Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Social Distancing Day 11

Kids School
Spring Break for myself as well as the kids. So we are not doing any kind of school work this week.

My Work
It is Spring Break at the university I work at, but I still have stuff to do. We are "online" for the rest of the semester. I worked about 2 hours this morning on different things I needed to do. But work is going well.

My Husband's Work
We are not used to working from home, so we don't have a "set office" or anything like that. So our dining room table is a make shift office. He does stuff with data and spreadsheets and has 2 huge  monitors as well as his normal desktop set up. But he is doing good. He's getting into a habit of waking up, taking a shower, then breakfast then starting his day. He gets "off" at 4, so he can log off and hang out with us now, without having any extra commuting time.

Mental Health
It's kind of getting rough. We do still see my parents ( who live across the road from us), besides that we are very rural, which is nice, but we haven't seen ANYBODY in 11 days but them. Today we played outside a lot, went fishing at one of our ponds and played some board games. My 12 year old daughter made some chocolate chip cookies which were nice. 

Supplies and groceries update
Still doing good. We haven't ran out of anything recently. The turkey I took out wasn't thawed for today,so I'll cook it tomorrow. We had cheese ravioli with a home made pasta sauce I canned last summer for lunch and tator tot casserole ( with deer meat) for dinner. We have leftovers of both so we'll have some leftovers to eat over the next few days. I think with the turkey tomorrow I'll make green bean bundles and deviled eggs. 

IF I WENT TO THE STORE TODAY I WOULD BUY
milk
fresh fruit
tortillas
toilet paper
hand sanitizer
sandwich bread
Again, these are all things that if I were not quarantining and they were not out of, I would buy. But we are going to make due.

What's going on around us? 
Two deaths at our local hospital today from the virus. Up to about 250 cases in the state. We are just hunkering down. 

 How is it looking in your area? What have you been doing to #flattenthecurve?

Monday, March 23, 2020

COVID 19 Update: Social Distancing Day 10




Kids School
Spring Break for myself as well as the kids. So we are not doing any kind of school work this week.

My Work
It is Spring Break at the university I work at, but I still have stuff to do. We are "online" for the rest of the semester. I worked about 3 hours this morning on different things I needed to do. But work is going well.

My Husband's Work
We are not used to working from home, so we don't have a "set office" or anything like that. So our dining room table is a make shift office. He does stuff with data and spreadsheets and has 2 huge  monitors as well as his normal desktop set up. But he is doing good. He's getting into a habit of waking up, taking a shower, then breakfast then starting his day. He gets off at 4, so he can log off and hang out with us now, without having any extra commuting time.

Mental Health
It's been rainy, and although it wasn't raining today it was a little cool and wet. But I made sure to get a 45 minute walk in, then played outside with the kids for a while. So we are doing pretty good. We are just now turning the tv on for the day ( 7pm) and my son and husband are watching a show and the girls are watching a show.

Supplies and groceries update
Still doing good. We haven't ran out of anything recently. I took out a turkey from the freezer and my husband cut down a hickory tree a few days ago so we made some chips for the smoker, and plan on smoking a turkey on Wednesday. We still have 10 rolls of toilet paper. We are out of fresh strawberries now, the only fresh fruit we have are grapes and kiwis. We are out of sandwich bread, but I can make bread if we decide it's necessary. I may make some later in the week when I make spaghetti.

IF I WENT TO THE STORE TODAY I WOULD BUY
milk
fresh fruit
tortillas
toilet paper
hand sanitizer
sandwich bread
Again, these are all things that if I were not quarantining and they were not out of, I would buy. But we are going to make due.

What's going on around us? 
In our state schools are closed until April 17th ( at least). So far there have been 197 confirmed cases of the virus, zero deaths that they are reporting. Yesterday the number was 169- so it's going up, although slower than I thought.  Our church did cancel their traditional services but the doors are open if folks want to come in and worship privately. We haven't done that yet, but may soon. The Economic stimulus bill did not pass, so I assume they will try again tomorrow?

 How is it looking in your area? What have you been doing to #flattenthecurve?

COVID- 19 Update Social Distancing Day 9

I read somewhere that it is important to take notes on this chapter in our history, as one day we may want to reflect back on it. I'm not doing anything else at the moment so thought this would be a good time to start.

Kids School
My kids were out for one week ( last week) then start their Spring Break for tomorrow. Last week was AMI work- which proved to be challenging for the older two, as we only have three laptops in the house; my work, my husbands' work and then our household one. The girls were wanting to do their AMI at the same time, they both had Zoom meetings with their teachers at the same time ( so I downloaded Zoom to my phone and one kid did their Zoom there) and we've had to upgrade to the next phone package ( because we are all using so much data) as well as internet speed package ( again, because at times there are 5 of us using the internet at home, when most of the time there is no one or just one. But all in all, school was fine. I made a list of books for the kids to read that are a bit more "educational" although any reading is fine by me, and ordered the little guy a curriculum book online, which he just started. His AMI consists of 30 minutes of Mobi Max in reading and 30 minutes of math, so I'm adding some to his, along with reading aloud, and practicing his speech ( from speech therapy, each day.) They are out until April 17th as of right now, so we'll see how that goes. The girls Spring Break trip for youth group was canceled, and Silver Dollar City is closed too ( which was what we were going to do for the last part of Spring Break), so we canceled our cabin.

My Work
I work at a university ( teaching) and we were told to put all of our classes online for the REST of the semester and work from home. We aren't allowed back on campus. One employee ( so far) from my institution has tested positive, although I expect more will soon. So I'm teaching online for the rest of the semester. IF the school opens back up to faculty I would like to go back to work, as I just function better in my office, but we'll see how that goes, how the kids' school goes etc.

My Husband's Work
He was sent home last week and told he would be working remotely for at least 30 days. So he's starting on his second week tomorrow. He doesn't like it. He likes his office and his set up, but is doing what he needs to do. His work is different than mine, as he logs in at a certain time and logs off at a certain time and has stuff to do all day. Mine is more flexible and I can work whenever I get up , start a load of clothes, help the kids, go for a short walk, cook lunch etc. His is much more structured and we don't have a work space set aside, so there are times that 4 of us are at the kitchen table working with another kid in the floor beside us with a book or worksheet. But we are making it. We are both getting paid our normal amounts and are good.

Mental Health
It's only Day 9, but we haven't been to church, haven't been out to eat ( everything is closed anyway) haven't been ANYWHERE for 9 days. It has been raining a lot, so that isn't helping. It's also Spring in the south so tornado season is upon us, with 4 in our state one evening last week, and more bad weather expected tomorrow. So today, we just got outside and drove around. We stopped at a city park in a tiny town ( that NO ONE was at) and had a picnic and let the kids play a bit. We just took our time and drove and listened to the radio and that was nice. We've been trying to take the kids fishing behind the house, we made a bon fire to sit around and we've been visiting my parents almost everyday. They live across the road and they are sheltering in place as well, so we have all been mixing our germs and no one elses' for quite some time. Otherwise I wouldn't be going around them. But we are making in. It's been a struggle, but we are trying hard to think of new ways for the kids to hang out inside when it's raining, when both of us have to work all day.

Supplies and groceries update
Thankfully, I'm a pretty good prepper at hear and had a good supply of food. I went to Sam's 10 days ago before we started our self imposed quarantine and bought about $173 worth of stuff. We are almost out of milk, although my mom said she had some we could have that was frozen. We are down to one loaf of bread, but I can make that. Fresh fruit is going to be hard for us, but I made sure to buy things like applesauce and mandarin orange cups when I went to Sam's, to fill in the gap for things I thought we were low on. We have frozen fruit and still have some grapes, a few apples, kiwis and strawberries that are fresh. We still have plenty of deer meat, and beef my brother in law gave us that he processed, so lots of meat. We did NOT however have much toilet paper. We are down to 10 rolls ( for a family of 5) and since we are all home all day every day are going through it fast. But, we'll figure out something when the time comes. My father in law lives by himself and has just bought some toilet paper before this started and said we could have some if we need to.

IF I WENT TO THE STORE TODAY I WOULD BUY
milk
fresh fruit
tortillas
toilet paper
hand sanitizer
sandwich bread
Again, these are all things that if I were not quarantining and they were not out of, I would buy. But we are going to make due.

What's going on around us? 
In our state schools are closed until April 17th ( at least). So far there have been 164 confirmed cases of the virus, zero deaths that they are reporting. Universities have all sent their classes to online for the semester. Eating establishments and bars are only doing curbside pick up and drive through ( and delivery, although no one delivers where we are). Sam's was very very low on EVERYTHING ( no chicken at all in the whole store when I went, along with a ton of other stuff). I haven't been in 10 days but Facebook is reporting similar situations. Kroger pick up, Walmart pick up etc. isn't even booking grocery pickups as they are all full for at least a week ( which I guess is how far the booking goes out). Churches are doing online services ( although ours didn't... although we didn't go). It's a small church, but still... The schools are offering breakfasts and lunches for kids that need it. The bus driver asked us if we needed her to deliver any, but we declined. We are in good shape, and the kids never ate school meals anyways, so I'm not out any extra money since I'm used to packing their meals.

So that's it. I'd like to do more updates each day as a journal to look back on in a few years, but we'll see. If you've read down this far- bless you. How is it looking in your area? What have you been doing to #flattenthecurve?