me busy for a while until I finished those two sets and ran out of towels.

I love to read books and a few years ago my daughter, sister, a good friend and I started a little round robin library. Each of us would read a book or more, initial it, so we knew who had read it, bagged them, and when we got quite a few in a bag, passed it to the next. So we all had plenty to read without having to each buy or go to the library. We got to read a good variety of types of books this way without much expense.

I like to watch TV so I worked a lot of viewing into each day. I don’t have cable so when there isn’t much on I watch old movies that date back to when I was a kid. I enjoy seeing some of the famous actors when they were just getting started.

I enjoy talking on the telephone and talk regularly to family and quite often to friends. I don’t know what I would do without that although I’m old enough to remember when we didn’t have that luxury.

Another thing I enjoy is baking. I used to bake a lot and I sold at a farmers market. But I had to slow down due to physical reasons. Now I bake a little and then sit a little. But I still managed to get enough baking done, so a lot of my pie and lefse customers came and bought baking for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

Since our family couldn’t plan to get together for Christmas, I had what I called a drive-by Christmas. I packed a bag for each family with homemade snacks, candies, lefse, rye bread, pie and doughnuts for each member of the family. Then each family drove by and picked up their bag and went home to enjoy them. As of the middle of March there is still one family’s bag in the freezer as they live in Wisconsin and we haven’t been able to see each other for over a year.

My birthday came up in February and I knew we couldn’t do our usual family Red Lobster gathering or have the whole group to my place.

My wish for my birthday was to get my COVID shots. This wish was granted as I got my second shot four days before my birthday.

My daughters got the idea of putting a notice on Facebook and asking people to send cards or give me a phone call to surprise me. The day was great!

My daughter told me not to plan anything for dinner, so I didn’t. She came and brought my mail, which had a whole pile of cards. While I was opening and reading them she was in the kitchen and said, “you’ve got company.”

Here came my son and his wife. They sang Happy Birthday and since we couldn’t go to Red Lobster, they brought Red Lobster to me. Not really, but they did bring a seafood casserole, garlic toast, a mixed salad, with cheesecake for dessert. Lori had also brought spinach dip and Hawaiian bread.

The phone calls started in the morning and continued off and on all day. Messages came on social media which I couldn’t see, but my daughter in Wisconsin read them to me.

My one granddaughter sent a bouquet of flowers, others stopped by with gifts, but none of them stayed as they had not had their shots yet. The cards and calls continued for many days. I heard from people that I hadn’t heard from for years (even some of my 4-H kids who I had directed in 4-H plays many years ago.)

So I’m still enjoying my special birthday which will continue as my daughter from Wisconsin will come to see me now that my shots should be active.

So that is how I kept busy while trying to stay away from the virus.