Welcome to Pandemic School - Week 6

Welcome to Pandemic School

Week  6

Day 35 – Sunday, April 19, 2020

Oh.  It’s April 19^th.  That is a significant date for people from Oklahoma.  Today is the 25^th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.  I can not believe it has been 25 years.

Twenty-five years ago, this morning, I was sitting on an ugly green couch in the living room of Stout Hall at Oklahoma State University.  I was finishing up my Junior year for my B.S. in Psychology.  I was getting ready to go to work.  That was the year I worked for the Dept of Foreign Languages as an assistant to their academic advisor.  As I walked to work, I cut across the Stout lawn and passed some Physical Plant workers who happened to have a radio on.  I couldn’t tell what had happened, but I knew something was going on.  When I got to the office, my boss told me what was going on, and I was of course, shocked.  She was the wife of a pastor and knew there were non-work duties she was going to need to help with, so she sent me home.  I spent the rest of the morning watching the news in Stout’s 3^rd floor lounge with my floor mates.  I don’t remember when I finally spoke to my parents (this was before everyone had a cell phone), but sometime later that day.  My mom, who was a nurse at Presbyterian (not far from downtown), had been at a meeting at the hospital.  She said the meeting room she was in because a triage in about five minutes.  That was a life-changing day.

I worked as a camp counselor at Girl Scout Camp Red Rock that summer, and we flew the flag a half-mast until July 4^th.  People from all over the country sent things to Oklahoma City to show their solidarity.  A Girl Scout troop from Beverly Hills had sent a bunch of teddy bears to the OKC Girl Scout council.  The bears ended up being distributed at camp (because what do you do with a bunch of stuffed animals?).

Yesterday in Pandemic School land was just another Saturday with five loads of laundry and lawn mowing.  Grocery shopping will happen tomorrow, I think.  

Tonight, my book club will meet over Zoom and talk about Where the Crawdads Sing.  Two members are in Evansville/Newburgh and two in Wichita, KS and we usually have an Indiana/Kansas FaceTime.  Now that everyone has to be socially distant, Zoom it is.  

Grilled chicken is on the menu for today which means spring is here!

Elijah’s ELO alarm has been going off for an hour…  That kid.  I’ll try to wake him up in a bit.  I only wake him because he really wants to be up, his body just rebels.  Yesterday, the 5^th or 6^th time I tried to wake him up, he had almost gotten out of bed on a previous attempt.  His head was on the foot of his bed and his body was on the ground.  He got up not long after that.  He’s been having weird dreams, which I hear is pretty normal during Pandemic.  He said all the ideas came from video games he’s playing and Pandemic…  That seems right.  I even had a dream that was related to Animal Crossing last night, but that’s all I remember.

Day 36 – Monday, April 20, 2020

I did a 7am Schnuck’s pharmacy and Wal-mart grocery run this morning.  I learned that the pharmacist CAN hear you when you are wearing a mask.  I saw our school secretary in the Easter candy aisle, and I was convinced to buy EVEN MORE Easter candy because now it is 75% off.  I will add a photo of how much $10 worth of Easter candy is these days…  Pretty amazing!

I wore one of the Star Wars masks that my mom made.  They are made from a different pattern and have a wire across the top, and I have to say they do fit a lot better.  I didn’t have a mask creeping up to my eyeballs while I shopped.  

They had a small amount of toilet paper (Northern), and I got some.  My estimate of one roll per person per week has been fairly accurate.  We are almost half-way through the amount I had on hand when Pandemic started, and now the supply is replenished.  I won’t feel the need to get more for about six weeks.  Maybe the supply chain will be figured out by then.

They had a good amount of flour and quite a bit of sugar.   I didn’t look for yeast since I got a jar last week, and that should also last six weeks or so.  I saw a few large bottles of hand sanitizer, but still no rubbing alcohol.  Ramen was back in stock, but the brand of alfredo sauce I wanted was not available.  Normally, Wal-mart bananas are very green, but today they were already freckled.  Are people not buying their normal supply of bananas?  

Diet Dr Pepper is in short supply.  Schnuck’s had none that I saw, and while Wal-mart did, they did not have my preferred CHERRY diet DP…  They did have the flavors of sparkling, artificially sweetend, flavored water I like… in cans, which I haven’t seen in nearly two years.  I hear there is a CO2 shortage, and smaller label carbonated drinks are having difficulty securing what they need.  I’m guessing that’s why the flavored DP wasn’t available.  They probably want to save it for their most popular lines.

I’m pretty sure that I was dreaming of fishing in Animal Crossing last night…  I’m glad it’s the important stuff.  

My big To-Do list for today includes contacting a parent to schedule my last IEP conference of the school year.  

I’m supposed to close on my mortgage re-finance tomorrow, but I don’t where, lol.  

Day 37 – Tuesday, April 21, 2020

The only reason I have any idea what day it is comes from writing this…  

I still don’t know if I’m closing on my re-finance today, or where I’m supposed to go if I do.  I did send an email asking for clarification last night.  

I left a voice mail with my student’s parent, but I haven’t heard back.  

My kids have been wanting me to air fry some egg rolls I bought a month ago, but I kept forgetting.  Since you can’t air fry large quantities, and it still takes a normal amount of time to cook, I decided on a “progressive” air fried lunch yesterday.  It was fun and delicious.  We started with the egg rolls (from Aldi’s frozen section), while we ate those; mozzarella sticks were in the air fryer.  Hannah is obsessed with mozzarella sticks, and these were amazing.  While we ate, mozz sticks, the chicken fries cooked.  By the time we got to chicken fries, Leah was full, so Elijah got most of hers.  It was fun to gather the kids at mid-day for an extended period (usually lunch is make your own when you are hungry).

Tonight I am grilling burgers and deep-frying fresh cut French fries.  Yum!  It’s all about health food at the Rosen house, lol.

Day 38 – Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Time really seems to have no meaning anymore; it is the weirdest thing ever.  I know the first week home seemed like a month with all the new information being thrown at us all day, every day.  Now, the days seem to just go by so quickly.  I can’t believe we’ve been out of school for as long as we have.  It’s just downright crazy.

Today, I have my first WebEx IEP Case Conference that I’m in charge of, and I’m just a bit nervous.  I work with the mom, and I know she has the tech at home to join the meeting.  She’s easy to work with, but there’s still a knot in my stomach this morning.  Working from home is not always easy.  I can’t run down the hall to a classroom and ask for the information I need.  The other conference I need to set up and hold before the end of the school year is currently difficult to set up.  It looks like old school snail mail might have to get involved.

Last night’s burgers and fries were a hit, and there were no grilling casualties.  The weather was warm enough that I could open some windows to relieve the house of some of the deep fried lard smell.  It’s still lingering this morning, but not as much. 

We are at that time of year where you sometimes need the heater overnight, but might need the AC in the late afternoon.  I failed to turn the heat on last night, and it was fairly chilly when I woke up.  That didn’t help me get out of bed!

So far, it’s a beautiful, sunny day!  I think clouds are supposed to roll in at some time, and we will have rainy weather for the rest of the week.  That’s typical Evansville.  

Day 39 – Thursday, April 23, 2020

My WebEx went fine yesterday, my internet was spotty, but was otherwise a non-event.  

Our internet has not been great for a while.  I pay extra to have 100 mbs, so yesterday I did a speed test.  Well, actually, I did half a dozen.  The first test was around 50 mbs download with 5 upload, the second 120 mbs with 5 upload, the third 20 mbs with 5 upload…  It’s just really inconsistent. If I have a WebEx, my computer is always plugged into an Ethernet cable so I don’t have to deal with WiFi issues… it’s still an issue.  Elijah resets the modem and the router daily.  

Today, I have an IEP to work on for a 2:00 meeting, but I’m a secondary service provider, not the primary, so I’m not in charge.  At the same time, we have a faculty meeting… so I’ll miss that.  Maybe I can request some live texts updates on anything major.

My closing happened on Tuesday like it was supposed to.  When I drove up the title company, I realized I’d been there before.  It must have been for a refinance for the previous house because when we purchased the Wiltshire house, the title company was in Newburgh (this one was downtown Evansville).  When I refinanced after my divorce, the title company lady came to my house on MLK day to get everything signed.  That was amazing!  

No school tomorrow since it was a snow makeup day that we didn’t use…  State waiver day on Monday, so girls get a four-day weekend from virtual assignments.  Leah will be thrilled!  Hannah will probably still watch College Board videos to prepare for her AP tests.  Elijah no longer has class on Fridays, and starting in May only AP classes are meeting (he only has AP US History).  

Day 40 – Friday, April 24, 2020

I guess this was an interesting way to experience what 40 days feels like.  I have generally left the house a couple of times a week, so it’s definitely not a true quarantine for me.  Hannah and Elijah, on the other hand, haven’t been in a car since March 30 when we picked up school lunches and they had to be present.  Leah has ridden in the car with me a couple of times since then, but the last time was April 13.  I would not know that information on my own, but the Life360 app has kept track. 

It seems strange to say that we are out of school today when there’s been no physical school for six weeks, but today is a make up snow day, and there’s no school.  No virtual assignments will be sent, no Zoom classes, no WebEx meetings, no 6^th grade math, nothing.  We are excited about that.  To celebrate we are going to get Sonic for lunch and drive to a parking lot to have a picnic in the hatchback of the car.  We will take camping chairs and eat our Sonic burgers & tots in the fresh air.  Leah’s best friend, Libby, will be doing the same, 6 feet away.  

The SAT sent notification that the next test date will be in September.  Looks like Hannah will definitely need to take it on that date.  She was supposed to take it in March and April, but that obviously didn’t happen.  She did take the ACT twice already.  

The YMCA announced they were planning on opening on May 4^th, but not group classes or child watch.  I guess they are moving the treadmills and ellipticals farther apart, but you couldn’t pay me to get in the pool.  

I do believe Evansville has done a pretty good job with the stay-at-home order (think of all the Easter candy that didn’t get bought for weeks) and is predicted to be able to open sooner rather than later.   I remain cautiously optimistic.  

Day 41 – Saturday, April 25, 2020

Yesterday was a fabulous day.  It’s amazing what a couple of hours out of the house, in the sunshine, six feet away from friends can do for your outlook on things!  I’m calling it Pandemic Picnic.

We ordered Sonic from the app and picked it up at the drive-in at the specified time.  That was nice.  The 5 minute drive to Sonic made Hannah carsick (headache & nausea) mainly because she hasn’t been in a car for nearly a month.  I got my all time favorite Sonic drink, a strawberry vanilla Dr Pepper (real, not diet), and it was amazing.

Libby’s mom, Tiffany, and I talked and talked and talked.  I was starting to get hoarse when we left (a couple of us needed the bathroom).  After we finished eating, Leah and Libby got out some sidewalk chalk and sat six feet apart to chalk up the park.  I didn’t look to see how much drawing they did, but they were having a good time.  They planned on having a virtual sleepover and watch a movie vie Netflix Party, but Libby doesn’t have Netflix so that didn’t work.

I got my old laptop wiped and MacOS reinstalled for Leah.  She just wanted it for Netflix Party… but maybe that can still happen sometime.

We still got Azzip pizza for dinner, but that might have been a bit much after a Sonic lunch.  

Today will have a small grocery trip to Walmart and laundry.  Lawn mowing was on the to-do list but I think it’s going to rain most of the day.  Looks like that might have to wait until Monday…. I have a few clerical things to do to wrap up last week’s school stuff.  I guess that wraps up the 6^th week of Pandemic School.

8:45am update:  I felt the need to write an update after this morning’s Walmart run, lol.  There is now lots of liquid hand soap available, and I found rubbing alcohol (Oh! My! Gosh!  This is the first time I’ve seen it in six weeks!).  Also, the rubbing alcohol bottle is double the size I had in my bathroom cabinet, now it comes in 32 oz bottles.  I likely will not need more for years to come.  I found a box of my hair highlighter.  It was the last one and had been partially opened, but everything was in the box, so I bought it.  If I’m going to have shaggy hair, it’s going to be blonde…. In the “seasonal” aisle between men’s clothing and the grocery section, there was a section with everything you need to create Bloody Marys.  There was no celery, but everything else.  I almost took a photo, but just stopped and cackled instead.  Because I was trying my hardest to follow the one-way direction of each aisle, I had to go down a couple of unnecessary to me aisles.  I went down the toilet paper aisle (Cottonelle is in stock, that is my preferred brand, but I’m stocked up for a few months) so I could get to the Kleenex.  Since I still have three boxes, I can be picky on Kleenex, they didn’t have what I wanted though there were lots of Puffs.  In a couple of weeks, I will get what they have.  I had to go down the cleaning aisle to get to the drink aisle, and I’m happy to note that there was lots of bleach.  I was concerned that there might be a run on disinfectant, but there was not.  I got the girls some striped short overalls that I had previously taken a photo of and each had approved, and Leah got a pack of 50 colored pencils to go with the adult coloring book her dad sent (she “only” had a 12 pack with no good colors…).  I was happy to stock up on fruit and milk, and grabbed a specific cereal that had been requested by Elijah (chocolate Mini Wheats).  Still no flavored Diet Dr Pepper, so I opted for more artificially sweetened, carbonated, flavored water.  They were out of peach, but still had strawberry, and I grabbed black cherry as well.  It will have to do.

Welcome to Pandemic School Week 5

Welcome to Pandemic School

Week  5

Day  28 – Sunday, April 11, 2020

Happy Easter!!  He is RISEN!!

Did I honestly think I’d be writing a Pandemic Journal for more than a month?  Definitly NOT. 

We finally got word from Elijah’s school, Signature, which is a public charter International Baccalaureate high school about the end of the school year.  Granted, they wait for what the public school does and then they tweak how they want to handle things.  For the rest of April they will have online class four days a week with Fridays off for teacher planning.  Starting in May only AP classes will meet.  Freshman only (Ha! only…) have one AP class, U.S. History.  For Sophomores and  Juniors it’s likely that most if not all of their classes are AP.  Seniors should have a mix of AP and IB.  

AP tests will be given at home (!!!).  AP US History will be on May  15, and both Hannah and Elijah will be taking it.  It looks like Hannah’s AP English test will be on May 20.  

Since rain was predicted for today, we had Leah’s Easter egg hunt in the backyard yesterday.  I asked Hannah and Elijah if they wanted to hunt eggs, but they declined.  I wasn’t surprised, but I didn’t want any complaints later that I had left them out.  Leah also decorated a dozen hard-boiled eggs that will become deviled eggs for tonight’s Easter feast (yum!).  

I have kept all or nearly all of the wire “egg dippers” that we’ve used since Hannah was tiny.  I have quite a collection, lol.  One of the dippers we used this year will likely snap the next time it gets used.  The good thing is that even if we buy the egg dye kits with 10+ colors, we have a dipper for each color and plenty to spare in case of dipper catastrophe.  

I have to say that playing Easter Bunny for teens (or nearly teens) is pretty darn easy.  They sleep late, so you don’t have to do much the night before.  Also, my teens only want candy, which is super, easy.  Leah still wants a stuffed animal, and candy filled plastic eggs.  I’m happy to oblige since I don’t know how much longer she’ll want to do that.  

Here’s my Easter confessional.  I went to Wal-mart this morning just to buy Peeps.  When I went on Friday, I looked and looked in the Easter aisle for Peeps.  All they had were weird flavors like Spicy Peeps and Mystery Peeps.  After I checked out and was nearly out the door, I saw the Peeps display.  How can I impulse buy Peeps on the way out?!?!  So, I went this morning at 7:15, grabbed three packages of Peeps (pink, purple, and blue), and check out.  The weird thing was all they had were chick Peeps, no bunny Peeps.  I always buy bunny Peeps in colors to match the kids’ Easter baskets…  This year, they have chicks.  The kids consider Peeps to be an essential item for Easter, so there you have it.

Day 29 – Monday, April 13, 2020

We had a windstorm and a power outage (several actually) in the wee hours of the morning.  Around 3:30ish I was awakened by the printer turning on.  That freaked the cats and me out since it’s not attached to a computer, nor is it wireless.  Turns out that the power had turned back on, and I hadn’t known it was off.  The power flickered on and off a few times, and I unplugged the printer.  Finally the power settled on OFF.  I have the Vectren app on my phone, so I reported the outage, and tried to go back to sleep.  Around 5am the power started flickering back on.  The icemaker makes a loud noise when the power comes on, and I’d open my eyes and see my alarm clock.  I’d blink and the alarm clock would be dark again…   Around 6am it settled on ON.  I was supposed to get up then, but I decided to give everything 30 minutes to settle in (make sure the fridge was cold, the heater kicked on, etc).  I will say, the cats were well behaved last night.

It’s the girls’ first day back to virtual school since spring break, and they both got up at 7am.   Well, I woke Leah up at 7, but she just requested I wake her up at 8am.  

Easter was enjoyable, the kids got their baskets of candy, and Leah got a plastic Apatosaurus and a blue Squishmallow bunny.  We had a yummy, and easy dinner of (pre-sliced) ham, boxed scalloped potatoes, Grands biscuits, deviled eggs, and sweet kale salad.

I called my mom in the evening and she told me about their Easter for two.  Normally, she has a houseful with my siblings and their families.  They had cinnamon pork chops and apple chutney, yum!

Today, I get to look forward to a lot of computer and paper documentation for work.  Yay.  I also have a WebEx conference at 1:00.  I need to make bread this morning, and Leah and I are going to pick up school lunches at 11:30.  We are going to social distance a visit with her BFF at the lunch pickup location.  

Day 30 – Tuesday, April 14, 2020

While my introvert brain may have been made for quarantine, my middle-aged body clearly isn’t.  I’ve got to find something active that I will stick to.  I know there are lots of options, but somehow virtual Sh’bam with cat helpers and teen viewers isn’t super appealing.

Yesterday I spent the morning individually documenting on the state IEP software 70 individual parent emails that I sent out last week (if it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen).  I finished around 11:00 and Leah and I went and picked up school lunches where Leah and Libby were able to wave at each other through the car windows.  It was kind of sad.  We are thinking about a social distancing picnic if it ever warms back up.

After lunch I had a WebEx that lasted until about 2:00, after that I called it a day.  I read a chapter in my book, played Animal Crossing, made dinner, ate dinner, cleaned up, and played Animal Crossing again.

The kids all had virtual school lessons yesterday.  Leah asked for help once, but when I told her I was working and she could come sit by me for specific help, she lost interest.  I think she was hoping I would just do her work for her….  Hannah had a Spanish assignment on Senor Wooly (that’s new to me) that she found creepy.  I guess it was an animated story told by a scarf, and Hannah found everything about it to be creepy.  Spanish is the class for Hannah this year where the virtual assignments are about three times as long as a classroom assignment would have been.  She has one of the easy Spanish teachers this year, and my guess is the more difficult teacher creates the assignments.

Elijah and Leah keep their bedroom doors closed 100% of the time to keep the cats out.  However, that means that the HVAC doesn’t circulate through their rooms very well.  To try and remedy this situation, I ordered some extra tall baby gates.  The gates arrived yesterday, and I set one up in Elijah’s doorway (I’m keeping the second one boxed up in case I decide to return it).  Did it deter Oliver? No, it made him more persistent.  Instead of being happy that he could see into Elijah’s room, he became intent on displaying his anger.  He sticks his paw through the plastic webbing and strums it.  It makes a shockingly loud noise.  For now, it’s a good way to air out Elijah’s room, but Oliver needs a distraction.

This morning, Daniel Wertz faculty and staff are having a “Coffee Talk” WebEx as an informal moral boosting team-building endeavor.  I’m sure it will be fun.  Thirty minutes into that, I have a speech therapist WebEx meeting.  Then I will likely start my paper documentation of therapy assignments provided.  Document, document, document… 

Day 31 – Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Last night I was contacted by the credit union that is refinancing my mortgage.  It seems like this is taking FOREVER.  They need my home owners insurance declaration page.  I’ve gotten a mortgage and refinanced in the past 5 years, and I’ve always just told them who the insurance was with and they got that information themselves.  I went on StateFarm.com to download the document, and was surprised to find that it had to be physically mailed to me.  I may or may not have the original somewhere, but I didn’t find it.  I sent a message to the insurance agent to see if they can fax or mail the document directly to the loan officer.  I guess we’ll see.  Is there some new rule about this document?  Seems weird.  On a positive note the appraisal on my house came back for more than I paid for the house 18 months ago.  In my experience, refinance appraisals tend to come back on the low end since the bank really wants to make sure they aren’t making a bad deal on the loan.  So, that’s a YAY.

I ran to Wal-Mart at 7am because my children consumed nearly twice as many hamburger buns as I expected at dinner last night.  Grilled burgers wouldn’t be fabulous without buns.  I ran in with my mask, did not get a cart, decided to look at the clearance Easter candy.  OH! MY! GOODNESS!  It’s like no one bought ANY Easter candy this year!  The shelves are still full of good stuff at 50% off!  I’ve never seen anything like it.  First off, it makes me sad for the retailers (not Wal-Mart specifically, it’s hard to ever feel bad for Wal-Mart), sad that people were unable to celebrate in their normal way, and also proud that my community is taking this whole pandemic seriously (go Evansville!).  On the way to the bread aisle, I stopped on the baking aisle and lo and behold they had jars of bread machine yeast!  My current jar has enough for one more loaf.  I almost feel like the Widow of Zarephath when making food for Elijah made the last of the flour and oil lasted for many days.

I have a WebEx conference at 9am, and I’m starting to feel like those are keeping from living my best pandemic life, lol.  Okay, not really.   I should have just gotten up at 5 instead of 6 so I could move at a more leisurely pace. 

I woke Leah up at 8:00, and haven’t seen her yet.  I woke Elijah up at 8:00 (who’s online classes start at 9:00), and he said he had gotten up at 1am but was currently sleeping…  I’ll have to re-wake him in a few minutes.  KIDS!!

Day 32 – Thursday, April 16, 2020

After attempting to check my bank account ALL DAY LONG, around 8pm I was able to confirm that I had gotten my Trump check like most people I had heard from.  I was a little shocked that my bank was so overwhelmed with people logging in.  They just put up a banner saying “We’re working on it”, and I’m sure the situation actually takes care of itself as more and more people finally get their confirmation.

Thinking about that check made me think of Hannah and all the other 17- 23 year old students who got nothing.  Interesting demographic to throw under the bus considering they are old enough to vote, many/most of them work and filed tax returns, most of them are currently living with their parents because schools/colleges/universities sent them home.  I guess it’s because they are “dependents” for  tax purposes, but parents don’t actually receive any tax benefit for these young adults.  Few pay for their own food and housing…  It makes no sense to me.

That made me think of my own college work/study job that I had when I was a junior.  Where I went to the work/study office and looked at a physical bulletin board and picked a job.  It seems incredible that that’s how things happened in 1994.  I ended up choosing a job helping the academic advisor for foreign language majors.  It was a great job.  The advisor was very sweet but not super organized.  She would leave piles of things for me to do (put files away, make copies, sort things, mail things, run errands all over campus), and she was always surprised at how quickly I was able to get through the piles.  The next school year, I continued to work for the foreign language department, but I was the evening computer lab monitor.  Some classes required students to spend a certain amount of time in the computer lab.  At that time, you couldn’t monitor who was on the computers, so they had to sign in and out on a paper list.   That was my first experience with email and the Internet… 1995.

Last night I finished watching Picard.  Wow, that was a really great show, and obviously a lot of time and money went into the production.  I am clearly terrible at sitting down and watching shows… even shows I really enjoy.  I’m not sure what’s up with that. 

I am 70 pages away from finishing the 13^th Wheel of Time book, so I expect to finish that today.  The entire fourteen book epic series is 10, 913 (paperback) pages long, and I’ve read nearly 9,700 of them in the past fourteen months.  I’m only about a month behind schedule as I’d hoped to be done by now.  Normally, I would read a short book or two before starting the next WoT book, but I think I’m just going to start the next book tomorrow.

Day 33 – Friday, April 17, 2020

I clearly have a mental block against moving into the second month of Pandemic School.  I looked at yesterday’s entry so I would know what number day it is, and it said “31”.  That didn’t seem right, and sure enough I had put “31” on both Wednesday and Thursday.  I fixed that.

Oliver, the @#$%^&* cat,  got up at 3am which is pretty normal.  I got up, closed the bathroom door and my door to keep him from throwing things on the floor.  In the 5am hour, he meowed sweetly to come back in my room, so I let him.   I thought, “Wow, he’s learning to not be such an @#$%^&* in the middle of the night.  He snuggled up with me, purred, and went back to sleep.  I got up at 6:00 and went into the kitchen and was shocked to find broken glass all over the floor.  He had knocked a glass apothecary jar full of wrapped candy on the floor and the lid shattered.  It is not unusual for him to knock stuff off the counter, but I think this is the first time he’s shattered anything (probably not, I’m sure I’ll think of something).  I swept up all the glass, and was thankful that I’d put on a pair of flip flops when I got out of bed.  None of the cats seem to have sore paws, so I think we are good.  I didn’t even hear it… that’s weird.  Earlier in the week, Oliver knocked my tin canister of steel cut oats onto the floor.  I heard that one, but didn’t come investigate right away (it was a THUNK, not the usual crash and rattle).  The tin can had landed on it’s lid (the kind you pry open) and was slightly ajar.  Only a tablespoon or less of oats ended up on the floor which is fairly amazing.  

My mom made and sent masks for us, which I whole-heartedly appreciate.  She even went to great lengths to split up the Zelda fabric between my brother, brother in-law, and me because we all chose the same scrap.  The kids have not left the house in weeks.  Leah has taken a couple of car trips with me, but has not been out among people.  I’m the only one wearing the masks, but she has an idea for a scrapbook page and wanted photos of everyone wearing their mask.  At dinner the other night, I finally remembered.  I handed each a mask, and waited for them to put them on.  Elijah had NO IDEA what it was, or what it was for.  He asked if it was an eye mask for sleeping because he always wanted one of those.  He clearly is on different social media than the rest of us.  If they ever do leave the house, they will clearly need a lesson on how to wear them.

  

I love all of the flowering plants and trees in Evansville in the spring, but I don’t love all the pollen.  My allergies here, compared to Oklahoma are very mild, and I shouldn’t complain.  I am truly glad I don’t live near cedar trees because fall and winter in Oklahoma are miserable because that’s when the cedar trees do their thing.  At least all the pollen in Indiana is accompanied by SO MANY beautiful flowering trees.  

Last night, I made sloppy joes for dinner.  I have not made them in over six years because the kids would not previously eat them.  I just wanted to make something a little different with the ground beef, so I went for it.  They ate them without complaint.  I don’t think sloppy joes are a favorite, but they ate them, and they didn’t complain.

Elijah does not have school today (Fridays off!), but he hates sleeping in.  His body wants to sleep in, but his brain doesn’t.  He hates the thought of wasting time by sleeping…  However, he sleeps through alarms a lot.  His alarm is set to play “Mr Blue Sky” by ELO, and it’s just not jolting enough to actually wake him.  After hearing it the 20 second loop for 10 minutes, I woke him up.  Then five minutes later, I went to wake him up and he told me he was awake, but his alarm was still going…  He might be up now, but if not, he’s not missing any school.

Day 34 – Saturday, April 18, 2020

Today, I need to do laundry and mow the lawn.  I’ve started the first load of laundry, but the lawn will probably have to wait until afternoon since it rained all day yesterday and it’s currently a frosty 34 degrees right now (but it is sunny!).

Last night was pizza night and I picked up from our new normal, local place, Azzip.  Apparently, there was a run on pizza last night because they were running WAY behind.  I’m glad they were busy, but the poor workers were just run ragged (in the rain).  Typically, when I order online, I have the option to pick up ASAP or choose a time.  Last night my earliest option was 45 minutes later and they were running 30 minutes behind that.  Our pizza was great, as usual, but they had run out of (warm, chocolate chip) cookies.  They gave us coupons for 4 free kids meals to replace them.  I don’t think you can use those when ordering online though…  I’ll have to check next time I order. 

My kids had another nostalgia night, which happened last Friday as well.  We eat dinner together EVERY night, I’m not sure what it is about pizza that brings it out of them.  Last night it was the computer games they played when they were tots like Reader Rabbit, and an online Dora game (actually several).  Then Leah, who started playing games on an iPod Touch when she was 18 months old, started talking about some of the early apps we had.  I told her most of those were on my school iPad for my students to use.  We got that out and she played Tozzle (a toddler, puzzle app that was the first paid app I ever bought), Toca Boo, and My Play House.  

Time has very little meaning during Pandemic School; however, weekends mean no web conferences and no homework is assigned or due.  Yesterday, Leah asked me what was for dinner, and was surprised that it was Friday…  It all just runs together.  Elijah no longer has school on Fridays, which we assumed meant that nothing would be assigned or due on Fridays.  That was an incorrect assumption.  Apparently, something was assigned and was due at noon.  He found out about it at 8pm, and he immediately started working on it.  That’s fairly obnoxious in my opinion.

All the politicians (well, not all…) are pushing for the world to reopen in 2 weeks, but getting people tested is still difficult.  Where are the serology tests so we know who might be immune?  I’d love for my kids to go to camp in early June this year as planned.  I’m just not sure we are there yet.  My community made a statement that we could be the first to open in the state because our numbers are so low.  I just looked at the published numbers, and on a good day 38 tests have been done.  The number of positive cases with those few tests is increasing.  It makes sense that Indy got hit harder and earlier than we did.  I also know that the city REALLY needs the casino to open up.  

I have not yet cancelled our vacation to Colorado at the beginning of June (I have until May 2), but I probably will.