Wednesday- Sunday

WEDNESDAY 

The Nebraska coronavirus site was down yesterday morning when I checked it, so I just decided to wait until today to post. As of yesterday at 5:45 p.m., there were 1722 cases of Coronavirus and we are up to 38 deaths. That's 10 more deaths over the last time I posted... Pretty significant!

The national site finally updated their stats yesterday. Now they're saying May 9th is our peak date! Wow that's a big difference from the 1st! And they moved the deaths up to six on the peak date date, 3 up from last time. This may be due to the big jump in deaths. However, the actual number of deaths as of August 4th is now predicted to be 245. That's nearly twice what they were predicting the last time they updated these numbers, but still almost half of what it was a couple weeks ago. 

I took down Hoya amoena this morning and saw at least two new vines. I also took two single leaf cuttings off of the plant to start. It's such a pretty plant... and it seems to be very happy where it is in the west window in my bedroom.

I also took down Michelle and found that it has a new vine close to soil line, and I also saw a growth nubbin on the opposite side from that tiny vine. So it looks like it will have two new vines which will make it look like a much fuller plant! I'll also note here that the one that I started last year in the seashell, because I was afraid the mother plant was dying off, also has a new vine with new leaves. I think this is going to be a good year for Michelle!

I took one of my Aloes outside that has a whole bunch of Drimia bulbs growing at the base of the plant. I had to take a picture of them because they've been sitting in the south window and have such beautiful spots. What's likely going to happen is those beautiful leaves will burn in the sun, so I wanted to get a picture of them before that happens. What I usually do is whack all the new growth off of them and let them restart in the sun. But I think I'll wait and see what happens before I do that.

I took a photo a week or so ago of my Pachypodium --- with a single flower. Today, it's covered with flowers!

FRIDAY 

As of yesterday at 5:45 p.m., there were 2124 cases of coronavirus. The deaths are up to 47, and it's my understanding that we had 9 deaths yesterday alone! The numbers are really starting to jump, thiugh it's still nothing like the more populated cities and states. Cass County right now remains at 4 cases of Coronavirus. Hall County is up to 647, and our county, Douglas, is 327. Still not that bad when you think of Omaha as having between 500,00 and 600,000 people.

Yesterday, I went down to Plattsmouth. Wednesday was Mom's birthday, so we got together, picked up some lunch and went out to Merry's business, Mr. Landscape, and sat at a picnic table and had lunch and visited for a couple hours. Rick joined us periodically when he could. It was nice to see everyone... Seems like so long! And when I dropped Mom off, I gave her a big hug, right out there in public, then high-tailed it out of town! Figured someone might call the cops! Haha!

A lot has happened in the last few days. After I signed the contract for the new roof, I decided I had better get going on the new deck. That is, before I lose my nerve! It's a lot of money to spend, but it has to be done! The thing has rotted through in so many places, I'm afraid I might fall through one day! So I contacted Jeff, my yard guy, who said he knows someone who does decks. Well, apparently that guy isn't taking on any work now, but he gave me the name of (no less) a roofer who lives next door to him who also does decks. I told the guy that I was looking at a deck that's about half the size of the one I have now, maybe 8 x 8, but I couldn't afford a ton of money. He told me that he just got done with the deck that was 10 x 10 that was $4,400! I told him whoa Nelly, that's out of my price range so I guess I'm going to have to have more or less a little porch out of my back door as it was when we bought the house 33 years ago. Well, later that day he came over and took a look at it with his brother, the one who actually does the work, and they determined that the structure underneath, footings, framework, etc., was still in good condition and that they could do more or less a "facelift". Meaning, they can replace the floor and the rails and the stairs but not have to do any of the underneath work, and it would remain the same size of 8 x 16. They came up with the number of $2200, which I decided I can live with. The plan was for them to start in a week, but suddenly something changed in their schedule and they started yesterday! He's supposed to be done today, assuming it doesn't start raining. It's looking awesome! Can't wait to post a photo when it's done. Our last deck was put on in 1995, so I figured this should be the last time I have to do it!

SUNDAY

As of yesterday at 5:45 p.m., there were 2732 cases of coronavirus in Nebraska and 53 deaths. The most updated information for Iowa, which looks like it's from two days ago, shows that they have 5092 cases of coronavirus and 112 deaths. Interestingly, Pottawattamie County only has 20 cases... That includes Council Bluffs, which is literally right across the river from Omaha and their population is often included when people talk about metro area population. It's much like Kansas City Kansas and Kansas City Missouri. Technically they're two cities, but the only thing that separates them is the river. The majority of the cases in Iowa seem to be in Polk County which is Des Moines' county. The other two big numbers in Iowa are the counties that includes Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. Seems like Iowa has a lot more cases per capita, but when I run the numbers they're at 1.6% of their population and we're at 1.4% of our population, so really not a big difference.

Nebraska has decided to open up restaurants and salons as of 4th of May, which is a week from tomorrow. I cannot wait to get a pedicure! A couple days ago, I conned Mark into taking my old toe polish off as the looked like total shit! I cannot wear flip-flops with them looking like that! Boy do I owe him something for that! He must have spent a half an hour working on them. And they desperately need to be trimmed... I hacked at them myself a little bit, but they really need to be properly trimmed and shaped. I'll see if I can't get an appointment ASAP.

As for restaurants opening back up, my understanding is that they have been instructed that they can only serve half their capacity... in other words they need to spread everyone out. That's probably not a bad idea for a while. I imagine it will be a challenge to get into a lot of restaurants. I don't know how they're going to deal with people standing around waiting for tables... That's not going to be acceptable! I would think a viable solution would be to take phone numbers so that people could sit in their cars and call them when a table is available. I really can't think of much more of a solution than that.  Oh, and no one can come in and simply order drinks - you must be dining in order to drink...

Well, it took all of Saturday for him to finish the deck, so it was a bigger project than they anticipated apparently. But they stuck to their bid! We added the lattice work below the deck for an extra $150 which seemed reasonable. They did such an awesome job, and even did the lattice under the steps which wasn't there before, so I added a $50 tip for the guy that actually did the work.  He went the extra mile for us. I will be calling them back for all kinds of other projects. They did a really really amazing job!  Pics to follow...

The new stairs, that have better support underneath them...

So here it is Thursday and I haven't posted anything all week and I did not get this published. I will go into why that is when I start my next post, so for now I'll get this one published and get onto a new one...