Little Steps Poster ©Felipe Adan Lerma
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/little-steps-poster-felipe-adan-lerma.html

It seems an extraordinary length of time since my last blog post (SilverSneakers workouts online), especially considering all that’s transpired in our lives.

I wish I had a better excuse/reason for not posting, but I just couldn’t get myself to.

First I was simply overwhelmed, my wife & I actually, with tentatively stockpiling food and hygiene items we might need “if” we needed them, while continuing fitness classes and seeing the youngest grandchild as able.

Then it was going to 1 or more stores per day for durable goods, plus replenishing produce to extend more than a couple of days, having gotten comfortable for years buying as needed, on demand, or also known as in-time. It was beginning to be obvious, even if all turned out less serious than expected. Plus, with rumors of gyms closing, among a vastly reduced number of people going and increased # of sanitary wipes round most every corner inside, we stepped up our pace to the gym and fitness classes.

Finally stores started closing. The gyms closed. Grocery stores began shortening hours to allow their employees time to both rest & restock. Restaurants closed. Bookstores closed. Small businesses, then larger big boxes, closed. Amazon began hiring thousands of workers for its warehouses, and restricted delivery of non medical and non-household products by vendors to those warehouses. The news became a contest of what was true, why things weren’t being mobilized, and the fight in congress heated up in a hurry to bailout large affected businesses with negotiations for an amount to all the workers suddenly being laid off indefinitely.

People began dying in numbers we’d only seen from other countries, or in moments of extreme violence.

It’d all been predicted, but not prepared for.

It was a shock.

All the while, the schools closed in Austin. UT shut down, going online. SXSW was cancelled.

Though generally healthy, but in the target age group for most vulnerable, Sheila and I had early on began practicing social distancing. We also ate well, better even. More veggies. More sleep – can’t tell you what a blessing that’s been for me, lol! 😊

Scheduled and got in one more overnight with the 7 year old, then shut down.

A sore throat I had worsened, but no fever. A cough wanted to start, but didn’t. Reluctantly, I saw my primary care doctor. I knew from literally a lifetime of respiratory problems I had an infection. Typically I’d wait til I knew I couldn’t fight it off any longer, then went to the dr. This time I went early, when I felt the first tickle of infection wanting to leave my sinuses and throat and drop into my bronchiole tubes, and my doctor confirmed what I instinctively knew, prescribed me antibiotics and a strong cough medicine, the latter for as needed, and last night and today are the best I’ve felt in a couple of weeks ❤️

Our children in Austin want us to stay put & they’ll bring us whatever we might need —

Sheila and I are beyond fortunate! 💕

So, if I am able, I’ll be doing this theme for a bit – Aging Through Covid-19.

I’ll be more brief, I hope, than this post 😊 and change topics – sometimes about my art, or our fitness efforts, or simply ruminating. It seems, if I’m also lucky, I’ll have more time ☺️

I’ll provide links to either useful (fitness, safety, mindfulness), uplifting, or informative articles about what’s being learned about this virus, treatments being tested, and such.

But no blame pieces, lol 😂

We’re all in this together, whether we like it or not.

There’s plenty of sites that blame others, point fingers, are genuinely angry.

Nothing wrong with that. If the information sparking blame or angry is true. I read some. I gloss over some. I ignore some.

We’ll either make it through this, or not. I’m working on the assumption we will. 💕

Each time I post while doing this series (may it be a short series, but if so, for positive reasons 😊), I’ll post one or more links to posts I feel are worth seeing or reading. Some will be COVID-19 specific, some just uplifting, some encouraging via exercise or nutrition etc, but all within the rubric of what we’re all facing tougher ❤️

Stay well everyone!

Adan

Suggested link, more open access books at the Library of Congress – https://the-digital-reader.com/2020/03/29/library-of-congress-expands-its-collection-of-open-access-ebooks/ via a great books/internet digest via Nate! 😊

Do you have good, positive, useful or encouraging info to share? Please post in the moderated comments below 😊

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My Related Posts Here On My Blog

My Latest Posts On My Website!

• October 20, 2021 – Sold! At the Old Bakery and Emporium (across from the State Capital) Austin, Texas – Paris Dreams (Dreaming of Paris)October 20, 2021
  I’m very grateful to my buyer at the Old Bakery & Emporium in Austin Texas! 🙏 With as few months as the Old Bakery’s been reopen, and all the precautions needed to be taken recently here in Austin, it’s a miracle to be able to share my art a this time 💕
• October 19, 2021 – Turning 71 Feels Like Turning on the Spigots!October 19, 2021
  I’ve meandered around what to write for my birthday post this year, probably reflecting not exactly the chaos (though there’s enough of that, lol!) but the whirl of activity in my life right now – fitness activities, art – of all kind, family, and the stutteringly slow but certain shift from unbearable 6 month summer in Austin to, well, breathable walkable art-doable weather ❤️ Weatherman says the weekend days’ highs into my birthday (Tuesday) are the coolest temps since mid-April. That’s a very long time, lol! 😅
• October 18, 2021 – A Good Problem, Lots of Interesting Pics and Posts Developing in My Blog Pipeline! Part 3, 1st Completed Work of 5 – “Playtime, Mother and Child”October 18, 2021
  I’m also breaking a bit of tradition in terms of my routine and going ahead and posting my completed image, not as good a resolution etc as I’d like (yet), and also not yet uploaded to Fine Art America. It’s simply a time choice. Paint and create. Or paint less but massage the photo capture & upload to FAA more. It’s not really a win-lose thing.
• October 17, 2021 – My Most Viewed Image For a 2nd Week @FineArtAmerica, Abstract Study 1, #watercolorOctober 17, 2021
  Though I’ve had some of my images repeat a 2nd week or more, or return again after awhile to place top of my views for the week at Fine Art America, it’s still rare for an abstract of mine to do so. It’s sorta ironic for me, since I began painting in earnest in the 80s creating acrylic abstracts (after fooling around doing clouds and Dali-ish dripping clocks in my 20s 😊), and then….
• October 16, 2021 – My Idea for Promoting My WordPress Blog Posts on Twitter (Besides My Pinned Tweet), Part 2October 16, 2021
  Knowing me, I doubt this’ll be my final tweet format I can use on Twitter to let folks see & know what my most recent blog posts are. I of course tweet the individual blog posts themselves out, often using them here in my posts. But I felt the need for a more inclusive, easy to change to keep up-to-date format and after some earlier incarnations, this tweet above may work for me for awhile, changing the screen shot of my current blogs as needed 😊
• October 15, 2021 – 2nd Time Out Sketching with Austin’s #UrbanSketchers Group! Still a Treat! #PeaseParkOctober 15, 2021
  Though immensely more challenging this time around for October’s outting with Austin’s Urban Sketchers chapter (heat indexes near 100 – hopefully a forerunner to an expected cool front; traffic challenges due to Austin City Limits festival), and, not particularly enamored with my resultant efforts this time around — — it was so good to talk with other artists! Be out among so many folks and families, and, “try” my 2nd time out painting plein air since (I think) the early 2000s!
• October 14, 2021 – My Idea for Promoting My WordPress Blog Posts on Twitter (Besides My Pinned Tweet), Part 1October 14, 2021
  I have my pinned tweet on my Twitter timeline of course, where I show images of my work on Fine Art America, with link to my site there of course, and, also list my blog site here on WordPress. But as you can tell above, the latter, my WordPress website, gets not that much focus. Though if you’d like to retweet it, please do, lol! 😊 So basically, I asked myself, how – beyond a 2 short lines in the text – can I better promote my WordPress site, along with my Fine Art America site?

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Thanks again, everyone! 😊

Adan

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