Two months nearly

 I put my head down and made masks for a solid week. Hundreds of them I imagine. I’m out of elastic for now and frankly happy to be sewing other things. I am
About 35 shy of a personal goal I set for myself, and I would still like to reach that I think.

 Dave had a quarantine birthday. When I went to make the usual lime poke cake I discovered I had no sweetened condensed milk. I attempted to
Make it, made caramel on accident, went to Walgreens hoping they’d have a can so I could avoid waiting in a bread line, and found one last can in there on clearance,

 It’s rained a fair amount which makes for tough days.

I worked a little on a new decorating theme.

Dave started building the kids tree house (we had the supplies delivered).

I went in Walmart to buy groceries for the first time. It was weird. Like ohhhh I can make choices!

The US has over a million cases now. (Probably triple that since it’s impossible to get a test.) Despite not being on the decline things are scheduled to open Up on Monday. It’s been two months now. All the talk is the economy! The economy! It certainly is in the shitter, but what’s coming when everyone rushes out might be worse. Since everything for the kids is cancelled (no summer school, no summer camps, no swimming pools, etc) we will just be hanging close to home anyway. (Although maybe soon Dave will return to work?) there is some vaccine progress at Oxford, with optimistic talk
Of a vaccine by fall.

The kids are feeling plenty done with distance learning and I am feeling plenty done with overseeing it. They’ve decided we can stop on May 21, and we have fridays off now.

We ate lettuce from the garden for Dave’s birthday. The peas don’t seem to love the boxes but radishes and lettuces do. I planted more this week to start a second round. Soon it’ll be time to plant the peppers and tomatoes.

I’m off to pick my book back up for a bit since the sun is shining!

Some days you are able to just cruise along like this is no big deal.

And then there are others. Making masks is a weirdly emotional thing to do - sad, really.

People have started protesting. I get it, everyone feels like a sitting duck on both sides of the fence I suppose. I have no idea how businesses, or the economy, recover from this. Everything on tv Is one dire prediction after another. And then yesterday we ended up with a pretty massive pay cut. It’s hard not to panic at least a little. Everything is uncertain, you still can’t easily but so many things, and my own ability to make money has been shut down as well. I depend on that - not as income security, but as mental security that I can always make a buck if we need it.

So, that’s what this week has held. I need to sit with this financial thing a few days and get my head around it I suppose. If this doesn’t start to turn around soon it starts crushing dreams for next year too. Bleak thoughts.

We’ve had a little kerfluffle with jack about school work that he was apparently not completing. I have NEVER had to even think twice about jack and school, and that bugs too. I 1000% understand his attitude and reluctance, but here we are kid. All
Of us. And like most things in life, this just must be done.

Easter in quarantine

Well, Easter was surely different, no? I set a pretty table just for us, and cooked the usual meal as best I could (ham, roast chicken, pea salad, deviled eggs, funeral potatoes, strawberry cake). The bunny left baskets, we dyed eggs (fewer than usual). We took bunny ear photos in our nice enough clothes. 

Because there was no visit to the bunny this year I ordered a costume at the last minute. It was stuck in New Jersey FOREVER and I feared it wouldn’t arrive, but then it did on Black Friday! The look on the kids faces when Dave came around the corner is one to remember for sure. It took the sting out of missing tradition to be sure. 

I made rabbits, maybe my best ones yet! 

We had an egg hunt, complete with gold coins, inside due to rain. 

There is a little less candy, but no ones really noticed. 

We skipped zooming into church, mainly bc I just wasn’t into it. I spent the time sewing ever more masks instead, and gathering up all the previous Easter bunny photos to make one album for them. (And discovering three are missing. Then I had to try and find the photos to order another copy.) 

Thurs, week 4

It was so, so hot for a few days. Record breaking heat of 91 degrees! I had Dave get out the sprinkler to keep the kids busy for a bit.

I washed all the windows and now the screens are so clean! 

We’ve had a few school bumps in the road - mainly sorting out technology and grants attitude (stinky). 

Yesterday jack and I picked up bread co for lunch. We’ve really not been eating out (fear of infection even at a drive through), but man! Nothing has felt as normal as eating my favorite sandwich in front of thirty mins of daytime tv in a LONG TIME. (The kids are massive tv hogs!)

And then this happened today. I knew it was coming - scholar academy cAncelled, Fourth of July things cancelled already, but these little things continue to chip away at any hope I have that this will not be at least a six month problem. It’s an emotional blow every time.

I can handle no school for nearly six months I suppose (although I had no Clue when the kids left school on march 4th that would be it), but I need the food pressure to ease up soon. It’s hard enough to wait in line, shop with masks, try to stay six feet apart, but the lack of availability continues to weigh heavy. We are down to the last jar of the only pasta sauce the kids will eat and despite trying for tens days to find any online or get a delivery, I was unsuccessful. Today I lucked into some in stock on target dot com when I was ordering something else. Target has been a lifesaver bc they are actually shipping, unlike amazon or Walmart.

Beyond that the kids are settling in a little. It’s like summer break - the first three weeks are the worst, then we all get used to A new routine. I’ve been sewing more masks than I want to, but the need feels endless. :(

Weds, week four

In the midst of chaos, some amazing things are happening too.

Baby bunnies come to visit me in the yard while I sit in the quiet (ignoring the children watching too much tv).

Last night was some sort of rare pink moon. Dave called us out to see, got out the telescope and we sat in the warm air (86 yesterday!) star gazing. Generally you cannot see many stars at our house - light pollution, air pollution, noise pollution (both the highway and the airplanes) are all dramatically decreased right now. We saw satellites, Venus, orion, Betelgeuse, and so, so much more. Bonus points for no mosquitos yet!

I am constantly amazed at our house keeps providing the things we need and wish for! A white sheet for outdoor movies? Got that, telescope? Got that, elastic for masks? Got that. Yeast for bread? Got that. Paint for a project? Got that. Clippers for hair cuts? Got that.

It’s reassuring.

Sunday, four weeks in

As long as we are at home things are fairly quiet and normalish.

The kids fight. I get crabby bc everyone is constantly asking me everything and making a million messes.

It’s still impossible to get food without getting in a line - no pick ups, no deliveries.

I’m a little desperate to find more eggs so the kids can dye eggs, but it’s hard.

The school district is starting more formal online learning on Monday.

I tried watching the daily news conference yesterday, I just can’t. So much complaining and back stabbing, let’s just solve some problems!

It’s been cold and grey again - which definitely does not help my mood.

I’m trying to stick my usual cleaning schedule - it helps me keep track of the days.

If you were asking about the masks - I just used the Joann pattern. I looked at a million others, but I can’t cope with that many choices right now!

Who knows what day it is

The weather turned warm and sunny.

I’ve been working on a few projects.

I made a few masks as the cdc has changed their minds about the efficacy of everyone wearing them.

I let the kids give up on work for a few days.

I’ve been making an effort to FaceTime and phone more people.

I bought a small ham while I was in Costco, determined to make some kind of Easter happen.

Things feel ok as long as I’m at home, but when I venture out it gets ugly fast.

First, even driving feels weird. I had to go recycle a ton of cardboard and the radio station is playing Christmas music. It was a Complete twilight zone moment. 

That picture above is the cart maze you have to enter to wait in line to get in Costco. It took an hour. It’s creepy inside - empty, tape on the floors everywhere, you don’t touch anything to put it in the belt, they do it. You just hold up your card to be scanned, with nothing ever exchanging hands. The cashiers are behind plexiglass walls. They have you hand your receipt to a guy in a cage for some unknown reason, as he can’t touch the receipt and isn’t checking it anyway. 

I have to say - it’s Costco where I start to lose my shit. It makes me emotionally unhinged to be standing there doing all this bizarre shit just to shop. I get it, I totally do, but at home (where I am most of my life anyway), things don’t feel quite so drastic.

I think I’m done doing that chore. 

On the plus side, while there was no charmin, there was a load of toilet paper.