I had planned on spending Fridays in December composing and posting my annual Christmas letter. Then suddenly here we are, two weeks until Christmas and I haven’t really started this thing. Instead of a rambling rendition of my year, you’ll get it crammed into two issues now.
The first of January began with our family Christmas gathering at our house. How could we have ever guessed that it would be the last time we’d all ever be together.
Of course, January was taken up with the first
rumors of this new virus which had ravaged a city in China. You know the
stories, the facts, the spread, so I won’t repeat any of it here. Except to say
that we effectively shut down around my state towards the beginning, and then –
well, here we are, today, with some of the highest rates in the country. I wish
I could leave the whole pandemic here and not mention it in this letter again,
but I’m afraid that the coronavirus did consume our year.
On February 5, Hubby called me at the clinic to say he had fallen on the ice at work and thought he broke his arm, could I get him in for an x-ray. I thought he was being dramatic, until I saw that x-ray. Yikes! He had surgery two days later.
The weekend of February 22, with Hubby’s arm in a sling, we drove down for an overnight at our son’s. For the middle of winter, the weather was stellar and we had a nice visit.
When Hubby went back to his surgeon for a repeat x-ray
on March 23, instead of being turned lose with a healed arm, he was told he
needed another surgery, the screw they put in hadn’t held and they needed to
put in a metal plate. Needless to say, he was devasted.
As would turn out with all holidays this year,
Easter came and went, without seeing the family. Good thing there were no
travel plans, because nine inches of snow fell throughout that day. Winter
hadn’t been too bad up to that point, but it suddenly seemed to want to hang
on.
The next day, April 13, we bought a new truck. Ok, hardly new as it is a 2011 with close to 100,00 miles on it. But a solid four-wheel drive in great condition. We’ve been looking for quite a while, and this bad boy was exactly what we were looking for.
Thanks to the pandemic, we had to cancel our
spring vacation which had been planned for later in April. We decided that was
all for the best, as Hubby’s arm was still in a sling and the weather was still
pretty cold out.
We did take a drive to Spirit Falls the end of that week.
And another ride to Manitowish Waters the following week. I remember that day clearly as we heard on the radio that we had the first reported case of COVID19 in our county. It had felt up to that point like we would be able to hold the whole pandemic at bay where we live in the sheltered Northwoods, but we could only imagine what we were in store for.
The end of May, Hubby finally got the all clear
from his surgeon to return to work. He drives school bus, and since school had
been closed for months due to the pandemic, he didn’t have any work to return
to. His checks just flipped from work comp to a much heftier unemployment.
The second weekend of June, we took the new truck (and old camper, of course) camping to Lake of the Falls. Beautiful area which I’ve visited a lot, but never camped at. Nice weekend, but cold sleeping in a popup trailer with no heat. Oh, but if only I knew then that it would be the last time we’d have to deal with cold June nights while camping!
But that’s it for this week. A few teasers in
this post to bring you back next Friday to see what the second half of 2020
brought our way.
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