Social distancing is getting real old, real fast. I am ready for it to be done; I am also cognizant that this is far from over. I am quite worried and stressed about what will happen in Texas in the next few weeks and months thanks to the governor essentially being like “hey y’all, let’s re-open stuff, because capitalism!” I don’t plan to go anywhere besides what we’ve already been going — the grocery store and occasional take-out meals only — for the foreseeable future, and I fully intend to wear a mask even if the governor foolishly chooses to override the more sensible requirements of my local city and county government.
Sigh. And GRRR. And sigh.
I’m tired and cranky.
But there are moments of fun too.
The girls have enjoyed this teeny tiny kiddie pool, despite the fact that they are both really too big for it. Heh. I’ve considered buying a larger inflatable pool…but also crossing my fingers that the neighborhood might open the pool by June. (That may be overly optimistic.)
Charlotte is loving “nature walks.” We walk around the block or over to the park, she carries a bucket, and collects whatever tiny flowers, clovers, grass, dead leaves, and mock strawberries catch her attention.
Emma has been really into The Descendants. (It’s one of those Disney kid/pre-teen movies.) She had been talking about dressing up as one of the characters for Halloween, so I decided to just go ahead and get each of them a costume as a fun quarantine treat. They were pretty excited about them. I’m not really expecting the costumes to last till Halloween, but we’ll see.
Both girls, and particularly Charlotte, have been excited about making various treats. We have made several kinds of popsicles, a pie, a cake, banana swirl, Chex mix, and probably some other things that I’ve forgotten about. On Saturday we did a virtual “Cupcake Kids” class through Well Done Cooking Classes and that was fun. They had a pretty good virtual set up and even delivered the already-portioned ingredients to our doorstep! I signed up for a macaron class this Thursday — yum.
Balancing long days of meetings/telecons with the girls’ desire to play/interact has been getting progressively more difficult. My job had slowed down for the first few weeks, but as people realized this was going to last for a while they seem to have ramped back up to “business as usual” mode. That might work for people with no kids or older kids, but it remains extremely challenging for me.
Non-work and non-kid things I have been doing:
- My 100 day project has been going really well. I really enjoy creating a small finished piece every day, and that my postcards seem to be bringing some joy to others as well.
- I signed up for Another Mother Runner’s “Love the Run You’re With” training plan and did my first “virtual race” last Saturday. It was a 5K and went well! I am following the run/walk plan and feeling good with that.
- Last week I had a driveway hangout with two friends of mine. We sat 6+ feet apart in Nujoud’s driveway and chatted for a few hours and it was really, really nice.
- I’ve taken a couple online classes from Art of Islamic Pattern. Have I mentioned this before? I can’t remember. They are fun.
Things I have considered doing but not actually done:
- Painting the girls’ rooms. Especially after Charlotte drew pink hearts on the walls a couple weeks ago when she was sent there for time out and found a marker. Ugggh.
- Cleaning out the garage. It needs it and why not? But I don’t think they’re doing heavy trash pickup right now, and Goodwill isn’t accepting donations at the moment.
- Buying a treehouse/swingset. Maybe we still will? If we can find one, since demand went way up.
- Buying a trampoline. I should have ordered one 3 weeks ago when I first thought about it, because now they are all backordered for weeks.
- Fabric dying with ice. I bought a kit and have ice in the freezer but haven’t tried it yet! This is totally one of those things I put off because it feels complicated, even though I know it’s probably not.
And so we move into week 7 with no real end in sight.
Times like these I wish we had a real pool. We’ve been doing the blow up pool and then a smaller paddling pool which is working nicely, but boy, a real pool…yeah!
I may have to readjust my work if this continues on into the next school year. I can’t imagine trying to do school and working and everything else…Forest starts K in the fall.
This is the only time I’ve wished we had a pool in our yard — most of the time I’m quite content to use the neighborhood pool! But yeah. It’d really be nice to have right now.
I’m not letting myself thing about the fall yet…it’s too much. Eek.