Beauty is all around us

A promise of things to come...

And the wrapping continues...but Mon. morning I took all the little pieces to UPS, where they will finish putting heavy duty wraps on the pieces of pottery that my friend Cathy Babula made. I should have taken some photos of it before I started with all the bubble wrap and tape. Then I put prettty Chrismas wrapping paper on them...and will leave the final wrap for the UPS guys.

Shades of red...a whole tomato cut into bite size chunks, sprinkled with sea salt...on a poppy designed plate.

A friend made a wonderful minestrone which I loved eating. She sent me the recipe. Then we talked on the phone and she told me another thing that she kind of added. It was so good, and I want to make some too!
 

Tues was a run around day. I started out early to get some groceries, and to avoid as many people as possible. Before I got in my car, the maintenance man said I should have my right front tire looked at, as it was low again. I would have postponed it, but he said if you go fast and it heats up, it could explode.

So I spent the next hour having the tire looked at by the Black Mountain Tire guys...on the side sort of. He couldn't find a leak, so he took the whole thing off and went somewhere and ground off the rust, which he thought made it leak. And then when I asked him what I owed him he said what he'd done...but he wasn't going to write up a ticket. So I gave him $10. I hope that was enough.

It was most of the cash in my wallet, and I felt funny pulling out 3 more dollars.

Anyway, off I went to see if my favorite frozen dinners had been restocked since last week, when they were almost all gone. Nope...so I bought 2 of the vegetarian meals by Amy. They are pricey, but when I'm sick I don't want to dirty pans, then have to wash them. To be honest, they are already dirty, watiting till I feel well enough to stand in the kitchen for 20 minutes.

It wasn't a crowded store, but several young children (who don't require masks) were skipping around everywhere. I kept avoiding them. I wondered if school is out for the holidays already.

Brought the groceries home, and then loaded up one bag of non-perishibles, and dropped it off at church to be donated to the local mission which has free groceries for those in need. It feels good to have enough to share.

I then waited till time to get to my doctor appointment, by eating some lunch and reading a book from the library. Got to the doctor's office early, sat far apart from others, all of us wearing masks. But some kind of mix up meant a guy who had just been worked into the schedule got in ahead of me, so after about an hour, I finally was shown to the first room, and then a few minutes later to another one. My doctor said having a recurrent fever and cough might well be COVID. He asked if I wanted to take part in a research study using a 15 minute test. He also would send a test for flu and another one for COVID to a lab. The 15 minutes went by fast, because the nurse ended up having to repeat one of the tests 3 times. Why? She said she dropped it on the floor twice. She apologized and said she was having a bad day.

I apparently wasn't. My test was negative, for the 4th test since May.  So my doctor put me on antibiotics, and some steroids for a short time. He's figuring it's bronchitis. I know there wasn't much else he could do...so will hope this knocks this bug right out.

Thanks for reading through today's adventures. I came home and had soup for dinner.