Life at a "Swell's" pace

Hello.

The Coronavirus cases seem to be slowing down throughout the United States for the first time since the outbreak. Which, is good news, but overall the numbers seem to keep going up in the state of Oregon. The CDC posted this week that anyone that's been within six feet of someone infected and near them for more than 15 minutes should get tested. I'm just glad we've all stayed healthy in our house. With the wildfires and the way this year has gone, I don't think I could mentally handle an illness right now. Speaking of the wildfires, They are still burning wildly and some of them are not even controlled. A few of the fires have been contained, so that gives up hope that this will all end soon. The smoke is a bit too much at times, but overall it's getting better. The worst part about all of this is the smoke burning our eyes. Skylar and I both are very sensitive to allergies, so adding wildfire smoke to that mix, it's painful at times. Our hopes are still high that we won't be evacuated here. It seems every country around us is being evacuated and even over at the coast they've had to evacuated a lot of people. This year's wildfires are extremely weird. I've never experienced anything like this before and I hope to never experience anything like this again. Here are five things this week.

1. This Car.

With Skylar having his permit and soon his license, he has been looking at what kind of car he wants to get. Of course, this one is a bit more than he is wanting, but we always love seeing vintage, older model cars. We saw this one near Waterloo Park and stopped the ask the owner if we could take a few pictures of it. Of the older model cars, this body style is one of our favorites.

2. This Daytrip.

Skylar and I took a daytrip to the area where the man had his car accident back in June. We wanted to see how bad the damage was where he had wrecked. It was a lot more burned than we expected and the road even had damage to it, as you can see above. We did take the time to stop and look at the area, and take a few pictures of the coast view from Highway 101, but the emotions for us that day are still very raw. It was traumatizing seeing what happened to that man that day, and we really do hope he is doing okay.

3. These Gummies.

Trying a new THC gummy this month. Not too into these Drops Cherries. They taste too medicinal, and don't really help with anxiety, either. This brand has another flavor of watermelon, so eventually I will be trying those to see how they affect me.

4. This Sign.

Skylar and I rode our bikes from our house to Jeff's work and went through the back roads to avoid the main highway. As we came through some farming areas, this sign was sitting in front of someone's house and an older man came out to tell us about his suspicions of being mind controlled through the contrails from jets. I am a pretty openminded person, but this man's speech on the mind control from the government was way beyond my open mindedness. We told him thank you for the information and best of luck to him.

5. This Kitty.

Now that the smoke is starting to clear up more and more here, our animals are wanting to go back to their normal routines. It's hard to watch them have to either stay inside all of the time, or pinned up. We have slowly been letting them out a little at a time. The wildfires are getting contained slowly, but we are still in a bit of danger, so we still have our guard up.

We even celebrated Jeff's birthday this week. On Wednesday, even though we couldn't do much through the wildfires and the pandemic, Skylar and I tried to make it as special as we could. We ended up putting a sign on the front fence, baked a cake, and bought him a little gift. Through everything that's happened this year, it really comes down to the little things that make people feel important.

This month's Yogi Surprise:

Positive affirmations this week: "What is a positive statement that you love?"

Sharon Tate was a beautiful person and a great actress. Her life was cut short in the summer of 1969 by members of the Manson Family. I've read a lot about her life, goals, and the moments she shined so much. She was almost like a beam of positivity and one of her quotes is my favorite. She said, "I think that if you life for today, tomorrow takes care of itself." It has stuck with me, especially in moments that I feel lost, or when everything seems to compile onto itself and becomes overwhelming.