Almost Normal-ish

We went places this week.  In some ways things felt almost normal, but then you look around, and not so much...

On Wednesday I got to tag a long to the lab to record some experiments for use in a class that is being taught through distance learning this summer.  I saw three people.  No one was near anyone else, but they were real live human beings.

Thursday, Katie and Gabby had well visits scheduled—spaced out chairs in the waiting room, masked nurses.  These were super exciting because they meant medical forms being filled out for horseback riding.  In a few weeks they get to go, in a group of three, to ride.  Then Friday, Katie and I picked up AHG forms from the church (horseback riding) and saw the orthodontist—lobby  closed, temperature checks, masks the whole time (instead of just during the treatment time), and parents (who aren’t receiving treatment) staying in the car, with staff walking patients out.

Next week will be quieter again, except Nate & Ellie’s well visits—another  horseback for (her) and one for boating (him).

Since we expect to be staying home, I went with the colors for my braces that Gabby recommended instead of my normal clear.

Waiting for a solution to reach equilibrium in an ice bath 🧪

Cheese!

Day 56

I’ve never been this long without going to church.  Or seeing my parents, even when we lived in Kansas, we tried to see each other four times a year...it’s been more than five months.

The kids have never been this long without walking into a store or seeing a single friend that wasn’t on the other side of a screen.

There is a great deal to be thankful for, and we are, but we have certainly lost a lot...

The AHG Convention we were due to attend was cancelled, our spring camp outs, and just seeing people.

We’re trying to make lemonade, but we aren’t going to say there aren’t plenty of lemons here.

On to the lemonade...

Justin & Nate patched the bump to our driveway

Then they made a ring of found rock around our front tree to replace to rubber ring that the tree had pushed out.  They put weed blocker cloth, we had on hand, in and will cover with rock when it is necessary to go to the hardware store for something imperative or we are no longer under safer at home orders.

Justin and Ellie planted tomato plants that he started from seeds.

We learned how to make petit fours

Gabby made our herbal tea, and aren’t those petit fours pretty?

We had a poetry tea

The girls said, “Bye,” to their friends on our troop wide camp at home night Zoom call

S’more a la mode

S’more pie

S’more person

Camping with twinkly lights—no tent failure

Making cards for a Veteran’s home

Rainbow fruit kabobs

Taking masks, notes, and, of course, those home made petit fours to a local fire/EMS station.  We couldn’t figure out how to get in (they forgot to mention how to let them know we were there when I made sure we were still allowed to do a drop off these days) and nearly left when a staff member pulled up and we were able to hand off our goodies

We left the house, though admittedly not our car, as we waved and shook balloons in a quick birthday parade

Box of Sunshine

Evening walks

The excitement of seeing a real human they know who doesn’t live in the house (those chairs and girls were there for awhile waiting, knowing she was stopping by-not pictures: the pacing Nate), even if there is a storm door between them, and it is a quick drop off and pick up visit

Playing games for Trail Life family home activities

Lots of good still going on here.  I managed not to get pictures of our exciting sand box scrubbing event or the defrosting of the freezer! 🤣

We had some pretty significant back to back storm days.  We have friends who have been without power for more than three days now.  Ours came back on very quickly, and we had a single day without WiFi, but despite big trees down all around, we were safe and our house is too.  We are awfully thankful.  Between the tornado and now this, plus the virus, and killer hornets, I think 2020 needs to calm down a bit.  I keep thinking of all the 20/20 visions we heard about several years back (ideas places wanted realized by this year), I’m pretty sure, except for a few sci-fi authors, no one saw this one coming! 🦠🌪💨🐝  I guess only hindsight will be 20/20 on this one!

Quarantine Projects

What have you been up to to keep you busy these days?

I cleaned out the coat closet🌂🧥

Then the linen closet🧻

My bedroom, where broken and out grown toys and clothes go to die🛌🧸

My closet👗👜

The laundry room...even behind the dryer 🕸🧺

I logged allllll the books.  I sorted all the math and science books into one (great big) bin.  There is a separate one for general English and history.

Then there are three bins for the Tapestry of Grace books for each year we are not on.  Every book is in a spread sheet.  Tapestry has its own set of spread sheets with books listed with title, author, level, and the first week the book is used—list included in the bin.  I even made a purchase list for the high school books for years 2 and 3.  Year four we just finished with with high school level books.  And year one...well that’s next on my list of accomplishments.

I ordered our school books.  It is early, but we are opting to wrap our year...15 days to go, and then we may start back to school after a short break.  We aren’t sure what the summer has to hold here, but want to be prepared if we find summer is going to be quarantined.  Thankfully our book sellers are open!

And there has been mask making too

And even dropped off a few to family friends—only porch drop off, but we did get to play Uno by Zoom on Friday!

Day 39

Just to remember what all we did while we were here...

School

Making a cloud in a jar

Crustless turkey pot pie...since turkeys have been easier to get than chicken

My rose bush began to bloom amid some nightly frosts

We made dinner over a fire in our partially complete fire pit

Pizzas from the pie irons

Tents going up for the Trail Life National Backyard Campout

Failure of a tent...with the patch

 

We went ahead and roasted marshmallows

 Then moved the party indoors

Due to the virus, the local home school high school formal (aka prom) was cancelled, so Katie had prom in the living room thanks to the Some Good News show on YouTube

We took up mask making again...Gabby was pressing pleats here

Ellie helped stitch the layers together

Katie figured out if she reads on the front porch occasionally someone will walk all the way down to the end of our dead end street with their dog, and she can talk to them.

Things I am Thankful for Lately...in no particular order

1. Sunshine

2. A big back yard

3. Online books...seriously we ran out of physical books for history in school with weeks to go

4. YouTube...documentaries (see above), online church, and the Good News Show

5. Home school, so our days are fairly normal

6. A tripod: originally to get family pictures, but it has an awesome cell phone attachment which has been used a lot to record chemistry lectures

7. Grocery pick up: I already used Wal-Mart's service pretty regularly, but now I am extra thankful for it.  It has meant turkeys in place of chicken a couple of times, but that works out just fine for us!

8. That I like my family

9. Games

10. Zoom...church small group, AHG meetings, even playing Candy Land with a friend (each family with their own board 

Day 35

The day Justin finally decided he missed seeing (a few specific) people