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Some Final April Showers

It's been a pretty cloudy and rainy week. Fortunately, however, there was just enough clear skies to enjoy the outdoors while the temperatures rose this week. Not that the rain is all bad in itself, since it definitely helped dissolve the last of my weed and feed application, breathed life into the vegetation much more quickly, and proved to us how smart it was to put our new shed up on wood planks rather than simply sitting in the dirt.
There's been a slight spike in COVID-19 cases in my state. Probably because much of our state was forced to vote in-person for the primary election, and 52 people who did so have been confirmed to have the disease. Apparently there's no plans for anything different for the special congressional election in two weeks so I suppose we can expect another spike after that. I would put all the blame on the government but it seems like a growing number of people think the government should stop protecting its people and end the lockdowns during an active worldwide pandemic. On a totally unrelated note, I wonder if our country's broken education system is ever going to come back to bite us?

But on a personal note, all has been going relatively well for us this week. My partner's first week working again has been a bit rough since her workload consists of a lot of busywork right now and she misses being a full-time mother and hearing our daughter's constant babbling throughout the house, but otherwise she's been a trooper about it and has still managed to make a  lot of fun memories with our daughter. I'm continuing to stay busy with my remote work, both for the office and video game, the latter of which I wrapped up quite a big project on yesterday.

In gaming news I beat the indie cyberpunk game Dex that I had been playing and started on Fallout: New Vegas next. I've gotten to play more Team Fortress 2 with friends online, and yesterday we had a slightly bigger group for virtual board game night where we played Deep Sea Adventure again and a newer party game called Wavelength where the other game writer and I proved how great of a team we are by winning twice. I'm almost mad at myself for never doing regular gaming meet-ups in the past since it's turning out to be such a great way to stay social.
Our daughter continues to grow and surprise us every day. She just turned 18 months old yesterday which just underscores how quickly time passes. Somehow she's halfway on her way to three years old already. What a scary thought!

I'm going to have another three-day weekend as I'm taking off of work next Monday to spend some more time with my family. I can't express enough how grateful I am that my employer not only allows this during such a crazy time but flat-out encouraged me to take the whole day off when I mentioned taking only half. It's just further proof that it's the kind of place I wouldn't mind working at for a long time.

Stay healthy and sane!
-Ryan
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