An Up and Down Week

 Election week (a long time coming), down to 8 weeks left in the year, and another weekly update post on life in general, health goals, and reading ...

1. On the personal life front this week, things were pretty static. My dad continues to be home, which is good, and shows slow signs of improvement, but still has a ways to go to any type of full recovery. Things outside of that continue to be a swirling mess of anxiety and other random emotions.

The election this week marked the first time I have not worked the general election polls since 2008; I've worked every election - local, state, national - in the past 12 years, both primary and general. To be honest, it was a bit weird not to be there this year. As I watched the news from Tuesday night on, and saw how the media often talked about the election, and how in particular the President and his surrogates talked about the election, it reminded me of how little so many people know about the mechanics of elections in this country. Certainly, knowing about the processing and timing of mail-in and absentee ballots, the process for provisional ballots, the timeline for military ballots, are not things all of us should necessarily be informed about; that said, collective ignorance on the issue makes it much easier for disinformation to be spread and distrust to be sowed. Hopefully, our country can move past those attempts, accept the election of Biden to the presidency, and move forward.

The other ongoing saga, as always for 2020, is COVID. Our local community continues to struggle to make the necessary sacrifices and choices to contain the spread, and that is starting to show in a drastic increase in cases. For example, on month ago, on October 8, 7-day moving average of new cases was 71; two weeks later, on October 22, that average was 123; as of today, that average is now up to 241 cases a day - that an astounding 340% increase in cases in the last month. Some of it certainly is due to more testing, but that doesn't come to close to explaining the increase. Testing during that same time period has increased by about 50%; our rate of infection among all testing has gone from 6.2% to 13.9%, more than doubling. Many of the schools are switching to virtual for grades 6-12 for the next couple weeks - not because the schools are spreading it, but because community spread has been so significant that staffing has been an issue in the schools due to quarantining. So, it continues to be the case that until folks are willing to stop forms of social gathering, maintain social distancing, and wear masks when such is not possible, the situation will just keep worse. It continues to be a source of great frustration inside our house - where we continue to sacrifice things we want to do because, in part, of the responsibility we feel towards our community, and see others live like there is no pandemic at all. Truly feels as if we are in for a very, very dark winter, in both the country, and our local community.

But, just to end this section of the post on a good note, Maia continues her horse riding lessons, and this week she go to canter for the first time. She was pretty pumped about it afterwards.

2. On the health front, it was an up and down week. I had more trouble focusing on better eating habits this week - knowing myself, likely due to stress and anxiety from the election. I again only hit the treadmill 4 times this week, but increased the workouts - two times walking 2.5 miles and two times walking 3 miles. I also continue to work on decreasing my caffeine intake, which has long been a goal. My goal for this coming week is to completely avoid it, which, after a month of only having one caffeinated beverage a day, I think is doable.

3. Reading was also a difficult task this week, much due to the same reason - the election. That said, I finished Matt Haig's The Midnight Library, which I absolutely loved; it was such a great reading experience and a worthwhile reflection on meaning, regret, and purpose in life. I continue to slowly work my way through Reaganland, and will likely be picking up Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson (I've read a couple other of her works and have always found them compelling reads).

Tonight's dinner is a slightly different take on homemade pizza, doing them as pizza rolls. Simple base recipe below for Pepperoni Pizza Rolls; we always serve it with pizza sauce for dipping.