We made it a full work/ school week. The kids are doing their school work and the teachers are in constant contact to make sure they are there in case we have any questions. It’s cute to see my son help my daughter with her math homework.

I am 25 days zero alcohol and I feel pretty good about myself right now.

I wanted to come up with something clever to write for my Friday blog and really, I have nothing today. There is nothing going on. Everyday they are closing more and more things around us. Which is fine. I get it. It’s a little weird that there is no end date, you know? I am just happy that we are okay so far.  I get really worried when any of us have to leave the house right now.

The news said that for everyone testing positive assume there are 100 more people who haven’t taken the test yet… That would be 12600 people at this point and the majority of them are in the towns surrounding us. It’s unsettling.

See all that red over NY and CT, that’s where we are.

Today the kids have gym for their specials. We are going to try to take them to the beach so we can all get out and walk a little bit. We should be good on groceries to get us through the weekend and I am hoping that when I go Monday Morning, there won’t be that many people.

The school is talking about not coming back till after what was supposed to be April break. There is no more April break. Now that the kids are doing school from home they want the kids to continue to do that through the break. So I guess the parents and teachers get no break.

It is what it is right now. I think everyone is just trying to make do with the current situation.

This weekend is my deep cleaning weekend. I also want to get out in the yard and prune and see what we need to get ready for spring. Other than that, there isn’t much going on. How about you? How does your weekend look?

Oh, Happy First day of Spring!

It’s Wednesday. I think everything is starting to get into the new groove. Things have definitely changed and it’s weird to not have an end date to it. There are all these possibilities floating around and no sure anything… I guess no one is sure how long anything is going to take. The school says maybe in a couple weeks, maybe after break, maybe not at all this school year.

I feel really bad for my sister because she works the before and after program  in the elementary schools, so she’s part time. With no school, she has no work, so she gets no paycheck. She is a single mom with a 14 year old daughter. We’ll help out as much as we can but that just really sucks. They basically said everyone needs to file unemployment for now. I hope it’s not jammed up too much and she can at least start to get something soon.

My husband and I have divided the day in half so I work mornings in the studio and he works afternoons. That way we each have a few solid hours of silence while the other gets interrupted by the kids while they do their school work. My workday department call ins are 10 or 11 AM and his meetings are mostly in the afternoon. It works out for us.

I have been cooking lately… A lot. I didn’t really notice how much we used to eat out. But I know now, it was pretty often. Usually my husband and kids make their breakfasts, I have coffee. Then the kids have hot lunch at school and my husband and I will either meet for lunch or I will get something with my co worker. Either way, we tend to eat lunch out of the house most days and then we aren’t really hungry by the time we get home so I make the kids something for dinner, and they snack.

I realize now how much I didn’t really cook during the week! Now though, I have been making pretty big lunches for all of us and then we make the kids something for dinner later on. I have left overs in my fridge. Tomorrow is left over day.

The other day I make plastelon (plantain lasagna) . Then I made Kielbasa and sauerkraut. Then I made Goulash yesterday. Today I had to run out to get milk and a couple other things from the grocery store. I bought a roasted chicken and made rice and corn for the side…

People are not following the 6 feet distance recommendation. I got annoyed at Costco because this man came and stood next to me. I was behind my cart and he stood in front of his cart in line… Like directly behind me. I was so annoyed and I almost turned around and asked him to move farther away, but I didn’t… Then at the grocery store I went to grab some meat and I pulled my cart over like I normally do and went to check out the meat but I stood next to someone… Then I realized that I was doing the same thing as that man had done to me so I grabbed something and ran away.

I hope I can just keep it in my mind next time I go out to just be super careful and distance myself from other people for now. I hope to not have to go out again for another few days. I think we have enough stuff for a while now. When I get home from the stores I just get nervous for a while even after I scrub my hands a few times.

Honestly though, the stores are crazy. Today there was no toilet paper in either store. I went at 11:00 AM. The store weren’t packed. I also noticed that people seem to be stocking up on meat, pasta, bread and anything canned. All those shelves were pretty bare. I think we’re fine on toilet paper for another few weeks so I hope the are able to restock by then.

How’s it going by you?

I stayed home from work today because the kids are out of school and my husband had to go into work to help people set up to work from home. He works in IT so he needed to be there.

It was our first day of “homeschooling” and it started off a little wobbly. I checked in online with the teachers to mark the kids as present. We started with reading and writing and a melt down from the boy. He got caught in a lie he told me last week about reading his book in school and he did not. Then on to the maths. Every 3 minutes was a question. I could barely focus on my work. It was frustrating because it was not even hard questions, the questions were about things these children already know the answer too. Ugh… Seriously, how do these teachers do it with 20 kids?

By that time I was receiving texts from my friends about Costco talking about closing. I was like oh my god, if that happens then I might be better off going shopping on my “lunch”. I was going to try to go late tonight, like right before closing hoping that there wouldn’t be too many people there. I got nervous that everyone else would do the same.

My husband returned home just as I was receiving the news that my office is officially shutting down. I needed to jump on a conference call with my department to go over our jobs for the next few weeks as we all hunker down and try to wait this thing out. It wasn’t bad. Everyone is going to try to do as much work as possible from home. There will still be billing, there will still be payments. There will be morning call ins at 10:00 AM to go over what we are all working on that day. We will still be getting paid normal and not have to use any of our time. So, good news for the most part.

After the call I took a quick run to the store to get some more yogurt and milk. There weren’t that many people there and I was really surprised to see the produce was mostly restocked. When I went there Friday, there was not a lot of anything. I got the few things I needed and then a few things I saw as I walked by. With everything I threw in my cart I questioned if I was being rational or if I was starting to hoard. The feeling to grab more was real.  I did buy two of a few things to cut down my future trips to the store this week. I know with all of us home and us cooking all meals, we will be going through a lot more than normal here.

By the time I got to the register I was starting to get nervous. There were a lot of people there, and only a cart length in between each other. I really believe in social distance without a pandemic going around and now it seems to be amplified a little bit.

I got home, worked some more. For my kids “gym” from home I sent them to the backyard to play and then to help clean it up. 🙂 On the bright side of all this, I have a feeling that at the end of this quarantine I will have a really clean and organized house. I hope.

I am super happy that I quit drinking for a month 3 weeks ago too because I know if I was still drinking I would already be on my first glass of something. But no, I have one week left and I am feeling really good, I think I might push it another week… Or maybe another month. I like the sleep I am getting, I don’t feel so run down anymore (that took a while), I feel better. I am starting to look at how much money we save too just by not having a drink if we go out to eat. Also, not buying bottles of wine and rum for the weekend. So now I’m looking at it less like a temporary break and more of like when I quit smoking… Almost…  When I quit smoking it was because I was pregnant and I never started again because the prices went up so high. With smoking, I loved it, the smell, the taste, the feeling in my lungs ( I know that’s gross but I really do miss that feeling), and I still miss it, but the truth is I feel physically better without it. Maybe this break will be a little more permanent too.

So that’s where we are at right now. All restaurants are closed for dine in. Only take out, pick up and delivery. The stores are changing some hours so that 65 and older can shop for a couple hours before normal hours for the rest of the public. I think that is smart too.

All schools are closed. All movies, pubs/bars and gyms are closed until at least the end of this month.

I’ll probably have to make another couple grocery runs, but we should be good to wait this out for a while.

How about you? How is it going?