Beautiful Rose

We were surprised yesterday afternoon when our back-door neighbors rang our doorbell while holding a rose in a small vase. Traditionally, Grace Village has a monthly party to recognize and celebrate birthdays and anniversaries that fall in that month. The birthday honorees get a carnation, and the anniversary couple receive a rose. I had seen on the calendar that they now have a birthday cart (no party), but since we are not allowed in the main building hadn't given it much thought. This couple was drafted or volunteered to carry the flowers to the condo honorees. 

I put our flower in a larger vase I already own. They also gave us two muffins in lieu of cake I guess. It was nice to know that we are still a part of the community and the effort was made to include us.

I did on-line ordering with pickup today from my usual grocery store. I am still not willing to go inside with the narrow aisles, but I wanted a few of their store-brand items. I got all but one item on my list this time, an improvement. I am not good at picturing quantity or size. When I am in the produce section, I bag up the amount of green beans I think we will eat. In the on-line module you order by weight. I ended up with twice the beans I usually would select. I guess they will stay good long enough to eat not only tomorrow but Monday as well. I ordered what I thought from the picture was a large slice of carrot cake. Nope. It was an actual small cake with easily 6 servings.

 Still despite the drawbacks, I feel safer doing pickup, especially at this store.

 Today we learned that one of the local Winona Lake pastors has tested positive for Covid-19. All of the church staff that share office space with him have to isolate now. My husband has been helping the church secretary's brother-in-law with a woodworking project this past week. We don't know that the brother-in-law has interacted with the secretary, but it is just too close for comfort given that this man doesn't wear a mask. 

For the past 2-3 weeks, our county has been averaging 100 new positive cases per week. I had been thinking of going to my church this Sunday, but now I will stay home and do online church instead. Because so few people in our community wear masks when they are in public, I stick out and feel odd, but I am going to keep wearing one. 

I had a good long read of Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile this past week. Nothing like England's suffering during the German blitzkrieg in World War II to put things in perspective. I had the advantage of hindsight though to know they would win the war; no such assurances yet of overcoming the pandemic.