No.370: Our Extraordinary Ordinary Life // COVID-19 Lockdown Week 1

My life right now feels like a surreal mix of ordinary and definitely not ordinary.  It looks like things will be cancelled or shut down until at least Easter at this point, so I spent much of the week figuring out our new normal.  I recently heard on a podcast that our children need “non-anxious leadership” in times like these and I’m trying to take that to heart.  (Easier said than done!)  The quote from C.S. Lewis that I copied on last week’s 2020 Gratitude post really helped me form a “plan” to just keep living my ordinary days in the most intentional way I can.  We can do this.

Because I was so distracted this week, our schoolwork was light. We spent a lot of time outdoors and had unseasonably warm weather for the first day of spring.  Fresh air has been good for all of us.  One day, the big boys and I dug up the remaining boxwood shrubs in our front flower beds and transplanted them in the backyard.  It was a big job and we were covered in dirt by the end, but it felt good to work outside.  A good stress reliever too!

On one particularly hard day when the older boys were constantly fighting, I calmly told them that they could continue to say mean things to each other ONLY if they said it in some sort of accent.  It’s really hard to be mad and keep a straight face when you’re yelling, “Shut up, stupid!” in a (bad) British accent.  They quickly cracked up and the stressful moment was averted.

Mark braved heading into town and managed to pick up a few more groceries and toilet paper.  We also ordered soil for our garden online and they had it ready for him to pickup at the store.

We quickly got back in the bread making game when our store-bought bread ran out on day three.  I made french bread and two different white loaves.

On Friday, I cut my thumb deeply on some broken glass.  It bled like crazy and I actually had to use a metal chip clip to help it to stop.  Thank goodness for BandAids and a husband who has basic first aid knowledge.

I don’t ever play games on my phone, but this week I needed a mind-numbing distraction that wasn’t social media.  Two lifesavers: Nonogram and Wordscapes.

Questions Mark and I keep asking as we see so many people and small businesses in our community suffer during this time is, What can we do?  How can we help our neighbor when we’re not supposed to be anywhere near them?  We’re constantly brainstorming, but here’s what we did this week:

• Mark ordered takeout at a local restaurant while he was out running errands.  We can’t do that often (sooo expensive for our big family) but I’m glad he thought of them first.
• We started drawing pictures and will be mailing them to our local assisted living facility next week.  The elderly are on strict lockdown too and we hope the nurses can pass along our messages to the residents.