The length of time between posts is increasing, and I think that’s mostly because the novelty of documenting our days is wearing off. I’m taking fewer photos. Maybe things will change when we’re done with online school. Anyway, here are the last eight days of our ordinary pandemic life.
Day 59: Oh boy. The number of days. The weather is being wacky. Cold. Rainy. That’s not so wacky, but I long for the sunshine. I listened to Pray As You Go this morning before getting out of bed. It’s a run day, so I checked the weather to see when the rain might clear up. Late morning should be good. Ate breakfast. Now I’m drinking coffee. The kids have been up for a while watching TV. Now they’re on screens while they eat breakfast. They’re also already dressed, which is kind of weird for them.
Yesterday during the sermon, our pastor asked how many of us were ready for quarantine to be over. I couldn’t raise my hand all the way because I’m not sure the world out there is ready for the quarantine to be over. We’ve gotten into a rhythm and re-entering society is going to be an adjustment. Things won’t be as they were. Not completely. I’m nervous about our county’s plan to move from the red to yellow phase, that people will take more liberties that will endanger my husband. If we could just hunker down and stay inside and let everyone else do what they want, maybe I wouldn’t care as much. But Phil goes out there five days a week for work and sometimes once a week for groceries.
I spent some time prepping a blog post while drinking coffee.
I met with the kids for school check-in then went out for a run. My goal for today was around 2.25 miles. Over the weekend, there was social media campaign aimed at running 2.23 miles to raise awareness/call attention to the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man who was running through a neighborhood when two white men chased him with guns and killed him. I ran a little over that set amount. My goal is not to bandwagon support something because it’s trending. In recent years I have been grieved by the injustices facing black people, injustices I was not aware existed as a white person. I’m still learning and listening and unpacking the biases in my own life, acknowledging the ways I have benefitted from white supremacy. It is a long journey but one I want to continue on. Running and posting a photo with hashtag is a tiny step.
It was hard to find a rhythm today. The sky was intermittently sunny and the temp is going to drop again tonight. I washed dishes and did a little bit of laundry. I ate lunch and helped my son with homework. I didn’t do much of my own work, not reading or training or writing. I did watch the governor’s press conference. It’s about to get ugly here in this state. I hate conflict, even if it doesn’t directly affect me. Midafternoon I hit a slump and just went to my bed with my phone to watch Netflix. I’m totally hooked on When Calls the Heart. I finished the first season while making dinner.
Last week, our son planted these zinnia seeds for a school assignment. They are starting to sprout.
During dinner, we watched Some Good News, the wedding edition, and we all laughed and cried and wanted to dance when The Office cast reunited for THE dance. It’s so uplifting. I hope it never stops. The kids are out riding bikes now. I hope it tires them. They’ve been a little off-kilter today. Overly expressive and a bit rowdy. I don’t blame them. It’s just hard to handle when there’s no place to go, no separation from them.
We haven’t eaten many dinners at the dining table. Pre-COVID, that was our gathering place to reconnect at the end of the day after being apart, the place where we heard about each other’s days. Now, we kind of already know about each other’s days. I’m not saying it’s wrong for us to gather in front of the TV and experience a show together. It is its own kind of connection. I hope we don’t lose that aspect of family time when this is over.
The kids and I ate ice cream then lounged before bedtime–reading, playing games on screens. I finally settled in to watch the Outlander season 5 finale, and it left me with some big feelings, so I watched an episode of When Calls the Heart. Unfortunately, that was part 1 of 2, so now I’m left wanting to watch another episode. But I went to bed instead.
Day 60: I had a restless night and woke up for good at 5:30. Then I made the poor decision to just scroll through Twitter and Instagram for half an hour. I listened to Pray As You Go then pulled myself out of bed. I paid some bills and adjusted my monthly coffee order. I want to be more motivated today than yesterday but I’m not sure it’s something I can just decide. Maybe it is, though.
It wasn’t all bad today. I did my workout. The kids did Just Dance for active time this morning. My son had fewer Zoom obligations today and less class work, and I think that helped with my productivity. I gave him a deadline to be done with the computer so I could start my online training. After my workout, I did dishes and laundry (did you guess it? It’s a constant part of my day!) including our sheets. The thought crossed my mind that we might want to get a new comforter. It’s 13 years old this year. Later, Phil told me he had the same thought for our anniversary present to ourselves. Good to know that we still track on the same page sometimes.
After lunch I settled in for my first two-hour training. Check. Part of me just wants to keep going to get it done, but I’m going to do my best to spread it out a little bit so I don’t get information overload. After that, I needed afternoon tea and a snack. I watched a few episodes of When Calls the Heart, and I did some early prep work for dinner. I’m totally hooked on the show and having trouble rationing the episodes. The kids did some chores in the afternoon. I got to work on dinner just as Phil texted that he was on his way home. We had fish and rice and asparagus, a tasty, light dinner. We watched some Good Mythical Morning to pass the time.
I hadn’t been outside much all day, so I took a book to the porch. The kids decided to ride bikes for a bit. It wasn’t long for any of us because there’s still a chill in the air this time of night, especially on the porch, but it was good to get some fresh air. They came in and had ice cream. I did too much scrolling on social media after reading a few pages of a book about how social media distracts us from spiritual formation. *facepalm*
While I was making dinner, a car pulled into the driveway, but I didn’t see it until it was backing out of the driveway. I looked at the porch and there was a package with my name on it. Inside the package was the coffee and tea I had ordered this morning from the local coffee shop. They delivered it right to my porch! I have a coffee subscription through this shop because I am supporting local business and always supplied with coffee and now I may never do anything else. I have come to more fully appreciate local businesses in this time.
Phil and I started watching Troop Zero. There was an Internet connectivity problem in the middle and I was tired so we didn’t finish it, but I’m enjoying it so far.
Day 61: What a day! Not your typical Wednesday, although maybe we could say that about every day right now. Phil left early to go rent a tiller so we could get the garden in. Finally. The weather has been so wacky with late overnight lows near freezing, plus we just haven’t had a good time when Phil is available. He came back with it and got started right away, and his morning of hard work made my day. Because we rented a smaller tiller than we’ve used in the past, he was able to turn up the soil almost all the way to the edges of the garden, and he went deeper than ever before. The dirt looks so healthy and fertile.
I worked out for part of the time he was tilling. The kids had trouble getting started on academics and honestly, we are in the home stretch of distance learning and even if we weren’t we’d be D-O-N-E with school. May is a notoriously ridiculous month of busyness for schools, so in some ways, I’m not sorry we’re homebound.
After Phil returned the tiller, we sat outside and planned out the garden while he ate lunch. We had some seeds to plant and some transplants to put in, all courtesy of a friend who dropped them off what feels like a lifetime ago. I’ve been trying not so well to keep them alive. I’m hoping having them in the garden will revive their spirits. I took time in the afternoon to do the planting we’d planned while Phil got started on dinner. I love our collaboration on all things household. Neither of us have the exclusive on any given job or duty.
I showered and watched an episode of When Calls the Heart. I’m not sure what all the kids have done today. Our son did finish his school work with the help of his sister, but it’s been a struggle lately to keep him on task. Our daughter is already thinking about middle school, and while I can’t blame her, I just want her to finish this year well.
Phil is baking again–part of his Wednesday routine–and finishing up dinner. I could have taken my writing time this afternoon, but it was such a nice day that the garden seemed like a better use of my time. I need to do some writing, but it’s not anything urgent.
I took a call from my doctor’s office this afternoon. The drug company approved my medication, but we’re not sure what the next steps are because that’s all the information they gave the receptionist who answered the phone. I’m hoping to get this sorted out soon, but I don’t have any energy to track it down myself. I might be waiting a while if I wait for them to call me, though.
We ate dinner and watched Jim Gaffigan’s latest “Let’s Get Cookin'” episodes. These make our son giggle, and it’s the best sound. After dinner, we went outside to water the garden, but we had some struggles with the hose. It had fused to the splitter on our spigot, and our landlord had removed the splitter from the spigot a while ago. Phil worked on it for the better part of 30 minutes and couldn’t get it all the way off. So, we had to hand water the plants. Phil filled a bucket for me and I got my little watering can for the indoor plants and I watered the little babies in the garden that had wilted in the afternoon sun. We have reached the season where I obsess over the plants. And because we’re in quarantine, I’m also talking to them. (Or providing them with extra CO2, you decide.) It’s going to be cool overnight so I’m a little worried about them.
The kids rode their bikes. We had the dessert Phil made when we came back in: rhubarb crisp with vanilla ice cream. I am not the biggest fan of rhubarb but what my husband made was good. The kids went to bed, and Phil and I finished watching Troop Zero. I’d call it a feel-good film.
Day 62: I slept better last night. I think my afternoon tea habit was harming my sleep habits. The afternoon tea was caffeinated, so I don’t think my body liked that. I washed not a single dish yesterday which means the pile of unwashed dishes is staggering today. And it’s a run day. And my son has a virtual field trip that he sort of doesn’t want to attend because of the time it’s being held. What a full day already!
I saw a small airplane in the sky yesterday while Phil was tilling and realized that the contrails from planes is something that’s been missing from the sky. All I see are clouds now, which is not a complaint. It’s just further evidence of the strange times we’re living in.
Coffee and breakfast as usual this morning. We have a Target order arriving sometime today. I didn’t think I would like online shopping for necessities, but it’s not so bad. Especially when I can consult things already in the house. (Like, which deodorant does Phil wear again?)
We checked in on academic stuff then I prepared for my run. My plan was to go 3.5 miles, so I mapped out a route that I was pretty sure would work. The kids decided to play their made-up cooking show game for a while, which sounds innocent enough but involves props and taking over large areas of the house. I’m all “see ya bye” when things get like this. Summer is coming and I am not prepared.
The weather was practically perfect for running, and I was actually excited to get out there. I did a little bit of walking for some of the route but I ended up running 3.7 miles which is the farthest I’ve ever run. 3.5 miles would have been the farthest I’ve ever run, but I decided to overachieve myself. I’m not sorry, but ask me tomorrow if I have any regrets. This running journey has been something else, and it’s only been six months since I was recovering from surgery. I was devastated back in those days at the fitness I was losing, but look at me now. I’m choosing to be grateful for what my body is capable of.
By the time I got home, the kids were being wild, so I made them pack it up and get ready to do academics. It feels like the end of the school year in so.many.ways. We got everything sorted out for my son’s class meeting and while he was on it, I called his counseling office to reschedule some appointments that were canceled because the office hours had changed. That felt good to get done and it feels good knowing we’ll have some time to talk out some of the things that have been going on here in quarantine. (Nothing dangerous or destructive, just concerning.)
I got started on the dishes toward lunch time and at one point, I just started crying because so many things feel like they’re falling on my shoulders these days. And the week hasn’t been productive in the ways I expected, but it has been good and necessary work. Next week will be better and the end of school is on the horizon.
Finished up the dishes after lunch. Helped son with his schoolwork. Took a shower. Got some of the dinner prep started, then watched an episode of When Calls the Heart before finishing up dinner. While I finished dinner, the pharmacy that is distributing my injection medication called, which had me hopeful that the whole payment thing had been taken care of. But it wasn’t. I expressed some serious frustration on the phone with the representative I was talking to. I did tell her that I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I needed to understand this process. I’m going to give it another day or until Monday and then I’m going to have to make some more calls. Ugh.
We watched a couple of episodes of Good Mythical Morning while we ate. Then we all went outside–the grownups to add some water to the garden plants, the kids to bicycle for a little bit. The garden is my new obsession. I am concerned for the plant babies and have actually started talking to them. Haven’t named them yet, but the garden season is young.
Phil and I sat at the table while the kids lounged on the couch/folded laundry. We ordered a pair of T-shirts that benefit our local refugee resettlement organization and talked through some financial stuff. Now it’s just a waiting game till the kids go to bed so I can resume binging When Calls the Heart.
Son said he wasn’t feeling well before bed. Thought he might puke but he ended up just going to sleep in his clothes. Sometimes this happens with him. He’ll be fine in the morning.
I watched three episodes of When Calls the Heart, finishing out season 2. When I started the last episode of season 2, I was hopeful I’d have some resolution. It was a lie! This show is so good at cliffhangers. I’m in suspense now.
Day 63: Son is fine this morning. It’s going to be 80 today. The garden looks better from what I can see from the kitchen. This is part of my morning ritual. I think sometimes that I should have been a farmer, but I probably don’t mean that.
Breakfast is in the works.
Some days, I just have to let go of the expectations I have for how the kids spend the day and get on with what I have to do. That’s most days, if I’m honest. This morning, I put on the next episode of When Calls the Heart while I did dishes and laundry, not realizing it was almost 90 minutes long. The kids may or may not have been on screen time most of that time, although I think my son was folding his clothes from yesterday.
By the time I finished the episode and various household chores, including getting some letters in the mail seconds before the mail truck pulled up to our box, my son was ready to look at his school work. We sat together and did a few things before his meeting. I had to print some things for him and as long as I had the computer plugged in to the printer, I sent my pages to the printer as well. The printing finished with two minutes to spare before his meeting. I will be glad when my computer is not so needed during the day. I did reading work during his meeting, which included a scavenger hunt and was kind of fun to listen to. He finished his school work after his meeting while daughter and I prepped our lunch. The kids ate lunch and watched screens. I pulled laundry from the dryer and watched another episode of When Calls the Heart as I folded. I did rest a little bit this afternoon to finish the episode.
I finished another book for judging this afternoon. Some of that time I spent outside because it is absolutely gorgeously warm outside. And sunny. At 1:30, I tuned in to a livestream that my teaching co-workers were doing to raise money for a local organization that helps families in need. I couldn’t interact with them as I watched, but it was good to just see their faces.
It’s pizza night, so when the time rolled around, I started getting to work on that while listening to the Outlander podcast. I’m in full on Droughtlander with every other fan now, so I’m trying to cope as best I can. May read some more of Diana Gabaldon’s books in the meantime. But I’m still up to my eyeballs in books to read right now. I have one to finish that I’m helping to launch and one I’m reading just for fun but isn’t as much fun as I hoped it would be. Still, I have a hard time giving up on books, so I’m muddling through. This is not how every reader reads. Others would give up and move on. I have trouble leaving a story unfinished. Only two books can I remember totally giving up on and both were nonfiction.
We watched Good Mythical Morning while eating pizza, then headed outside to tend to the garden. I relish this practice of daily check-ins with the plants. It adds a rhythm to our days that I love. There is something about taking care of things planted in the ground that feeds my soul. We watered the plants, which were looking droopy after a day in the sun. I am amazed, year after year, how the plants rebound with a slight change in circumstances.
When we came in, it was time to pick up the living room–put clothes and towels away that had been folded–and take baths/showers. While our son was bathing, daughter and I looked at this virtual choir opportunity she has the chance to participate in. We got her signed up so she can practice. After his bath, my son was kind of bored. Phil has used some fancy (probably not at all fancy) technology to limit the hours the kids can connect their devices to the Internet. I offered to read some more to him from the book we started together. He didn’t want to be in the living room while his sister was singing. So, we got him ready for bed and he curled up and I read two chapters.
Both kids settled in to bed, and I settled in to watch three episodes of When Calls the Heart while doing cross-stitch.
Day 64: We slept with the windows open last night. It’s my favorite time of year when we don’t have to run the heat and don’t have to put the air conditioners in the windows yet. We can open the windows and just enjoy the fresh air. I planned ahead and set my coffee pot to “delay brew” last night so that I would have an easier time returning to the practice of sitting on the porch first thing in the morning. Several summers ago, I think it was after a vacation to Florida, I started taking my first cup of coffee to the porch in the morning. No books. No journals. No devices. Just me, the coffee, the wildlife and the traffic. It’s something I often do on vacation because I don’t feel the need to jump right into my day, and I wanted to carry it over into my non-vacation life. This is not sustainable in winter and last summer I don’t know what happened.
I need to set it for earlier though. I woke up before the coffee pot started so I scrolled social media. This is what I want to avoid. So when the coffee was ready, I took my cup to the porch. I immediately take a deep breath and exhale. Stepping outside is a powerful action for me. I am born to be outside. To meet with the earth. I let my thoughts take me wherever and what I learned this morning is that I miss the possibility of travel and adventure. We should have had summer vacation plans by now. We should be looking forward to adventures. I don’t know if I’m ready to go out yet. My house is safe. How can I trust coming into contact with others? I also know I can’t experience the world virtually in the long-term. I could watch videos of the places I want to travel to, I can video chat with friends, but it’s not a replacement for the in-person experience. I can’t live in a virtual world, and I hope I don’t have to.
The days to come will be interesting days, just as the days past have been interesting.
I took my writing to the porch sometime after 7. The blessing of days where the sun rises early. I wrote for about an hour, then came in and decided to knock out some more training for work. Both of those things made the morning pass quickly. The kids wanted to go outside and bike but we have some black-and-yellow buzzing creatures on our porch. They are not bees. One was hovering near the girl’s bike and she had herself worked up about biking at all. She saw it go into her handlebars. I spent some time trying to talk her into still riding, then I saw the insect emerge and we decided to duct tape the ends of her handlebars so nothing could get in or out. Sigh. These are the days.
With lunch and after, I watched When Calls the Heart. Two episodes, then my workout for the day. Another beautiful spring day. I checked out the garden during my cool down. It’s so tender at the moment. I want to protect it from everything. By the end of the summer, it will be out of control, probably. I hope. It is the same fear and hope that I have each gardening cycle.
I washed dishes after my workout and watched more When Calls the Heart. I finished season 3, which just about tore my heart out. Now I’m thinking about dinner while the boy watches too many screens and the girl video chats with her best friend. Saturdays, there’s no hope for them to be any different right now.
I started another book for contest judging and sat on the porch to read it. Phil came home, so I put away the produce and other groceries he brought home. Then, he headed out to Costco for what is becoming a monthly run. I started dinner a little bit after he left. By the time he got home, I was a bit overwhelmed. Maybe I was just hungry. We have a stack of boxes of books and clothing to donate that are starting to overrun the kitchen, and the garbage is overflowing and then the Costco groceries came in and the freezer was disorganized, so I was a little bit cranky. The kids and I ate while Phil showered. We put the rest of the groceries away. Phil bought a new hose at Costco, so we watered the garden. Then I sat on the porch to read. It was almost 8 o’clock before I came in.
Phil and I started another travel documentary, to the Cotswolds this time. It is barely feeding my travel/adventure bug.
Day 65: The days are melding into one. I almost forgot it was Sunday when I woke up. Sirens pierced the morning silence, and after some investigation, we learned that it was a mobile home nearby. I took my coffee to the porch but my mind was on the fire.
What all can I say about our Sunday. Three of us worked out in the morning. I did another mile run for time as extra credit. I tried to head toward where the fire call had been but I couldn’t see much before I had to turn around and head home.
We got ready for online church, which had some technical difficulties. Has the quarantine finally broken Zoom? But we still had a nice online gathering and discussion afterward. We ate lunch and Phil went to the grocery store. I sat outside to read while also answering grocery inventory questions via text from Phil. He came home and made chili for dinner. With corn chips. We’d both gotten a craving for it while watching something on TV a few nights ago.
The kids were having some issues with each other and the TV had been on all day so we made them separate. I took our son to his room and read some chapters to him from Upside Down Magic. Daughter reluctantly went to our room to “nap” but ended up starting an art project, I think. We are reaching peak teenager stubbornness, it feels like, but I’m also pretty sure we’re nowhere near the peak. Lord, have mercy.
We ate while watching the NASCAR race and discussing whether it was actually necessary for them to be racing right now. Sure, they were all wearing masks, but practicing social distancing is questionable when you have a pit crew surrounding the car to change tires, etc. It’s a confusing time. We started talking about our summer plans, too. Not that we can go a lot of places but online school is coming to an end soon and we need to have a plan for how we spend our days. We have some ideas that I think will be fun. We went outside to check the garden but it didn’t really need watering. We caged the tomato plants and I am holding my breath to see if these plants recover from their sketchy start to life. (The sketchiness is all my fault.)
We talked to our friend David for a bit, then it was time to put the kids to bed. Phil and I went back to the Cotswolds, but I didn’t last long. I was super tired for some reason.
Day 66: Coffee on the porch this morning. I saw a bunny. And a small squirrel. And the mourning dove left the nest. Yesterday, we noticed that the bird was moving around a little more in the basket nest, so we’re thinking the egg or eggs might be hatching. We have no way to find evidence of this because there is always a bird in there and we don’t want to disturb nature’s process. But I think there will be babies soon.
Sitting on the porch drinking coffee accomplishes nothing except it delays me jumping right into the day. This is a good practice and I’m thinking it’s going to have to be longer than one cup of coffee. Some days.
I ate breakfast and drank coffee so I could have enough time between breakfast and going for a run. Met with the kids for their academic time, then left for my run. My leg had hurt a little bit yesterday. I had to stretch it and rest it, so I was concerned that I might not be able to do much running. I set out on a route that would keep me close-ish to home, just in case I needed to walk the rest of the way. It was a pleasant morning although I could feel the humidity in the air. I felt a little bit like Forrest Gump out there. I just kept running. My running app kept stalling, and when I was getting close to 4 miles, it stopped completely. So, it logged less than that when it finally came back, but I mapped the route on my computer and it was more than 4 miles. So, there’s that. Quite the accomplishment.
Our son had finished his schoolwork by the time I got home. It was close to 9:30. I drank a lot of water and made a smoothie. I’m going to have to start taking water with me if I’m going to run that far in the summer. Longer distances might require more running gear. For now, I’m just glad I’ve done it. Son got on to his meeting and I took a shower. I was sort of aimless for the rest of the morning. Stretching my legs and drinking water to recover from the run. I had walked more than usual, too, but I still covered the distance. It used to bother me if I had to walk any portion of a “run,” but it doesn’t any more.
We ate lunch. Son had a math lesson. Phil left for work. I took care of some minor tasks that were hanging over me and knocked them all out in less than an hour. Then I did dishes. Next, I had to sit in the living room and time my son while he sorted through a bin and watched YouTube. He needs data to believe that he is not getting as much work done while he watches TV. I triple-tasked. Reading. Timing him. And casually paying attention to his YouTube video which did not annoy me as much as I thought it might.
This was how we passed the afternoon. Daughter did school work. I remembered to start laundry so my workout clothes would be clean for tomorrow. Phil got home from work. Showers were happening. It was too early to start dinner. I just feel like the day passed in a kind of weird way. I feel like I got a lot done but also don’t really know how I spent the day.
We ate dinner and watched Some Good News. Then it was out to the garden to water. We need more sun, I think. The watering is going well, but I don’t know if we have enough sun. Plants are resilient though. Phil brought home some potting soil. I have some plants to repot. Maybe tomorrow. The kids rode bikes for a little bit.
I went out to the porch to finish reading a book for the contest judging. I don’t like to do work after dinner, but I was so close to finishing, I thought it would help with my productivity for tomorrow. I did finish it, so now I’m ready for what’s up tomorrow.
Kids and Phil are watching Bon Appetit videos and laughing.
I turned the TV off around 7, when Phil went to bed. We had some troubles winding down. The kids started making lists of places they want to “visit” this summer. We’re planning some virtual adventures via Google Earth and other online sources. It got a little rowdy and they had trouble calming down. I had to take some things away from my son after he was already in bed.
I talked to my mom on the phone for a few minutes. And watched three male ducks fight over one female in my front yard. It was like a nature documentary.
I watched the Christmas episode of When Calls the Heart. Christmas episodes are strangely comforting in this time.
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