I’m your typical ISFJ: the caregiver, the eternal behind-the-scenes cheerleader and I’ve been on overdrive since the beginning of this lockdown.  I wanted to stay positive for my children, be a beacon of light among the fear and anxiety and chaos.  “But resilience required rest.”   I could tell something was wrong when I had not written a single letter all last week because I just didn’t have anything positive in me to say.  Some internal part of me was waving the white flag, needed someone else to do the caring and cheering for a little while.  So I rested.  Mark and I had long conversations where I unloaded each and every tab in my brain.  I prayed and cried and slept in late.  By Thursday, the fog lifted and I was ready to start again.          

A new first for wild animal sightings: we had a fox just meandering about in the front yard!

Sourdough experiment of the week: Strawberry Gingersnap Twist

Week five!  Time keeps marching on.

Mark decided to head to the grocery store on Tuesday, so I showed him how to make a mask from a bandana that I had seen on social media.  As I placed the hairbands around his ears, I stopped and said, “What world are we living in right now?!  I can’t believe this is an acceptable way to go to the grocery store now.”  The days go on and we adapt, but I still struggle to wrap my head around it all.

A new puzzle arrived that I purchased on Ebay.  Those puzzle sellers are making bank right now!  I refuse to spend more than $25 (and honestly, that feels a little high but I’m consoling myself that we’re helping to pay someone’s bills) so my choices have been a little random.  Thankfully the kids just go with it.  This latest addition takes our collection up to four.

I saw a cool new plant while walking in the backyard and discovered that they were called fiddlehead ferns!  I had no idea that they started all curled up like that.

The weather turned a bit chilly again, so I pulled out a warm hand-me-down sweater from my sister…or maybe it was my mom’s?  I’ve worn it every single day and it makes me feel close to them, despite the distance.

Big news of the week: we paid off our car loan!  This has been a big goal and we’ve been steadily chipping away, one little extra payment at a time.  So happy to be car payment free for awhile!

I read an article about how the “Big A” (you know who I mean…) is surging right now and it gave me an extra push to choose small businesses first…again.  I made a purchase online from our local bookstore and they delivered it to my door the next day!  I also made an order from a Catholic bookstore in our diocese and they are mailing the books to me.  Next up is to purchase a gift card from a few of our favorite local restaurants!     

I made sourdough bialys for the first time with caramelized onions and crispy bacon.  Whoa.  SO good, but gone in minutes!  I need to try a double batch next time.

(first picture is from the outside and the second shows the reflection on the wall inside)

In the tender compassion of our God

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,

and to guide our feet into the way of peace. – Luke 1:78-79

Oh death! Where is your sting?

Oh hell! Where is your victory?

Oh Church! Come stand in the light!

Our God is not dead, He’s alive! He’s alive!

– Christ is Risen

Week three.

I did the math and because we had the flu two weeks before this lockdown began, I have not left my property in 35 days.  That is a little crazy, even for a homebody introvert like me.  The Governor of Virginia also issued a “stay at home” order until June (!) and that feels like a loooong time away, doesn’t it?  I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all.

This was the first week where our new normal started to feel really real.  I’ve been trying to be upbeat and enthusiastic and positive (mostly for the sake of the kids) but by Monday, I started to feel a little raw.  The emotional roller coaster has been rough: I feel such happiness for the slower living and the extra time my family gets to be altogether, but then I’m crushed with concern for our community, family and friends.  It’s a lot of feelings and obviously, I’m not dealing with it very well.  I spent a few days floundering and feeling restless.  I had a million things I wanted to accomplish, but was unmotivated to do much of anything.  Thankfully, by the end of the week, I came up with something to help me keep going (more on that tomorrow) because really, that’s all anyone can do right now – keep going.

Bittersweet news: Tomie de Paola, one of our favorite children’s book authors, died on Monday at the age of 85.  Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

Lots of work done on the garden!  The gravel pathway is laid and half of the beds are filled.  M cut a few branches from a tree we’ll be taking down and made them into a teepee for the garden.  Mark ordered lumber online from Home Depot and will start on the fence when it gets delivered.  Hopefully we’ll be ready to start planting in the next few weeks!

Things keeping us busy this week: printable coloring pages, Querkles, and a new puzzle.

I miss going to Mass.  I can only describe it as a deep soul-level ache.  I hope I never take the Eucharist for granted again.

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 ordered gravel for our garden path from a local nursery.  We paid over the phone and they delivered it to the house, so all social distancing rules were observed.  
• We scheduled the removal of two dead trees with a local tree care service.  This has been on our to-do list anyway and since it’s outside work, we don’t have to worry about any unnecessary contact.
• A mom and pop type restaurant in our town set up a way for residents to buy meals for first responders and hospital employees.  We donated (as part of our family’s 2020 Giving for April) to the cause.
• We taped a thank you to the trash can for our garbage man.

Week two.  We’re doing this.

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 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.