Sunday Bookends: Still reading the same books (I know. Sad.), crazy Pennsylvania weather and Easter

Today is Easter Sunday! Happy Easter! Or for Christians, happy Resurrection Day! He has risen!

Today marks nine days that my family and I have been living at my parents. Somehow we haven’t gone completely crazy yet, but close a couple of times. My parents are lovely people, but they are . . . also particular about many things. Let’s just put it that way. Anyhow, let me digress from that subject before I get myself in trouble. *wink*

I hesitate to even share what I’ve been reading (which is what I usually do in this post) because, no kidding, it’s the same books I have been reading for probably a month since my brain has been too messed up lately to focus on reading. The house drama coupled with the upside down outside world hasn’t really let my mind calm down too much. On the house front, we are supposed to close on the new house Tuesday. The “old” house has been sold.

We’ll just see how this next week goes because we were told before that we were closing on our new house and didn’t. See how optimistic I’m being? Ha. Ha.

I thought I’d share what the rest of the family is reading instead of what I’m reading (if you want to know what I’m reading just see the last two weeks of Bookends posts. It’s pretty much the same thing.). My 13-year old son is reading Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix. My daughter is having Paddington At Large read to her by me. My husband is reading: Masquerade For Murder by Max Allen Collins and Micky Spalan.

My mom is reading The Art of Hiding by Amanda Prowse.

My dad is reading Facebook and medical articles and way too many news sites. That’s all I’m saying about that.

One nice thing about living at my parents is that we are far removed from the town life we lived in before. My parents live on a hill somewhat in the middle of nowhere, though there is a major roadway across the hill from them. Their small “village” if you want to call it that, has about 20 some houses scattered around, each with a good distance between the other.

Our dog has a lot of space to run in, which she loves. Our cat has less space because she is an indoor cat and my mom is allergic to her. We’ve had her confined in three rooms upstairs in the house for nine days now but we rotate the rooms and if someone is upstairs we leave the doors open and let her roam in and out of whichever room she wants. She enjoys looking out the window in the one room the most. She has tried more than once to escape downstairs but we chase her up very quickly so my mom doesn’t end up scratching  . . . well, I’ll leave that unsaid.

Luckily Mom’s asthma isn’t bothered by cats, or as far as we know. Because we aren’t definite we are trying to be even more cautious with the cat. We know her allergy isn’t as severe as it could be because we have visited many times and probably have cat hair on us and my mom doesn’t react to that hair. It could be different because Pixel, our cat, is an indoor cat and I hear that indoor cats have different dander.

My kids have also enjoyed having more space to roam. My son was never able to use his BB gun where we lived (he used it when we visited my parents) so he was happy to be able to have the freedom to do that.

The weather since we’ve been here has been typical Pennsylvania weather. One day it was warm with sun, the next cold with the sun, the next rainy and on Thursday we had all of them within a span of a day. First, it was raining and windy with ice balls. Then it was sunny and windy. Then it went dark and we had actual snow squalls that blanketed the hills around us. On Good Friday the wind was back to make it cold again. I don’t think you can see the snow in this photo, but the mist you see is actually snow being blown across the valley my parents’ house looks down out on.

By Saturday it was warm again and my husband and I took a drive to try to find better WiFi to download a movie to my phone for the kids to watch. We had to drive 12 miles away to my alma mater and familiar car/motion sickness hit me part of the way there, reminding me quickly of how I got sick every day on my way to school, 180 days out of the year, for six years. I was thinking that by now – 20 plus years later — I wouldn’t get so sick on that road, but alas I still feel sick, get a headache and want to climb out of the car and clutch the earth after I’ve been in a car weaving down the road on what is called Welles Mountain. If I hadn’t been so sick, I would have taken a photo to show you the road and how curvy it is. The trip wasn’t even that productive since the open WiFi we found still wouldn’t download the movie I wanted. My parents do have WiFi but because of old lines, it sometimes goes in and out and can’t handle large downloads or gaming.

Thanks to that ride to school, most of the people in my school thought I was either stuck up or high because I spent the first half of the school day squinting and trying to keep my breakfast down and the room from spinning.

Anyhow, as for what we have been watching . . . not tons because we don’t have streaming at my parents. They do have DirectTV thankfully so the kids have been able to watch some cartoons. For Easter, we watched a couple of specials on TBN, including Sight and Sounds’ Jesus production (which is still streaming today, Sunday, on the TBN app for those who are interested.). We also watched a special with Chris Tomlin and Max Lucado and another special from Joseph Prince.

I thought I’d share with you some of our photos from our last days at our house, from scenes around our area right now with “all that is going on,” (There is something I’ll be glad to never type again one day.), and the kids and dog having fun at their grandparents.

So, what have all of you been doing in quarantine? What have you been reading, watching, baking? Let me know in the comments.

I’m also leaving you with one of my favorite Easter songs: