Social Distancing Activities, for the folks not yet ready to dip their toes into an outing:
Plan a Movie Night In
Since a trip to a movie theater is out of the question, why not create your own theater experience at home. Pop a bunch of popcorn, grab an assortment of snacks and fill a cup or glass with your favorite drink. Curl up on the couch and start the film. If you have a projector (and the weather is not too hot), take your movie viewing outside. You can watch movies with loved ones who live outside your home by hopping on a video chat and pressing play at the same time. Alternatively, both Netflix Party and Prime Video Watch Party allow users to watch content and chat online simultaneously with their families and friends. These options are available for the Netflix and Amazon Prime Streaming services, respectively.
Make a Photo Album, you know, the one you “Never Had Time for”
Pull out your boxes of photos, look through the photos on your PC and your phone, or on your camera cards, and select some good ones for printing. The experience of viewing old photos is fun and will bring back lots of happy memories of times shared with family, friends, and beautiful places visited. Choose some good pix, print them, and make an album. Once you have finished, you will be glad you did. Plus, after months of the Pandemic and hanging around our homes, we no longer have any excuses that start with “I just don’t have the time”.
Make a Grateful List
Sit down, reflect on all the things in your life that you are grateful for and make a list. This is a great way to feel joy and be thankful for the wonderful times, friends, family, and the joy life has given to you. Making my list filled me with warm, wonderful feelings and helps to calm the worries that this Pandemic has inflicted upon us all. I typed my list and keep it on my refrigerator, each time I look at it I do feel inner peace and joy.
Have some Youtube Fun
Log on to Youtube and check out the underwater camera live in Deerfield Beach, Florida. The underwater video is amazing. The city has installed Spinner, the Sea Camera, at the bottom of the city’s landmark fishing pier, which stretches out over the ocean nearly 1,000 feet from the shoreline at a depth of about 30 feet. You can see everything from parrotfish to sharks to sea turtles. The water is blue, and the view is breathtaking. The water is clear, the fish are plentiful. This view and experience is awesome, and as near to a snorkel trip as you can get without getting wet. Continue your armchair vacation by tripping around the world via you tube. No ticket, no passport, and no unnecessary exposure to the virus. This is a great way to see where you have been and a great way to view where you want to go, (once this pandemic is history).
StarGaze with a Telescope
Since the Pandemic, we have quite a few clients and friends who have invested in a Telescope to Star Gaze, Moon Watch, and to help them see the space shots from their front lawn or rear lanai. One of our friends said, “Although We may not be able to travel, our eyes through the lens of the telescope, can safely travel to new beautiful places”. October will be a great month for Moon Watching. 2020 has delivered a Pandemic to us, a Presidential Election, lots of worry, unemployment, job and food insecurity for millions of our fellow world citizens, and 13 full moons. In October we will enjoy two full moons, the Harvest Moon on October 1st and the Full Hunter’s moon on the 31st. Being full moons, both October Moons will rise around sunset.
While Stargazing through a telescope we were reminded of a wonderful evening spent in Flagstaff at the Lowell Observatory viewing the stars with the Lowell Educators. It was at this Observatory in Flagstaff that Pluto, once believed to be the ninth planet, was discovered by astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh. If you are lucky enough to be there on a dark night when the sky is clear, you too can climb up the ladder of one of the telescopes at the observatory and view the planets and stars but until then, it is fun to view the stars from Solivita.