Friday Funny?

🤮 

E: I don't like the word puke.  It is gross.  I'm okay with the word barf.

N: I think the word vomit is cool.

14 1/2

1. What is your favorite color? Ice blue
2. What is your favorite toy? Ellie's play tablet
3. What is your favorite fruit? Grapes
4. What is your favorite tv show? The Cosby Show
5. What is your favorite movie? Winter Soldier 
6. What is your favorite thing to wear? PJs
7. What is your favorite animal? Gibbons
8. What is your favorite song? "Castle on the Hill” & “All f the Stars”
9. What is your favorite book? Keeper of the Last Cities: Legacy 
10. Who is your best friend? I can’t answer that!  You're mean.  The Golden Quartet 
11. What is your favorite snack? Oreos
12. What is your favorite drink? Vanilla Bean Frappe  + Two pumps of Carmel
13. What is your favorite breakfast? Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Whipped cream
14. What is your favorite lunch? Cold Pizza
15. What is your favorite dinner? Spaghetti and Meatballs
16. What is your favorite game? Apples to Apples
17. What is your favorite thing to play outside? Camping—not pretend...really go camping
18. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas because we have food
19. What do you sleep with at night? My pillow
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Batman

Bonus Question (from Katie): what is you favorite phrase or quote: “I choose to run toward my problems because that's what heroes do.” -Thor

6 1/2

1. What is your favorite color? Pink
2. What is your favorite toy? Tent
3. What is your favorite fruit? Orange
4. What is your favorite tv show? Just Add Magic
5. What is your favorite movie? Frozen II
6. What is your favorite thing to wear? Pink heart sweater dress, leggings, & sparkly silver shoes
7. What is your favorite animal? Dog
8. What is your favorite song? "Rewrite the Stars”
9. What is your favorite book? Animal Encyclopedia 
10. Who is your best friend? Chloe
11. What is your favorite snack? Briar's Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
12. What is your favorite drink? Orange juice
13. What is your favorite breakfast? Chocolate Chip Pancakes
14. What is your favorite lunch? Ham sandwich with BBQ Chips
15. What is your favorite dinner? Chicken, macaroni, & Brussels sprouts
16. What is your favorite game? Apples to Apples (big picture)
17. What is your favorite thing to play outside? Swing
18. What is your favorite holiday? Halloween ('cause I get candy)
19. What do you sleep with at night? I don't really sleep with stuffed animals any more, but I do like Wilbur—a stuffed toy pig
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? I will be a nail designer and work at Harbor Freight

Bonus Question (from Katie): what is you favorite phrase or quote: Nope.

Day 13

Locked in
Friend passed
Food scarce
TP disappeared

Meetings Zoom-ed
Library closed
Pantry volunteering
Mask sewing

School at home
Work at home
Church at home
Life at home

 No fever—so we can serve at the local food pantry.  They are in great need with so many newly unemployed.

 Church...just pretend we’re in the second row on the left side of the church.

 Climbing through to reach the last of the items on a shelf to pack fo those who need help with food.

Prepping fabric to make masks for those who need them.

If you are new, and temporarily, homeschooling, know this...

Most of us started with only one homeschooler. a kindergartner, who learned some math, a little reading and writing, read (listened to) a few interesting books, and played a lot.

We got to spend months pouring over just the right curriculum that fit our learner, family structure, and teaching style.

We, despite misleading title of homeschooler, don’t really stay home all the time.  We go to parks, libraries, museums, plays, concerts, co-ops, tutorials, clubs, sports teams, churches, and lessons.  Believe it or not, our children are climbing the walls too.

Even seasoned home schoolers struggle with balancing education, parenting, volunteering, and working.  We just have a bit more practice at stepping over the pile of laundry and shoving the stack of books aside.

A bit of advice from the principal from when I first started in public education, “If everyone gets lunch and gets on the right bus by the end of the first day, it is a success.”  Since none of your students needs to find the bus, I bet your first day was a success!

I hope you all make some great memories and learn a little something.  Maybe it won’t be quite what you expected, but perhaps it will stick with the children forever because it was so different, because it was with you.  Teach them something that is really important to you...the rules to a game, an important piece of history, an eye popping bit of science.  May God bless your school at home, for as long as you are there.

Happy learning!

Overwhelmed

My kids are old enough to read my blog these days, so if you’re reading this, it will be after life has returned to some type of normalcy, not in the midst of the crazy.

What on Earth is going on?  I have been watching stores for toilet paper for about two weeks now.  I keep thinking, surely soon everyone will have enough to feel safe.  Are they building forts out of it?  I can’t even get paper towels.  Bigger forts?

I got up at 5:20 this morning to get in early and find paper goods.  They were announcing customers were limited to one paper good...  Both aisles were empty.  There were a few single packs of facial tissue and small packs of napkins.

Alcohol swabs.  Really?  I did find some today.  One box.  Just one.  Anyone who takes injections needs these.  Justin uses, at minimum, four a day.  Usually I get two packs, and never even thought about not being able to find them.

Bread, milk, pasta.  The shelves were bare in those sections.  I grew up on n the south.  I'm used to the snow panic, but again, I thought by now things would have improved, not gotten worse.

I had four cans of black beans in my cart—two for chili and a set to go with Mexican food when they announced a limit of three on any one item.  I, begrudgingly, put a can back.  I get it is to protect resources for all, but our family, by default, uses a bit more resources.

Is quarantine the right option for the healthy?  How long will it last?  Is this the first of many?

Then there is the virus itself.  I know one of the people in my county with it.  He is very, very sick.  He's been in the ICU for days, respirator, dialysis, the whole nine.  Last night his prognosis was listed as poor.  Now his wife has caught it too.  His grown children are quarantined elsewhere, away from work and family,  because they came to help.  And I feel powerless.  I can’t make a basket to take to the hospital full of things to make it easier.  All I can do is wait for updates.

I keep seeing that it isn’t that big of a deal for young people.  Then I see a large percentage of the hospitalizations are young people.  This thing or that thing will protect you.  Only distance will protect you...  Who knows.

Well, God knows.  He has it.  I just have to remember that He who made the sun, moon, and stars; cells, atoms, and quarks can handle this.  He knew before the beginning of time about the toilet paper crisis of 2020.  He knows how this will work for the good of those who love Him.  I don’t get it.  At least not yet, but He does.  More family time, deeper faith, a change in the culture, a whole bunch of new homeschoolers (temporary or not), fewer commuters, more meetings turned into emails.  Or something that seems so minute we all overlook it.

Friday Funny

Me: Where's Katie?

Ellie: She's sizzle-izing.

(Socializing)

***
I didn’t know homeschoolers we’re allowed to do that in the middle of a Thursday. 🤣

Quarantine Day 8/9/11

So, depending on who you are in our family, you haven’t participated in your regular outside activities for 11 days (Ellie, Gabby, and me), 9 days (Nate), and 8 days (Katie).  Justin has gone to work some, but as the campus is closed to students, and he is not working daily.

Today shall henceforth be Quarantine Day 8, for simplicity’s sake.

I have been to the grocery twice in the past 8 days.  One of those was pickup.  Walmart has transitioned to not allowing one out of the car, not touching their signature device, and their workers are wearing gloves.  Usually I help load, so it is odd to sit there.  There is an automated limit of two on many items, for a family that uses three cans of soup for lunch and four gallons of milk a week, that is frustrating.  I have yet to find the ever elusive bathroom tissue...  Or the alcohol swabs Justin uses prior to his insulin injections.  We have some on hand, but a run on those items is discouraging.  I have also not been able to purchase a chicken from Walmart in the past two weeks, so an in person visit to Kroger is coming again soon.  I did score a turkey from Walmart.  It is thawing in the fridge.

Life here is...an odd kind of normal.  Since we home school, there are many things about our day that are normal, at least for now.  We rely heavily on our library for both history and literature.  I usually request our books three weeks at a time, the length of time we can keep books without renewal.  Thankfully I picked up all the books they had prepared for us early last week.  We did not pick up the last of them, as we opted to self quarantine.  The library closed on Monday.  We are in modern history, so we may spend time watching old press conferences if we need to stay in past three weeks.

For the odd part, save one or two days a week, we generally leave the house daily.  We have had to step back from so many things that used to fill our days.

We've
-Played Risk
-Washed the curtains
-Watched Remember the Titans (for school)
-Played Apples to Apples
-Cleaned the refrigerator
-Made a big dinner with chicken and all the trimmings...a mini Thanksgiving, complete with a ‘What are you thankful for?’
-Done school
-Recorded Justin's first online lesson
-Read so many memes
-Finished some previously started AHG badges (Tenderheart: Our Flag & Patriot: Creative Writing) and started more...here comes My Style
-Had push up Competitions
-Held virtual AHG meetings

Things to do in Quarantine...

The planned, the absurd, and the reality:

1. Homeschool 📖
2. Baking...if you can get ingredients 🧁
3. Discuss rationing, just in case...maybe just the toilet paper 🧻
4. Wash the curtains 🧼
5. Read all the books 📚
6. Sleep through documentaries 😴 📺
7. Fight with your brother or sister 🙇‍♀️🙇‍♂️🤷‍♀️
8. Learn a new skill 🤹‍♀️
9. Take up video editing of collegiate level courses, maybe that's just us... 🎬
10. Earn a badge (or several) for a youth organization 🏅
11. Convince your neighbors, via Nextdoor website, to have a chalk art show on the sidewalks in front of their homes 🖼
12. Backup your photos 📸
13. Clean out a room or closet 🧺
14. Drink extra coffee, since someone else is home, so you’re more likely to make extra ☕️
15. Play extra board games 🎲
16. Stalk stores for toilet paper 🧻
17. Finish a project 🛠
18. Plan some future trip 🚀
19. Write a letter 📝
20. Make a to-do list 🖌

Blessings,
Kristy

Crazy-ness

Just over week ago life was filled with a physical storm.  Then the storm of illness and disruption came.  It is such an odd place to be.  We had plans for a fun Spring Break, which we kept delaying, waiting for local schools to get back to session, since there is this virus going around (in case you haven’t heard—ha 🤣), but they never did.  And the news of the illness became more and more wide spread with requests that people stay home.

One by one our events have been canceled.  No swim, no AHG, no MOPS, no fundraiser breakfast, no Stars & Stripes ceremony, no church, work from home.  Our homeschool just expanded to include grades 13-16.  Our once busy schedule is empty.  I had picked up most of the books we need for the next three weeks of school, so we will have the normalcy of our school schedule.

Our family is largely not at risk; we know these precautions are for the care of others.  There are lots of questions though.  How long?  When will stores have paper goods again?  Should the low risk people have Coronavirus parties (not to be confused with Corona 🍻 parties), then self isolate, to establish herd immunity?  What next?

Friday Funny

The kids were discussing the dog (that we aren’t getting).

Ellie: We need a putt putt.

Katie: Why?

Ellie: Because they live longer.

Katie: Yeah puppies live longer.

Ellie: Not a puppy, a putt putt!

Katie: We know that you call puppies putt putts.

Ellie: No one ever understands.  A putt putt.  A putt putt lives longer.

Gabby: A mutt?

She wants a mutt...  Now our nonexistent pet dog, a mutt, big enough to go with Gabby on a walk, is named Putt Putt.

Sub 10 Minute Mile

Justin & Nate met Nate’s goal.  It was a long road, but they persevered.

Gabby (about Bellum, the guinea pig):  Her brain may be tiny, but she is a mastermind.

Storm

Early, early Tuesday morning the sirens woke me up.  I’ve always lived where there are periodic storms, so I paused.  Did I really want to rouse my entire family from their beds?  The wind didn’t sound that bad.  I did get them up.  We made it to our ‘safe as we can get in a house without a basement spot.’  The storm passed, not close by.  The alarms kept sounding...I kept checking, but our watch was over.  I went to sleep thinking all was fine with the world, just one of those things picked up on radar.  As I slept, people lost their homes, their friends, their family members, their lives.  How many paused at the siren?  How many never heard it, in the dark of night?

The storm was on the ground for over 50 miles.  Fifty miles?!

Due to the overwhelming number of people at a supply drop off station, we accidentally passed through an area of our town that had been hit.  Thankfully, we didn’t see houses, but we saw trees turned to toothpicks.  Power still out.

We’ve checked on friends.  We’ve been checked on.  No one we know directly lost anything, any one.  But the stories.  The friends of a friend who lost so much...  The people whose dog’s persistent barking saved them.  Those thrown from homes, yet still survived.  People who huddled over their children as their roofs were torn away.  For peace beyond understanding despite the trauma, for comfort in loss, for restoration for what was lost.

God is there in the midst of the storms of life.  The tornado, the Corona virus, the moving on of friends and favorite youth ministers.  It’s been a rough week here.  It seems odd that normal life is going on out there.  Like September 11th, the skies have been a beautiful blue, in stark contrast to the mess.  It feels like everything should stop spinning, with schools out here, some of them flattened completely, people literally picking up the pieces.  But life keeps right on going.  Elections, bills, meals to prepare, laundry.  Those bits and pieces that keep up the normalcies, which help us move through the bumpy parts of life.  There are those without those routines right now, but hopefully, with lots of volunteers and some time, they too will find the rhythm come back to their days.