Quarantine

First: a snapshot. They call them "Quarantine Time Capsules" these days. W

I usually wake up around 8:30. Today it was 7:40 on the dot, thanks to an earthquake - yet another aftershock of the bigger earthquake that happened 2 weeks ago (which also woke us up). The epicenter is far enough from us that I haven't felt most of the MANY aftershocks, but I did feel this one. Hooray.

I make breakfast, we eat and clean up and start on school work. Emma gets right to business but Will takes some coaxing. Lex does whatever she wants. George needs entertaining elsewhere, or he'll be a distraction. We grab school lunch most days and try to fix it up at home.

Afternoons are full of screen time, playing outside, finishing up school, naps (for me) and occasionally piano. I still teach piano lessons once a week. Mom reads picture books  over video chat several days a week. Some days we play Boggle or have an adult chat, but not often enough.

If Slice is working, he wakes up in the late afternoon and gets ready to go. I make dinner and we eat about when he leaves for work (6:00ish). Then we clean up, read, listen to music, have scriptures and prayer, and finish the bedtime routine.

After the kids are in bed, I go downstairs to work. I've been teaching VIPKID classes from 9-midnight for 4 months. Sometimes I'm booked solid, but lately I've had gaps to fill with TV and laundry folding. I don't usually get to bed or sleep until after 1:00 a.m.


The days are long and all the same, honestly. I try to get the kids out a few times a week to a trail or a drive or something new. We have a picnic on some grass or drive to a new area. I grocery shop once a week and try to make it count. Slice works anywhere from 3 to 5 nights a week ... we have nothing else going on, so there's no good reason not to.  He's making more money than he has in 4 years. I can't complain, especially with so many people out of work right now.

We've waited every day for symptoms of COVID to appear, ever since that first call a months ago:"Your patient's test came back positive." Since then we've asked each other every few days, "Do I have a fever? Is this it? I can't smell the cinnamon rolls." Any ailment the kids have could be IT. It's exhausting joking about this.

We've talked about what to do if/when things get really bad. Does Slice not come home? Does he sleep in a tent in the yard or garage? Do I go to Roosevelt and isolate for two weeks before seeing anyone there? Some people have taken these extreme measures ... maybe they won't seem extreme in hindsight.

Gas prices are down; the oilfield is floundering. Our house won't sell anytime soon. We lowered the rent for April knowing how bad things are out there. We certainly don't want to be carrying two house payments.

So, we wait. And wait. And wait.

To Begin Again

Once upon a time I kept a blog. It was steady, in a "I write about whatever I want to" kind of way, and I enjoyed a lot of things about it.

Then Facebook and Instagram and smartphones and network marketing and branding happened in the online world, and I couldn't/didn't want to keep up. Also 4 babies and huge body/brain/family/life changes happened. I went from reading and thinking and writing real posts to snippets, photo captions. I rarely sat at a computer.

There's nothing inherently wrong with what happened in my life (or in the online world) but I do still, always, miss writing. I wrote letters and emails regularly for 20 years, and notes to family members for 5 years before that. Then my paper trail disappeared. I want it back.

So now that everything in the world has changed - not just metaphorically, but literally - I think it's as good a time as any to come back here.