A month and a half since my last post, I’m getting life back on track, though obviously not back to normal. Like most (all?) of you, life got a bit disrupted with Coronavirus Back mid-March. My daughter had a performance of Aladdin on Weds, March 11, then Thursday the after-school program was notified that that Thursday was our last day until further notice. My daughter had her second performance that night, then Friday afternoon (March 13), we were told school was on hold until after Spring break. Today is the first day after “break,” and we’re not heading back. We found out about two weeks ago that school has been cancelled for the rest of the school year. I’m glad they are being careful and glad to have a definite answer so that we’re not living in limbo and can actually plan.
That Friday was the last “normal” day we’ve had. The kids have been home or walking around the neighborhood since, but haven’t really been anywhere else (twice we did go distance celebrate friend’s birthdays). That first day (Saturday), we celebrated Pi day, and my daughter and I started keeping daily journals with events and emotions. My daughter is much better about keeping up with it than I am. Based on that, we’re currently at Day 38. (Left photo was St. Patrick’s, Day 3) Based on the CA lock down order, which was issued March 20, we are at exactly one month today.
I went out shopping that weekend and the following weekend, but since then, the only time I leave is to drop food off with some older friends. My husband is doing all the shopping because I have a crap immune system. My husband is also working from home – we have a guest room that we converted into a home office for him. About 2 weeks into Stay-at-home, my husband began his new job! Crazy that he was able to get a new job in the midst of this insanity. We are very blessed. He’s been telecommuting and meeting all his new coworkers through zoom.
As for me, I had to figure out school at home for my kids. My son is 5, and since he’s in preschool, there shouldn’t be any requirements, but since he’s at a public preschool, they have set up google classroom and have been sending out things to do. It took a bit longer to get the preschool thing figured out – this week is the first google class meeting his teacher is hosting. Since I didn’t want my son to be bored, I began to print up letter worksheets – practice writing letters, coloring, mazes, cutting and gluing pictures. He’s been having a lot of fun.
My daughter, on the other hand, has a phenomenal teacher. Her teacher sent home a week’s worth of schoolwork that first Friday, then put together another packet to pick up the following week. She has daily assignments that are running about 3 hours total. I’m lucky my daughter loves school – I never had to ask her to go do work – she just does it on her own. (Though I do have to say that since she’s such a go-getter, it took me a few days to realize I should actually CHECK her work. *duh*) Two weeks into stay-at-home, the teacher set up zoom meetings twice a week and has been teaching / checking in / answering questions with the kids. We were cruising along okay once the zoom meetings started, then we hit Spring break. The teacher worked REALLY hard to get a full schedule up for the kids, and now everything is really organized. Honestly though, I’d expect no less from this teacher. She’s incredible.
On the other hand, I couldn’t bring myself to write anything. I did my daily journal, but it wasn’t more than a log really. I dropped everything that wasn’t critical because I was overwhelmed, like a lot of people. I did get a few etsy orders out, but luckily, I had few new orders coming in, so I didn’t need to overwork. I’ve also been dealing with a nasty sciatica flair up, so I’ve been in quite a bit of pain. I spent most of my time figuring out schooling for the kids, the reorganizing the pantry to take stock of what food we had, then clearing out our guest room for my husband to set up his office.
In my down time, I started crocheting these little bunnies, which take about 45 minutes total. I made 40 of them for Easter and sent them out to friends and family all over as a bit of encouragement. I also found myself with more time to read. I finished up a few books I was partway through, then finally got around to reading Misery by Stephen King, and the Firm by John Grisham. I’ve read various other books as well. I even started a box of books that I’ve finished since the stay-at-home order. My plan is to stack them up and take a picture of all of them once we are “released.” I just started Don Quixote, which I’ve been wanting to read forever, and I just might have time now (it clocks in at nearly 1300 pages).
We had a nice Holy Week, despite missing friends and Church. I had some fake palm fronds, which we used for Palm Sunday. We did Passover / Maundy Thursday Seder as a family, which was still fun.Saturday we made Easter gift bags for our neighborhood with a roll of toilet paper and some candy, then we walked around and passed them out. Saturday evening we joined a car parade circling the local hospital – we just barely made it down in time. My daughter and I made signs on the way there, and we drove around with 20 some cars, hoking and waving our signs. I totally cried. Easter Sunday we did church in our living room on the computer, then we did egg hunts in the front and backyard. It was a fun day.
About a week ago, I got my mojo back and started putting effort back into etsy. I’ve created a few new items and have a big stack of orders to fulfill. And now, I’m back on my blog! I have a whole bunch of book reviews to catch up on, so expect those to start rolling out soon. Bonus – I will be writing them on my new laptop! My prior laptop was nearly 8 years old and was on its last legs. With my kids needing to use my laptop to get onto google classroom and zoom, we decided it was time for me to get a new laptop. Then they can use the old one until it dies. Yay!
I hope you all are surviving ‘quarantine’ as well as possible!
You’re doing great! It took us a couple of weeks to get into a groove too and last week Henry’s preschool teacher set up a pickup/drop off homework situation so he’s glad to be doing work with Ms. Krista again! I also fell off on my home business hustle but after making a couple of sales I’m feeling motivated to get back into it again. I’m supposed to start reading The tattooist of auschwitz as a little book club with 3 other people so I guess I better get started on that!! Good luck with don quixote 😮😮😮
That’s so cool that his teacher set that up! We got on google class with a bunch of preschoolers yesterday – utter chaos!
I didn’t know you were working a home business! What are you selling?!
You’ll have to let me know how Tattooist is – I’ve been thinking of picking it up. Really enjoying Don Quixote so far. I’m 50 pages in.