Day 2

I took a nice walk in the middle of the day. It was about 1.5 miles. In the middle of nowhere. It was good, quiet. Lexie called at towards the end of my walk and hearing her voice was wonderful. Maybe I should share our location.

Sylvia is a town in western Reno county comprised of about 200 residents. We have a Post Office and library. There is a gas station on the highway that sells awesome tacos but is only open certain hours. Our streets are sand/dirt and it is rare to see many people. I guess this is a great location to practice social distancing and isolation from people. Animals are another story. There are several dogs in town and the stray cats have discovered our house has cats. We also see a lot of deer, pheasants, raccoons, and o'possums on the drive to school daily. So many people ask if I like it here. I've liked everywhere that I lived for different reasons. Every location has positives and negatives. This location is another adventure to explore, new routines to establish, and people to get to know.

Our day was pretty basic with following the new routine of school and work. This evening we discovered the oven was not working. That's not going to be good when we are having to cook at home all the time.   Supper took about two hours to cook. Then we watched Frozen 2. Ellie loves it as much as she loved the first movie. Having Disney Plus streaming is going to be nice while we are at home. Lots of opportunity to catch up on movies.

Day 1

Although this is not our first day home, I will call it Day 1 because it is the first day of official virtual learning.
I decided it would be best to stick to some sort of routine otherwise someone would need to eat or be in the kitchen all day. Everyone was up, dressed, and ready to work by 9am. The morning went smoothly. Ellie had her chrome book from school and her teachers use Google classroom.She navigates it well. She likes to sing and talk to herself while she is doing her math. At 11:20a on Mondays and Wednesdays, we go to the park to pick up the sack lunch meals that the school provides. It is good to physically see other people and to get some snacks for the week.
For me it is several meetings via Zoom. But I have fun playing with the virtual background and pretending I'm somewhere else.
The girls still have dance on Monday's. Sherry is working with them on their private dances via Zoom. We went to the senior center to have more space. There were a few internet glitches, but we managed to get through the lessons. Although next time we will pick a different spot in the room as Katie was hitting the drop down lights with her arm movements.
After supper, we watched some Monk (TV show) and I cleaned out another box. One benefit of being home is I can purge more stuff from the garage.

These are the days of our lives..... making history.

Isolation, Social distancing, Quarantine, Pandemic - these are all words I didn't expect to be discussing this March.  I expected to be discussing-Spring Break, Bridal Shower/party, Wedding flowers, Prom (dress, hair, shoes, flowers). etc. Just a couple weeks ago I had briefly heard of a terrible virus spreading through China and felt sad for them but went on with my plans. Because we are a trans-global society, that virus didn't stay on another continent. By the first part of this month it had taken hold in the US and was rapidly spreading - faster than the labs could keep up with the diagnosis. I remember dropping Lexie off at the airport on March 7th and thinking "I hope she has a wonderful time with Jacob on her break". I wasn't thinking 'I hope she doesn't get sick'. Six days later her school had cancelled for another week to figure out what to do and how to handle it. Other events were also being cancelled - Prom, Graduations, sports, Basketball tournaments. She opted to stay a few more days with Jacob. By the time she came home,(18th) San Francisco was in a mandatory 'stay home' status and she was required to self-isolate for 14 days in case she had been infected. On March 17th, our Governor closed all public school buildings for the remainder of the year.  The virus numbers had tripled in four days time and each Kansas county began discussing 'stay home' orders.
March 23-27 was supposed to be our Spring Break. We had no major plans for that week because we had so many plans coming up with the wedding. Instead it became our second week out of school and trying to figure out what school was going to be like for the remainder of the year. We set up a new learning area for Ellie to do her work. Katie already had a great desk in her room. Angie set up a table to work from in Lexie's bedroom. We did some relaxing activities - the girls painted, we took a hike, and we made s'mores on the fire. Katie also got in some practice drive time. Life was somewhat normal but yet not at the same time. We were unsure what the upcoming days would be like. We tried to make a list to limit our shopping trips - get it all in one  trip. Plus we have the time now to cook all of our meals and planned the items needed. Monday starts our new normal. Katie and Ellie start their continuous learning at home while mom works from home. Kansas has decided to declare 'stay home' orders.  We have also adjusted our church services. Now we are live-streaming in an empty sanctuary and making plans for online ways to connect with the people. No matter what, we know God is bigger than anything and he is in control. We have to put our trust in God to help us through this crisis.
While its been a few years since I wrote on this blog, I felt it would be a great opportunity to document our upcoming days. One day it will be history to reflect back on and talk about with the girls.