The Governor of Virginia officially shut down all public and private schools for the remainder of the school year, so that also officially cancels almost all of the kids’ extra-curricular activities. D is especially bummed about his flag football season, but we’ve promised him regular games as a family in the meantime. Definitely not the same, but will hopefully take away some of the sting.
On Monday, we brainstormed ways we could work spiritually, intellectually, creatively and physically now that we suddenly have all this extra free time. Idleness is the Devil’s playground, as they say. We each made a few goals for the week – here were mine:
- ✘ 3 days of learning Latin on Duolingo (only completed 2/3)
- ✔ Read at least 10 pages of The Lost of Reading Nature’s Signs
- ✘ Take at least two 1 mile walks along the periphery of our property (I really need to prioritize this)
- ✔ Start a new religious book
- ✔ Start a physical scrapbook to document this time in our lives
We cannot seem to find yeast anywhere, so we started our sourdough starter again. King Arthur Flour ended up having some in stock online by the end of the week, so I grabbed that while I could. In other bread news, I’ve been a baking machine with sandwich loaves, muffins and banana breads. I’ve been thinking so much about previous generations of women who literally spent 75% of their days in the kitchen. If they could do it, so can I! Solidarity through the ages.
We had quite a bit of rain this week, but worked on our garden plot on the dry days. Maybe dry is the wrong word…because hello, mud everywhere. (Shoes, clothes, the dog, my floors…everything is covered in mud.) The big boys worked so hard digging up the sod and laying down the landscape fabric. It’s so exciting to see my plans actually coming to life!
Things that have kept us busy: puzzles, card games and Scrabble.
I’ve been battling insomnia for almost three weeks now and finally hit a wall on Thursday night. I closed my eyes at 8:30 and was OUT for more than nine hours. The next morning, I felt like a new woman! Sleep – so, so important. (Duh.)
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:
- We made it a point to say thank you to our mail carriers who are working so hard so we can stay at home. I imagine that it must feel like a December holiday rush all over again for them.
- We mailed postcards to grandparents.
- We continued drawing pictures for the local assisted living facility and I hope to have enough to mail next week.
My goodness- so much mud lately! And I've been having similar thoughts about women in the kitchen through the ages. I feel like I'm exercising some unused muscles by baking more and making things from scratch!
Yes! I have a whole new appreciation for my ancestors now. You'll have to share what yummy things you've been baking.