2020 The year of Coronavirus and wearing mask

Total left knee replacement was March 10, that same week, much of our country was shut down because of the  Coronavirus.

I stayed overnight at the hospital and was sent home with all the equipment I would need for the next few weeks for home therapy.

I also went to three days a week to Peak Performance for physical therapy.

The Sciatic nerve in my lower back flared up, which caused therapy to be very painful. 

My Orthopedic doctor had to manipulate my left knee, which helped relieve some of the pain in my lower back. 

It took several months before I could enjoy walking, and I was thankful to have my hubby doing my household chores. 

I could not read or sit at my computer because it was too painful, and it was hard for me to concentrate. 

On June 18, our granddaughter gave birth to a baby boy. 

Only her hubby could be with her, and her baby shower was virtual. 

(Great Grandson Atlas Ian is doing great; he is growing like a weed.)

River, our great-grandson, turned two on June 2.

We celebrated our great-grandson's first birthday on Sunday, December 13. 

He and his mother both had the Coronavirus, and both are doing fine now. 

Our daughter-in-law contracted the Coronavirus at work and gave it to her husband (our son), they were quarantined for 14 days. 

Schools across the United States were shut down, and graduating was just months away for seniors.

Our grandson, a senior, graduated in May after months of his school being shut down. 

Our country was in a pandemic, with businesses, schools, factories, and restaurants shut down.

People dying, and the virus spreading like wildfire, causing people to stress out. 

Lowes was doing a booming business during the pandemic because people were afraid to go anywhere, so many did home projects and gardening.

 I enjoyed spending time attending to my flowers and herbs. 

The Coronavirus has kept many inside this year beginning in the Spring. It sored through  

Summer and Autumn, now it is Winter, and the coronavirus is still here.

The CBS bible study that I attend every year is now virtual. It is great that we can still see one another through Zoom and be safe. 

We have grandchildren attending Universities, High School, and Kindergarten with odd days.

Every Thursday and Friday in September & October, we kept our great-granddaughter, Ava.

We did the social distance, we would take her to our local parks, where she enjoyed feeding the turtles and fish. 

For the last two weeks, Hubby and I have been picking our great-granddaughter up at school. 

Her uncle is a senior this year and usually takes and picks her up, but in the last two weeks, he has not gone to school on Thursdays and Fridays. (because of the pandemic)

Hubby went back to work part-time in June and full-time in September. 

Last year was a sad year for my niece she lost her husband to cancer. 

But 2020 has brought her happiness, she found another love, and they were married on the first of October. 

The Coronavirus is still on the rampage, the numbers are going down. 

Most states have a mandate that you have to wear a mask covering your nose and mouth before entering a place of business. 

High-risk people are encouraged to stay home and have their groceries & personal items delivered.

Stores limit the number of people inside their stores. Restaurants have spaced their tables at least 6 feet apart. Many places of business have a shield or partitions to protect their employees. 

Some places will only take credit cards because they do not want to handle money that is full of germs.

The flu season is just around the corner, and the medical field is in a rush to come up with an anti-virus serum to give to the public to help prevent the further spread of the Coronavirus.

We have missed so much of our annual Halloween parties and Thanksgiving meals with family, and now Christmas is just around the corner. 

Our family get-togethers may be small this year. 

Hubby contracted the Coronavirus from a co-worker, and I got it from him.  We missed having a Thanksgiving meal with our families. 

In November, I went to the Mountains with my cousin and aunt. We ate out a couple of times and did a little shopping, but mostly, we just enjoyed each other's company.

We bought a Modular home in July but will not be finished until late January. This Coronavirus has put a dent in many aspects of our lives. 

My dad fell and broke his hip and died shortly in November. 

Our family is going to celebrate Christmas on December 20 and have a sister gathering on Christmas Day.

We just have to take one day at a time. 

This year, we have had a birth (a great-grandson), a death (my dad), a marriage (my niece), and sickness.

We have been very busy this year but differently. Life as we know it will no longer be the same.

Even in a pandemic, life goes on. 

 

2019 Feb 8, Celebrating George Washington's Birthday and Picking Tulips in Montevallo, Alabama

So glad hubby and I did a little traveling today because the next few days are calling for rain. 

It was cold when we left home this morning; the sun came out, and it got up in the high 50s today.

But before we got home, it was back in the low 40s. 

We traveled to Montevallo to help celebrate George Washington's birthday, to eat one of the beautifully decorated cupcakes placed on a table before us, and before we left, we picked a basket of freshly grown tulips.

On our adventure, we stopped at Jack's in Athens for a drink and a cream cheese cherry pie.

We traveled I-65 through Birmingham, taking exit 238 US 31 toward Alabaster, we turned left onto US 119 County hwy 11, reaching our destination at 3727 Hwy 119 Montevallo.

Hubby parked the car, and we walked to the front entrance of the museum and paid the admission price. 

The cashier told us to head to the replica of  Mount Vernon to Celebrate George Washingtons' birthday for the party that began at 11 AM.

George Washington made his speech. 

George Washington stopping for a picture. 

Washington walked out onto the front porch and made a speech, and when he finished, the crowd sang Happy Birthday to President Washington.

Washington walked out into the crowd, stopping for pictures and shaking hands with people in the crowd.

We walked inside the president's Oval Office, where we saw on display pictures of several future presidents. 

We visited the Randall Museum with miniature dolls about many events that happened in the US in the last 200 years. 

The Randal Museum also displayed in miniature the Presidents and their wives.

We walked inside the National Chapel, which was just a few yards away from the Randal Museum. 

US Presidents and wives

The National Chapel 

The last building we toured was the Veterans Memorial building. 

Veterans Building

We took the trolley out to the Garden of Tulips, where we were greeted and given a basket to place our picked tulips. 

We were told the soil was soft, to gently wiggle the tulip, and the bulb would release from the dirt. 

There were so many different types and colors to choose from. I picked several in full bloom and several just budding. 

We took the trolley back to the entrance, paid for our tulips, and began our travel home.  

Fields of Tulips

America Village Festival of The Tulips: You pick your own $1.50 each

Panda Express 

We stopped at Panda Express Decatur for dinner, where we ordered Honey Walnut shrimp, one egg roll, green beans, chicken, stirred wheat noodles with onions, celery cabbage, and three cream cheese Rangoons 

🎂🎂🎂Father of the Blues "W.C. Handy" Museum 🏛

William Christoper Handy was born November 16, 1873, in Florence, Alabama.  

Come celebrate the birthday of W.C. Handy on November 16 at the Handy Home, Museum, and Library on 620 West College Street in Florence. 

From 11:00AM to 1:00PM you can tour the museum and listen to music on the front lawn of the museum. 

It is free to the public with a birthday cake and other refreshments.

In 2009, my daughter, granddaughter, and I joined in the celebration and toured the Museum, Home, and Library. 

Happy Birthday Father of the Blues "The chocolate cake was  delicious"

Bust of Handy

Picture of Handy 

Library 

Handy and the St Louis Blues

Inside the Cabin

Handy's Piano

Kitchen of Cabin 

The W. C. Handy Birthplace, Museum, and Library, in Florence, Lauderdale County, was established to celebrate the life of musician and composer William "W. C." Handy (1873-1958), known as the "Father of the Blues." Handy himself donated the seed money to set up the museum, which now includes several buildings and houses a large collection of memorabilia, personal items, and objects relating to Handy's musical career. 

Handy gave to the city the $29,000 he was paid for the land on which the cabin stood to be used for the future restoration of his childhood home as a museum. The cabin was carefully dismantled and the logs were numbered and stored for later reassembly. Handy also bequeathed a large number of his personal possessions to the city to be used in the cabin after a suitable new location was found.

A site was selected at 620 West College Street, in the southwest corner of town. Work began early in 1970 on reassembling the log cabin and on constructing a museum next to the cabin to properly house and display the artifacts and tell the story of Handy's life and career. The completed structure was filled with the artifacts that the Handy family sent to Florence from their home in New York, including the upright piano on which Handy composed the "St. Louis Blues," his brass trumpet, furniture, and numerous boxes of his letters, pictures, musical compositions, personal mementos, and datebooks.

Local citizens donated furnishings and other items that represented the period during which Handy lived there as a child. The W. C. Handy Museum opened to the public on June 7, 1970. 

A separate building was added in 1980 to house the Black Heritage Library, which was filled with books donated to or purchased for the museum under the direction of the Cabin Committee. 

In 2002, an addition was constructed that included a new area for the Black Heritage Library, office space, a kitchen, and a restroom as well as a community meeting room.

Article from the Encyclopedia of Alabama 

2016 September 10, Saturday, Oka Kapassa, British Car Show &🎂🎂🎂 Birthday at Pond Springs

My first stop was the dollar store, for a Diet Coke and a package of NeKote's cookies, my favorite.
I ate the package of NeKote cookies and drank a diet Coke, not a very good breakfast, but I was hungry and did not want to stop anywhere to eat 
I arrived around 11:00AM at Joe Wheeler Lodge and State Park.
I parked near Joe Wheeler Lodge which was on a hill. 
The parking below looked to be full so I had to walk down the hill to view the cars. 

The cars that were in the British car show were parked in the shade near the bank of the Tennessee River.
The first row of cars was facing the Tennessee River so I walked along the sidewalk taking pictures. When the front row ended I walked back through the grass to view the second row of British cars. 

I saw in the Tennessee River, tied up at the pier sailboats, cabin cruisers, & motorboats.
I think I got a picture of most of the cars on display.
When I finished taking pictures I walked back up the hill and drove to Wheeler Plantation.

Jaguar

1960 morgan

1951 Riley 

I saw Jaguars, Class A; MGB, New Mini Class O, 2007 Jaguar Vanden Plas, Empire, Morgan Plus 4 DHZ, Riley AMD, DHC, Vanden P125 Princess 1300, Empire Sedan, 1961Austin Healy Buqaye, & 1959 Austin Healy, 1977 Trump TR6, 1972 Trump TR6, 9171 Trump TR6, 1973 Trump, 1969 Trump, 1979 Trump Spitfire, 1975 Trump Spitfire, 1975 MGB Roadster, 1980 MGB, 1976 MGB, 1980 MB, MG Roadster 1975, 1959 MGA Twin Cam, 1959 Austin Healy. 

Tennessee River full of Sailboats

I took 101 across Wheeler Dam, turning left onto hwy 270, then left on Alt 72 east/20, traveling to Wheeler Plantation at Pond Springs. 
I arrived around 12:00pm, at the entrance of the Wheeler Home was a Fire/Rescue Truck with its ladder extended with the words the City of Courtland.
I saw several motorcycle riders, men dressed as Confederate Soldiers, with 1st Battalion Mechanized Cavalry written on the back of their shirts. There were two black, one white, and two brown horses standing near the white fence near the house. 

City of Courtland Fire-truck

Horse and riders 

Motorcycle and riders

Joe Wheeler Home at Pond Springs

The Well-house 

The slave quarters 

Vendor selling food 

I talked to a woman whose father worked as a caretaker of the plantation many years back.
She told me a story about when she was in school and had to write a paper about the plantation.
Her teacher gave her a D because she said no one could go inside the plantation and look at the papers she did not know that her father knew the owner and had let her do her homework by reading the papers, the owner called the school and she got an A.
I walked to the cemetery and looked inside the well and a couple of the outside buildings.

My Next stop was going to be Spring Park in Tuscumbia. I traveled west on Highway 20 to 72 West, turning right onto South Woodmont Drive. 
I parked near Cold Water Book Store, and I walked down the hill to Spring Park.
I walked around taking pictures of the creek, ducks, swans, geese, vendors, and the people that were in the park.

Swan, Ducks @Spring Park 

I watched the Indian dances and listened to the storytellers and music.
Amy Bluemel a Native American Story Teller told a story to the children that she had gathered around her. 

Native Tribal Dancing Oka Kapassa 

She told a story about a baby rattlesnake.
He begged for rattles, well he finally received rattles and he frightened everyone he met until one day he tried to frighten a little girl. 
She was frighted but she also stomped on the little snake rattles destroying them.
He went home crying and should have listened to his father. 
Amy was still telling stories when I left. 

Amy Bluemel a Native American Story Teller

I was hot, tired, and very thirsty.
I walked through the park, past the waterfall wanting to put my feet into the water but I did not stop. I kept walking along the sidewalk up the hill to where I had parked.
I rode to Chick-fil-A in Muscle Shoals where I ordered a kids ' strip meal, which included two chicken strips, a fruit cup, tea, and ice cream. 
At Chick-fil-A, I tried to upload my pictures to FB and Flickr but the internet was too slow.

Ice Cream with Fruit

Chicken fingers