If you read our column regularly you know that we often start with a question. Today’s question is ‘How are potatoes and people alike?’ Whaaaat? Maybe you think we’ve lost our minds. No, we haven’t, it’s the sadness from the recent events.

“How are you doing?” That’s what a neighbor next door yelled across the front yard as she showed us the pink begonias she was going to plant. Also, as he walked his dog, another neighbor shouted from the street, “How’re you doing?” We asked them the same question. We all know what people mean.

What have you been feeling as you are going through this pandemic? Many people have been feeling some grief and sense of loss. There is so much to grieve amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. There have been many lives lost of in our state, our country and the world. At this time we see that the number of those getting sick and dying from the virus is growing in Minnesota.

How are you living through this “lockdown”? We wondered because most people are really getting tired of it. We don’t know how long this distancing will go on and that fact can be quite disturbing. So we have to find ways to live through it in the best ways possible.

What life lessons did you learn from your mom? With Mother’s Day near, we want to honor all moms, past and present, and what they taught us.

For me (Doug), this will be a deeply personal column because my mother, Althea Nodland, passed away peacefully last week at home with us.

Have you ever had anxiety? Of course we all have and when it grows, it becomes a fear. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could quarantine anxiety and keep it from growing in ourselves and others? Yes, it would, and we’ll suggest some ways!

Are you feeling groovy or grouchy sheltering at home? With the stay at home edict during this pandemic, maybe you are feeling somewhere in between, more like cabin-fever is setting in. Or you might have other ways to describe how you are feeling about being shut in.