Day 18 of Family Quarantine

Captain’s Log 31 March 2020

This blog covers Days 15-18 of Quarantine

To see the last blog, click here.

I took a short break this weekend from everything and I feel far more positive today. During this crazy time taking time off seems like an oxymoron. Here we are all stuck at home thinking, I need to be productive, I can’t just sit around! Well here’s the thing—just figuring out what life looks like is hugely productive. It takes time. We are 2 weeks in and just now getting into a routine of sorts.

As a family we took this weekend to do a good measure of nothing. We started a Harry Potter marathon, ate junky food, lazed around, took a few walks and played outside, did a few zoom sessions with friends, and had a YouTube Live chat on Saturday. It was like a vacation from this self and state-imposed time off. Don’t get me wrong, Mark worked on slides and lectures and the boys and I read and did a bit of study but we took the pressure off ourselves and it made Monday and Tuesday that much better.

Mark is still driving me nuts being up in my business being all lovely dovey…isolate they said, it will be good they said. Oy! Take a step back honey, I need some space. Yet I cherish the time we get together more now than ever. He is working hard for his students right now…actually as I write this, he is giving a lecture Live on his Professor Wolters channel for the capstone marketing class he teaches. On that note, it is hard to write when he is lecturing energetically from our kitchen.

The boys are doing better with their studies this week. It is still not ideal but they are at least fighting us less. They are still finagling more breaks than we would like. When is it that we learn getting all our stuff done asap leads to more fun once the work is done? I still have misgivings about our ability to keep them on track but I really appreciate the efforts of their teachers. Liam’s teacher in particular has gone beyond what I expect. She is reaching out personally, asking for feedback from us parents and is very willing to change or clarify things based on how our individual students are responding to her new lesson plans. I am so grateful for her this year!

Caleb’s best friend had a birthday on Sunday. His mom (who is a dear friend of mine and also celebrated a birthday Sunday) arranged a surprise Zoom Birthday Party. I got everything all set up on our end and got online a bit early to say HBD to my friend. I had told Caleb to be ready to party when I got off. He was a little hesitant to get online. It was strange, he and his buddy are pretty inseparable (and incorrigible, just ask their teachers) and Caleb is used to doing videos and things for our YouTube channel. I would have expected him to be champing at the bit to see his best friend. When he got on it took him 2 or 3 minutes to relax and fall right in to his normal self. I think that says a lot about how strange this situation is for all of us socially. It takes a few minutes to ‘be you’ on a screen. It is great to have this technology during this time but there is still some kind of barrier not being with the person, in person.

I finished a couple of projects. After a year I finally got that shower curtain sewn for the boy’s bathroom. I painted a little plaque for one of my pieces of artwork. I spade the edges of all my flower beds and put the kids seashell treasures at the gutters. I tried a new ‘recipe’…that means I read a new recipe and ad libbed the heck out of it. I read a lot and did a few bible studies. Accomplishing a few things that were not work related but rather, things I enjoy and elevate me made it easier to ‘go back to work’ yesterday.

There are still gobs of ridiculous misinformation going around on social media and ‘news’ outlets. People are still going out like as if there isn’t a worldwide pandemic going on. Other ordinarily logical people continue to hoard toilet paper and hand sanitizer as if having a huge supply will somehow save them. Our hospitals (even locally) are running short on PPE (personal protective equipment). This infuriates me. Masks that cost .50c before cost over $5 now. Price gouging is happening everywhere, people trying to resell household items for 10x their normal cost. States are literally bidding against one another for masks that are at the base of our healthcare workers protection. But then, a few of my more talented seamstress friends are making reusable masks and donating them directly to nurses and doctors. Ford Motor Company and General Motors are switching gears to produce ventilators. Virgin has figured out a way to take manual vents and make them automatic. Everywhere you look there is some kind of new bs and someone else doing the right thing. I choose to focus on the good guys!

Life is very different now. We are falling into a new normal at home. I know one day in the (hopefully) not too distant future we will have to revert back to going to work and school. I know it will be another adjustment for all of us and I look forward to tackling that far more than I have tackled this. We are at once driving each other crazy and becoming closer. We are not spending time with friends and family in person but we are getting back in touch with people whose schedules prevented socializing before quarantine.

Life has always been a dichotomy. It is more so now than ever before in my lifetime.

Until next time,

Jocelyn