Chloe, 3.23.2020

 

MY FAMILY

My family is the best. My family is HAPPY HAPPY!   My family is Chloe, Abby, Ryan, Coleson

, Amy and Maya. Do you have an amazing family and pet? Is your family and pet HAPPY HAPPY! By Chloe Chase.

Chloe, 3.21.2020

 

Chloe

 

Chloe, 3.18.2020

 

Abby's writings

 

3.18.2020

By: Abby Chase

Corona virus

 

Today we are going to go on a walk after we finish our dld for the day. It is a very nice day it will warm up good, but it will rain later. Everyone is outside so it is hard to stay six feet. I am very bummed about soccer being canceled it feels like an eternity of time till I get to play again on April 30^th hopefully it will be earlier then that though. My coach is not happy either. Time for the walk.

Monday, March 30^th, 2020

ABBY Survives the Coronavirus!  [based on the hit book series “I Survived”]

Chapter One

Today I am writing about the coronavirus and my life. My soccer practices got canceled but on the other hand I still get to practice digitally. I also got to be on the soccer video number 2. I got to do it with Hannah Kate at her house. Her dad is the coach for u9 and a landscaper, so he made a wall that went into the hill made to fit the soccer goal. It is a good set up there in the front yard. They were able to do this because they bought their neighbors property. I am not very happy that they canceled school for me. But it is easier in all to do dld but you do not get to see your friends. So that is the bad part about this dld. And that my birthday is going to be during dld. so, I do not get to have an official birthday party this year so that is not good. But it will work out I still do get to enjoy with my family. And I already got a kick back it is where I can kick on a 2 by 10 board and it will come back to me we also play wall ball on the kick back and soccer tennis those are some fun games to pass time with my family and I enjoy playing.

Ryan's writings

 

Wednesday, March 11^th, 2020

Today started off normal with school and everything I went to intramurals and then church. Today was the day when I got the news March Madness was canceled for fans. I was upset because my friend Matthew was going. That night the hawks played, and little did I know that was there last game for a while.

Thursday, March 12^th, 2020

When I woke up my mom tells me about the NBA and how it was canceled. Apparently, Rudy Gobert was tested positive and the league wanted to stay safe. Soon after Donovan Mitchell got it from Gobert. After school, I learned that the MLB and some other leagues were postponed. I was mad because the Braves started in less than a month. March Madness was fully canceled too. That night I went to my Wood Elite scrimmage and that was our last one for a while. On the way back home, I learned that school was canceled for two weeks. No friends!

Friday, March 13^th, 2020

Here is a hint, today goes along with the date. I went to school and all my teachers explained how DLDs (Digital Learning Day) would go. When I got home there was not a lot to do and boredom became reality.

Saturday, March 14^th, 2020

Today started off boring. My sister’s soccer’s were canceled, and I shoot hoops at the park with Matthew. Finally, at two o’clock we do something. Even if its hiking we can get out of the house. When I get back home, I play with friends then eat dinner.

Sunday, March 15^th, 2020

Church is canceled. We watch online service, which is great, but we don’t leave the house. Then my friends come and played, and little did I know that was the last day for a while to play with two of them. While I was playing my dad and his buddies took the railing of above the porch and took off the window boxes. Our house looks a lot better.

Monday, March 16^th, 2020

Today is the first day of DLD. I work tirelessly for about 4-5 hours and finally finish after what feels like an eternity. After I’m done, I shoot hoops with my neighbor Will and learn my other neighbor is quarantined. The world feels like it is shutting down. Stock Market is crashing as well.

Tuesday, March 17^th, 2020

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We had our traditional Lucky Charms cereal. Then the fun was over and DLD time it was. After that we baked treats and called Nana. We went on a walk and I played with my friends. For dinner we had Tacos!
Wednesday, March 18^th, 2020

Today was the same old same old with nothing do but play outside or be bored. I had online RevStudents, my church, and DLD for hours.

Thursday, March 19^th, 2020

Today started off the same but after dinner the Mahrs and Esterlings came over for a desert and to play. It was fun and the rest of the day was DLD and basketball.

Friday, March 20^th, 2020

It’s Friday! While I was working my mom ventured out to Kroger and Chick-fil-a and I ate fast food for the first time it about two weeks! Not to mention we filled the fridge and pantry. The rest of the day was the same though.

Saturday, March 21th, 2020

We had pancakes for breakfast and my dad went up to Lowes to work on the house and then we had a normal day.

Sunday, March 22^nd, 2020

Today we had virtual chruch and then another day of just the same thing.

Monday – Friday

Not much so I combined the week which involved just mostly work and playing outside.

Saturday, March 28^th, 2020

me again, 4.22.2020

 

Wednesday, April 22^nd, 2020 – Coleson’s birthday!! 

Random quarantine memories

*Chloe’s class does a call on Microsoft teams every morning.  From 8:45-9 they are free to just chit chat and talk about whatever.  And so the class has been hearing our cuckoo clock go off at 9:00 every morning.  Mrs. Shakespeare asked Chloe if she would start the meetings – so now the pressure is on to keep the time right on the clock.  When the clock goes off, Chloe’s class job is to say something along the lines of “it’s 9:00, mute your microphones, it’s time to start our meeting”  I love it!!  The clock has always had a special place in my heart, and I love that everyone else seems to love it too!

*I’m hoping I don’t burn myself out on a new favorite lunch – Abby and I love to have peanut butter, honey, and banana.  I toast my bread first and have it open face, eating with a fork.  Abby puts it together as a sandwich.  Sooo good.  Since I shop on Fridays only now, we usually have it earlier in the week.  Even though I buy two big bunches, our fresh bananas run out by Tuesday or Wednesday.  I also usually have a scoop of raisins on the side.  Those keep longer but are still yummy [at least in my opinion, and I’m the one doing the shopping, hehe].  And cookies.  Cookies have helped me get through.  Any cookie will do, but my first choice is the Keebler soft batch.  Jessi made me some amazing birthday cookies.  And Mari wrote on the top of the Tupperware “Happy Birthday Mrs. Amy.  Amy’s cookies, do not touch”  They know me so well :)

*Our days have settled into a routine pretty well.  Coleson has been getting up pretty early to run and/or read his Bible.  I try to get up around 7/7:30 and I like to start my day listening to one of the online devotions from Revolution Church.  They’ve been doing them on facebook live daily at noon.  Noon is not ideal with three kiddos and a work from home hubby, so I watch them later.  I really enjoy them.  Each morning has been a different chapter of psalms.  The kiddos come downstairs around 8/8:30.  The further into this we get, the later the girls have been sleeping.  Finally!  More often then not, Chloe would be awake when I would come in at 6:15 on school morning.  Breakfast, schoolwork, sometimes the LA Times crossword for me, computer work/billpaying/ typing things like this/ etc.  Abby usually finishes up mid-morning.  Chloe takes most of the day.  Ryan is done by maybe 2:00.  Most days we eat lunch together standing around the kitchen island about noon.  Chloe has an afternoon call at 3:00, these are fun ones – show and tells, mystery readers, sing-a-alongs, book cooks.   We try to bike and/or run.  Lots of yard projects.  Dinner followed by a walk around the block.  Grandma has been reading to the girls from Anne of Green Gables.  Occasionally playing Yahtzee over facetime with Ryan.  Xbox in the evening, the girls will watch Ryan or play Roblox on their chromebooks.  Or watch Love it or List it on HGTV. 

*Cherokee county sent a survey to parents, teachers, and I think high school students [I know not middle school] about how the year was going and one of the questions was about the end date.  Taking into account our preferences, the school board unanimously voted to end school on May 8^th this year!!  I’m ready to be done.  The county, schools, teachers have been great about walking everyone through these digital learning days.  Their emails almost always start with a message about grace.  Compassion over convention.  Super kind thoughts like that, I love our community. 

*Our state has been on a stay-at-home, lockdown that is supposed to go through April 30^th.  Not much is open, and we’re encouraged to stay home when at all possible.  We really haven’t been out much at all.  And yet now, the governor has approved some things to open up on Friday [the 24^th].  I’m not sure how this goes along with the lockdown that’s still in effect?!  Hair dressers, nail salons, gyms, and what we keep laughing at is, in the list of maybe a dozen things, it specifically says bowling alleys.  Go figure.  We’ve joking that we’re going bowling Friday night, weird.  Our plan is to pretty much keep on, same old same old, until May 8^th.  With digital learning and Coleson working from home, we’ll just do our thing and see how this “re-opening” plays out.  We do occasionally talk about our hopes and dreams and the crazy places we’ll go as soon as school’s out.  We’ll have a four month summer with a hubby who will hopefully be able to work from home still.  Not sure how much we’ll really be able to do in reality, but it’s fun to daydream.  Rumor is that the pools might not even open, the neighborhood swim team was recently cancelled for the 2020 season. 

more from me - 4.8.2020

 

Wednesday, April 8^th, 2020

So I’ve done a pretty bad job of writing about our quarantine!  I want to, I really do.  But I think it also overwhelms me to think about.  My mind is on overload, and I’m never really sure where to begin or what to say, so I guess I just type nothing.  I’m not sure if I should type details or thoughts or world events, what sort of genre am I going for.  Heartfelt or facts?  Bullet points or long, wayward paragraphs?  But I need to just start, so here goes.

We’re making it, I suppose.  Obviously, I mean we don’t have a choice, right?!  Hehe.  We’re in week four of being home.  Three full weeks of homeschooling, DLD, crisis schooling, whatever you want to call it.  This week is spring break.  And honestly, I like it so much better.  I suppose the routine of school is good, and esp so for Ryan and perhaps even Abby.  School is harder on Chloe, and thus on me too.  I don’t really want to go down that tangent right now, but I am really happy to not have a schedule and to-do lists and lots of calls and assignments.  We’ve enjoyed less structure and sleeping in and I’ve been doing a morning video devotional with Revolution Church.  We’ve done a TON of bike riding.  And more Xbox/ Fort Nite then I’d care to admit.  The only perk of the video games is that the kids talk to each other and have facetime phones going, so they are still keeping in touch.  A lot of times the games are with his Bennington friends [Kaden, Will, Ryan, Sawyer, Cooper], but I do LOVE the occasional game with his bestest school buddy Tripp.  He’s a super sweet kid that obviously we haven’t seen in almost a month.  We’re pretty much self-quarantined at this point.  Nobody’s been inside our house since I don’t even know when.  The last day of school was Friday March 13^th [remember when the memes were going around about the time change, a full moon, and Friday the 13^th?!  Ha, that pales in comparison to how that week actually went down].  But anyways, I know by Thursday the 12^th I was worried about a cough that Chloe had, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the weekend before that we last had anyone in our house.  And in the past two weeks or so, basketball, playing in yards, anything with “contact” has been cut out.  Our kids ride bikes with their friends and we say hi when we’re all outside and we’ll talk across the street, but that’s about it.  For a long time, the silver lining for me was how much everyone is outside.  I love seeing kids playing and so so many bike riders and dog walkers and people working in their yards.  But I don’t know.  It’s also hard knowing we can’t actually be with them.  Chloe and Mari had a great afternoon playing together a few days back – chalk and water guns and all sorts of fun.  But it really goes against the quarantine, so probably won’t have many more days like that.  Mari has become an awesome bike rider, she finally made up her mind to ditch her training wheels.  She joins us on our bike rides a lot.  I love how much she and Chloe try to be together.

I’ve been trying to compile things for an eventual scrapbook/ Shutterfly project.  I’ve mostly got funny, stupid memes.  They help me get through I guess.  Distraction, comedy, you know.  But honestly what I’m trying the most to focus on is treating this time as a sabbath.  I’m not sure what to think or what to believe about what’s actually going on.  Everything is so overwhelming and complicated and political and extreme.  Honestly, I tend to sit back and wonder how we got here.  And I tend to side with those that think perhaps we’ve taken it too far.  I hate the thought of losing our basic freedoms and what makes us American.  But I also have to respect our leaders and do my part and I hate the thought of people getting sick and being alone in ICUs and not having the medical equipment and professionals they need.  I have no idea what the answer is or what’s right or wrong.  And I’m not really sure anyone does.  I don’t like to live in fear, it’s not my natural reaction, and I’m honestly not even scared of the virus.  But I feel like I can’t say that out loud, because everyone else is afraid.  So I’m just trying to focus on my little family and how we can make the best of this.  I’ve been going out on Fridays for Kroger and Chick-fil-a.  It’s not that I’m afraid to go out more, but I guess I just feel like it’s not necessary.  I have to do my part and all.  But I think it’s bigger then that too.  I believe that God has given us this time [or maybe not actively given it to us, but is using it] to slow down and reflect and refocus.  Like a fast or a sabbath.  My greatest fear is missing out on something that God wants to show me/us.  So I feel like going out more would be more along the lines of breaking a fast then breaking the new social norms.  I’m not sure if that makes sense.  I want to be changed, I want to learn from this, I want to reprioritize and figure out who I really am, what’s really most important to me and in my life.  What am I missing the most?  What do I not want to go back to?  So even though I’m not sure I believe in the extreme measures of this quarantine, I do believe that God wants me to use this time for good.  To glorify him.  To draw closer to him.  To my family.  So I’m onboard with all of it, but not exactly for the reasons that society and our government says I should be. 

I haven’t had a glass of wine since Saturday night.  And yes, I had to think about that.  Esp now that we are on spring break, I am completely losing track of the day and date.  This is the first year in forever that I haven’t had a page-a-day calendar on the kitchen counter.  I barely wear my watch anymore.  I put my beloved weekly calendar away in a drawer after writing “no school – covid19” across the top of the rest of April and May.  No school events or sports to keep up with.  I have been using the alarm on my phone more then ever.  Daily reminders for school conference calls, Ryan has Wednesday night zooms with his small group and then RevStudents, reminders for friends and neighbors’ birthdays.  Little things are big things now when there aren’t a lot of things.  My family doesn’t really understand, but I hung up Christmas lights in the playroom/loft.  I love their warmth while we watch the kids play Fort Nite in the evenings.  I hung our American flag in the garage window.  Oh, so back to the wine though.  I was drinking way too much of it.  Yes, it showed on the scale, but more to do with I was drinking it for the wrong reasons – although I guess that’s why a lot of us drink anyways, isn’t it?  I felt like it was an escape and I wasn’t in control.  Not that I was drunk by any means, but more of just I need to put my faith in God instead of looking forward to my evening glass of wine.  He has given us a spirit of self-control, not of fear.  So I need to trust Him more, not drink more.  Although I still do eat way too many cookies.

It’s almost lunch time.  The kids have played more xbox then normal today.  Honestly today has been harder than most.  I have had no motivation today.  But I was super productive and happy the last two days, it’s a balancing act these days, I can’t imagine I’m the only one who feels bi-polar given the current world we live in.  I miss things today.  I miss that Chloe and Mari were becoming really good friends, and we’ve had to remind ourselves to step back and socially distance.  I miss watching Abby play soccer and Ryan play basketball.  The last pictures on my phone before quarantine pictures were from the Atlanta United game on March 7^th.  The home opener, a win!  In so many ways that feels like a million years ago.  I remember that we told the kids [both there and on the cruise] to pretend the stair railings had the flu and try not to touch too much, but honestly I wasn’t anymore worried then any other outing.  I miss seeing people and I’d love to have another lunch with Brooke at Your Pie.  I miss going places.  I just want to get in the car and drive.  Like really drive.  Pack up the family, and probably even Maya, and head west.  The places I keep going back to in my head are Zion National Park, Garden of the Gods, Santa Fe and green chili and playing in the arroyos of El Dorado.  Sitting on that adobe wall in our rental house on Azul.  Just being away from it all in the middle of the big huge space.  Ironic that in the midst of social isolating, some of the things I miss the most are being away from it all.  Going off the grid, taking a big deep breath, forgetting about the problems of the world.  Coleson misses the beach and is hoping for a trip to Kiawah Island.  I sure could go for a lunch at Pompano Joe’s.  And pizza.  Oh I am craving a pizza.  A real pizza, not the frozen ones.  I go back and forth between our pizza place – which I like because it’s ours – and a big fat deep dish pizza.  Our pizza place is thin crust, but it’s so good and comforting and has great coke and yummy Greek salad.  Definitely miss the familiarity and comfort of being there, but I think deep dish is what I’m really craving food-wise.  I think I want to get out more, do more.  Explore more, try more things.  Hattie B’s Nashville hot.  I don’t think it ever crossed my mind to drive to Atlanta just for lunch, but at this point, I’m thinking planning a day around something as epic as hot chicken sounds like a great adventure. 

I am guilty of being comfortable.  I know this.  I’ve said it a million times.  I have to figure out how to shake that up.  How to live more, how to get out of the rut [once there’s a rut to get back into].  So many times in life I feel like I am treading water, barely keeping afloat, and missing out.  There’s so much world out there.  So much more to this life.  I’ve always known it and I feel it now.  I don’t know exactly what that looks like.  I know it starts with being less anxious, giving up control.  I’m not a worrier, but I also don’t always know how to let go and enjoy.  Life tends to overwhelm me, I get frantic and panicky a lot.  And I don’t want to live like that.  I don’t want to feel guilty about typing for the last hour instead of doing breakfast dishes or emptying the dryer.  Guilty perhaps is an accurate word.  I think I feel bad when I slow down.  There’s always something to do, something I need to do.  And it’s probably made harder by the fact that I’m a stay at home mom who’s kids are all in school now.  I feel guilty.  Coleson works so hard.  So I feel guilty if I slow down or take time for myself.  Even today, just doing the crossword puzzle and typing this.  I’m not productive and I’m starting to feel like I need to finish this up, so I can move on to something more “important.”  How to slow down and enjoy life without feeling bad or guilty about it?!  Perhaps I’m typing my way through a self-help therapy session.  Not sure this is the direction I thought I’d go, or meant to go, when I started typing.  Not sure this is content for a Shutterfly time capsule book to display on our bookshelves for the world [or at least family and friends and visitors] to see and read.  Alright, so lunch time it is.  Kids are appearing in the kitchen and claiming they’re starving.  And honestly I’m pretty hungry too.  Perhaps next time I’ll write something suitable for a memory book, but this was good writing too :)  Peace out for now!

               

my writings from March

 

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Where or where to start?!?  Coronavirus, COVID19, quarantine.  I feel like we are living history right now.  And we, as a family, thought it’d be fun and interesting to document, journal, write down our thoughts.  Perhaps someday our kids and grandkids will be reading this as they study the world wide crisis, craziness that was the year 2020.  I’ve asked Ryan, Abby, and Chloe to write down their thoughts too.  I’d like to combine it all into some sort of Shutterfly book for us to look back on in time. 

I guess I should start with how we got here?  We went on a cruise for our February break.  Shortly before that, we first heard of the corona virus.  At the time, I didn’t even know what it was, and there were a few jokes about hoping we make it back.  But it felt sort of like when you go to Mexico and you tell people not to drink the water.  Our cruise was great!  No issues at all.  Now Chloe and I both did get a little sick the very first night back on land.  We thought it was just getting our land legs back; Coleson and I both were wobbly and woozy and the world kept rocking.  But by the time we went to bed, my throat was pretty sore.  Chloe woke up in the night crying about her throat as well.  Hers was better the next day, but I kept the winter time yuck feeling [cough, sinus, a swollen lymphoid in my neck, but only the occasional sore throat, never a fever].  Was it corona?  Honestly, I doubt it, but we’ll never know for sure I suppose.  I do remember telling Coleson and a few others that there was no way I’d go to a doctor right about now anyways – how am I going to explain that I just got home from a cruise and I don’t feel good?!  Those early days of the virus, back in February, it was like the plaque or something.  The cases were coming in very slowly and thus they were each making news individually.  I’m still not sure how privacy and HIPPA laws weren’t violated, but the last thing I would have wanted was the news reporting that I had the case and painting a scarlet letter on my door!       

 

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Well, I didn’t make it very far on yesterday’s writing!  The kiddos are doing Digital Learning Days.  And they’re not kidding!  The teachers are keeping them busy, which all-in-all I think I’m grateful for.  But some days are pretty rough.  And they can’t do the assignments well on ipads and tablets, so that leaves somebody needing my laptop.  I had these quaint little visions going into this of our morning routine- kiddos doing school work, me being able to keep up on bill paying, budgeting, emails, extras like this journal typing.  But alas, our days don’t look like that.  Tears [yes, tears], meltdowns, not-so-great-grades.  But we’re adjusting and we’re getting there.  Ryan is doing awesome!!  I am so thankful right now for his self-motivated, type A, get it done, first-born, crazy smart self.  He’s all set up in his room and he gets it done and he gets straight As still.  Downstairs, the girls and I are having to work together – they need a lot of assistance.  And yesterday we had to have a talk about showing Mommy everything before you hit the blue submit button.  Case in point – our Abby has the smarts, but doesn’t always slow down and have patience, so she got a 50 on math grade.  But when I re-did it with her, on paper, she absolutely knew all the stuff.  I felt so bad for her [the 50 prompted her tears and it was all I could do not to cry with her].  But we’re all learning, we’re all adjusting – teachers too – and we’re getting there and we’re figuring it out.  I am so proud of my kids, their teachers, our schools, our community for the resilience they’ve shown.  We jumped right on into this!  They’ve done one or two assignments here and there as homework digital learning assignments, and ironically I suppose, they were supposed to be out of school this coming Tuesday, the 24^th, for the primary elections and a test run of the Digital Learning Days [DLD].  Cherokee county has been working on this platform for two years now – since they missed eight or ten days or something like that for snow.  They ended up taking away our February break that year [although I’d guess about half the kids still skipped, I know we skipped out on two days for already made plans].  But anyways, all that to say, we’ll adjust and we’ll get a new normal, but until then I don’t know that I’ll be able to write as much as I’d like in between being teacher and sharing my laptop with my students :)

And speaking of students, down they are for breakfast … 8:05am.  Chloe starts her school days with live chats with Mrs. Shakespeare at 9am which I love!!!  She has been so awesome about keeping in touch and doing interactive activities with her students.  I knew she was great, but she’s totally showing it during this week of turmoil.

Hopefully more later today …

 

Monday, March 23, 2020

Finding time and energy to type is harder then I thought it would be.  We’ve ordered a third Chromebook, but it won’t be here for another week or so.  Perhaps that will help.  Then each kiddo will have a dedicated Chromebook, and I’ll have my laptop back :)

I don’t even know where to begin!  It’s like a dream.  It is soooo crazy.  I can’t even fathom how we got where we are in the world.  We’re not on total lockdown yet, but heading that way perhaps.  With the exception of a hike the first day, the kids haven’t gone out since they got home from school Friday ten days ago.  They are still playing in the neighborhood, but I’m not sure if that’s okay or how long it will last.  I know some neighbors are upset that they are still getting together and aren’t self- quarantined.  At this point, Coleson and I figure that since it’s the same few kids and they aren’t going anywhere or interacting with other kids from the “outside” that it’s probably not an issue.  There shouldn’t be new germs or risks at this point, right?  But no one really knows or understands, so a lot of the kids aren’t allowed to play.  We’ve changed the rules quite a bit of course – no one is allowed in anyone else’s house, period.  If you need a bathroom break or glass of water, you go home.  No knocking on other people’s doors; if they’re outside in the driveway, you can ask to play.  Although we have been telling the kids, as we know about them, the families that are self-quarantined so they know not to ask them.  Really, it’s only the Esterlings and Mahers that my kids are still playing with.  And recently we’ve added Maddux to our mix.  This has been great for Abby.  Ryan has all the boys of course, and Chloe has Mari.  But Abby doesn’t really have anyone local.  She did get to facetime with Taylor on Saturday though, yay!  Maddux has been so sweet.  He and Abby played ALL day long yesterday.  Even the kids that can’t play, can usually bike ride.  Safer distance, not touching the same basketball, that sort of thing.  We had some awesome bike parades going on yesterday.  We will have the best bike-riding, soccer-ball-juggling, basketball-playing kids ever when this is over.  Silver linings!!  Abby and Maddux played soccer in our driveway together, basketball in Maddux’s driveway, and even down by the creek that goes along his backyard.  I love dirty kids!!  [well dirt dirt, not germ dirt!].  At the end of the day, everybody has to strip down, put their clothes straight into the washer, and head for the showers. 

Last night, we had Las Palmas!!  The two big “themes” if you will have been – stay home and support local.  I’m not sure which it is.  They kinda go against each other.  As I mentioned above, the kids don’t go out, no need for that.  I’ve been out twice now and Coleson once.  Same thing – sanitizer baths, handwashing, shirt changing.  On Friday I went to Kroger and grabbed as much as I could.  We’re definitely missing fresh fruits.  I did buy extra though and froze grapes and bananas.  After Kroger, I drove through Dunkin’ Donuts and Chickfila.  The dining rooms aren’t open, but drive-thrus are.  Restaurants without drive-thrus, like Your Pie and Catch 22, have started doing order-ahead with curbside service.  Yesterday I went out specifically to pick up our Las Palmas order; it was soooo good!  Support local!!  I can’t even think about the possibility of Las Palmas not surviving these times of economic chaos :) We love that place.  We’ve celebrated so many milestones and birthdays and victories there over the 13 plus years we’ve lived in Canton. 

Covid

Tuesday, 9.15.2020

So, the world has been in a wee bit of turmoil for the past six months.  Coronavirus, covid19, quarantine.  The world totally up-ended in mid-March with very little warning.  The kids' last day of school was March 13th and slowly the weeks off added up until school was eventually cancelled for the remainder of the year.  Sure they did digital learning, but I'll be honest, it was pretty painful and I'm not sure how much they actually learned.  And thankfully that fully finished on May 8th, a few weeks earlier then the traditional school year would have.  The second half of March and all of April were pretty much in lock-down.  In May, we slowly starting re-emerging.  By maybe mid-June, we were pretty comfortable going back to stores, and the kids were doing summer sports practices.  And our county gained national attention [I'm not kidding] when we started back face-to-face in person school on August 1st.  Parents were given options, and about 25% went virtual.  We chose in-school and as of mid-September, we have zero regrets.  Macedonia is still at zero reported cases [!!!], and Creekland - Ryan's middle school - has only had a handful of cases, but none near him.  Instead of closing whole schools, they are only quarantining kids that were in close contact.  There are seating charts for everything - classes, lunch, buses, etc - to aid in the contact tracing.  

Oh, and Coleson has been working from home this entire time too!  It's really been nice actually :)  We were able to work-from-home from other homes over the summer.  It was nice to get out and travel a bit, but not use a ton of vacation.  He worked from Augusta for a few days while we explored the city.  That was a really nice few days, a change of scenery and visiting somewhere we'd never been before.  He's worked from home from Tampa.  He's worked from home from the car while I've driven places.  And he's always here, so I can run out anytime I need to.  He's here for the girls' bus at 2:30 if I'm not back.  And perhaps the best is that he's here for the evening sports.  I don't think there's any way we could do what we're doing this fall if he was in the office and had a commute.  This sport season might just be the busiest one yet, but it doesn't feel that way.  I think a huge part of it is that Coleson is here all day, so we can eat lunch together and sometimes sneak out on a dog walk.  It's not like before when I wouldn't see him until 8:00 at night.  We can have snacky dinners together at 4:30 [eekk!] before we head off our various ways for practices.  Busy and yet low stress, pretty nice.

Anyways, during the early days of quarantine, I tried real hard to write about what was going on in our lives and in the world, and I tried really hard to get the kids to write stuff too.  It didn't work quite as well as I envisioned.  And honestly, I thought it would be a short-term thing, and it'd all fit nicely in a shutterfly book that they could share with their kids one day to say, look, we were living history.  But this whole chaos is still going on.  I don't think there's going to be a nice, clean end date that would allow me to make a cute, little book.  Honestly, the country has gotten pretty ugly, and I'm not sure when or if we'll ever go back to "normal" again.  The country is very, very divided right now on so many, many issues.  There's so much confusion, anger, miscommunication.  Social media - and media too - is so opinionated, and no one knows what to believe anymore [or at least I don't!].  Do we quarantine?  Do we go out and build herd immunity?  Do we wear masks or do they not really do any good?  Nobody seems to truly understand the virus and how it spreads.  But everyone sure thinks they do.  And then there's political issues, and the economic fallout of the world shutting down, and black lives matter, and back the blue, and coin shortages, and the election in a couple of months.  There's rioting and violence, and I'm not sure when or if we'll be comfortable walking the mile to and from Atlanta United games again - of course, there's no fans attending any sporting events for the foreseeable future anyways.  It feels like so much has returned and reopened, and yet I struggle with feeling like it's the things that make us human that are still being kept from us.  Churches, concerts, sports.  Hugs, handshakes.  And of course not everyone is like that, but the ones that are just kinda ruin your day.  When you automatically go to shake someone's hand and they look at you like you've got the plague.  People everywhere in masks - it's really hard to see smiles and facial expressions, and I feel like most people just walk around with their heads down.  I miss making eye contact and smiling and seeing friends in the stores.  

Okay, anyways, I digress again.  The original intent of this post was to be an introduction of sorts.  I have writings and pictures and power points and emails and I don't even know what saved in lots of different places that the kids and I worked on, mostly in March and April.  I need someway to organize them effectively and in one spot.  So this is my introduction to what I imagine will be quite a few, totally random, out of order posts from six months ago.  This just seems like the best place to store everything safely.  And perhaps one day I will decide to organize it all into some sort of book, and this will hopefully make that a whole lot easier if and when that day ever comes.