This is Atlanta as seen from space. It is the home of around 500,000 people. People like you and me…young, old, professionals, blue collar workers, grandmas and grandpas, moms and dads, kids of all ages and stripes. Imagine, if you will, driving into Atlanta today and find it…empty. Every citizen dead and gone…lost one by one over the course of one year. It’s unthinkable, isn’t it? No one in the airport, no one in the banks or hospitals or shops…every house deserted, collecting dust.

We surpassed that terrible line in the sand yesterday. We have lost 500,000 beautiful souls from this nation. And that is probably a much lower than the actual number of lives lost because not all were diagnosed. Thank God we have passed the holiday surge that threatened to break the medical system. Now we’ll see what happens after spring break.

More and more people are getting vaccinated, although there was a bobble in the system last week from the terrible winter storms across the country. We are heading into a warm week and will probably lose our snow by next weekend. Then it will be mud season. That’s fine with me…that’s what muck boots are for. I would much rather have to kick off my boots at the door than to be shut in because of the ice and snow. We have to be so careful when it’s slick outside. Mr. FixIt is on medication that could make a blow to the head lethal. And my bones are thinning because of this parathyroid tumor. I can’t afford to have a broken hip. So we become more cautious. Just another reminder that time marches inexorably onward.

I really miss getting together with my friends. I came across a photo of my “last normal thing” the other day. I was at dinner with the women from my Bible Study Group. I look at that and think it looks foreign…no masks, sitting next to each other, laughing and hugging. I know we will get there again, but I also know…I will never look at gatherings in the same way for the rest of my life. I will look at them with far more gratitude than I ever did in all my years. AND…I will wash my hands and not touch my face and, even when the threat of covid is minimized, I will still wear a mask during cold and flu season. I mean, why not? I have only had that one little stint of a couple days of sniffles just before Thanksgiving. Masks and good hand washing keep respiratory illnesses at bay. I will be so grateful to have our second shots on Thursday.

Mr. FixIt made split pea soup yesterday. I don’t know what it is about that stuff, but I cannot stand it. It tastes gritty to me, the color is questionable, and even with ham hocks in it, the smell is unappealing. I warmed up leftover Chinese food and called it good. I’m sure we’ll have to freeze some of it since I can’t expect him to spend the rest of the week eating nothing but pale green wallpaper paste…errrr, I mean….split pea soup. 

I’m hoping to get out and walk more with the lovely temperatures coming this week. Wednesday is supposed to get up to 59 degrees here. That sounds like Heaven to me. I hope you all are doing well, are getting through whatever challenges you have been facing, and you are seeing a small glimmer of spring outside your windows today.

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“And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.”

Genesis 1:14-15 ESV