Day 10.

Today was another day of...the same. 

We are back on our homeschool schedule and the girls were hard to get going. They acted like they had never math-ed before or written real words or whatnot.

It warmed up a bit today, but there was snow on the ground all morning and just another day of bleh weather.

Today a friend texted me to tell me there EGGS and RICE at a store in Rockford! Then she left them on our doorstep for us and it was the nicest thing in the whole entire world. Who would have ever thought someone finding eggs and rice would be such a Godsend?! My kids genuinely cheered.

I can't really tell you what else went on today. I know I said yes to a movie, I know kids played and talked to friends either on the phone or video chatting. I know I did laundry and made meals and tried to read for a while.

It was just a day where I felt unmotivated. It all felt really heavy and I didn't want to deep clean or rearrange things or tackle my to-do list or create anything. The outside world feels really far away and heavy.

I've decided to quit looking for news. I have one news source that I have found to be non partisan and factual and if she doesn't post, then I will assume that I don't really need to know. It's how I am keeping myself from going crazy looking at the news and panicking.

I think I need to make a list of things that I would like to get done during this time. I know that every day is not going to be productive. I think it is unwise to pretend like this isn't scary or stressful, especially because we do have to take this all one day at a time. However, despite my Sanguine/Phlegmatic temperament combo, which tends to me more big ideas with no game plan or go-with-the-flow, I need some more structure for days when I feel "end of the world-y" heaviness or like we all could use a game plan.

We are on day 10, with no real definite end date in sight, and I don't want to make unrealistic goals that end up making everyone in my house feeling more stressed, but I know that, for me, having a few big goals that I can slowly hack away at are good for me.

So, I am putting them down here for accountability:

1. Create a new chore chart. The one we had before was mainly for the summer and hasn't transitioned into the school year well at all. Plus, recently Thomas discovered his name wasn't on it and he cried tears of sadness for being left out.

2. Tackle our basement. The basement is an area for the kids, but it has never been organized in a way that fits all of our needs and that doesn't lead to it just getting trashed. I would like to really gut it and start over.

3. Finishing the younger girls room. We've been tweaking the JV Squad's room since forever. Their needs seem to keep changing as they age, and we just haven't ever completely finished organizing their room in a way that works for them.

4. Put up our picture wall upstairs. Man, this is a project I have been wanting to do since we moved in and just keep not getting around to doing.

5. Moving things around to accommodate us all being home all the time. Reorganize the kid bookshelf. Move some drawers to the living room to hold all the newly gathered art supplies. Get the leaf out of the dining room table so we can move around in there better as people are looking for places to do work and projects. (Uh, this should be my number one...)

6. Read every day.

 I pray tomorrow we can get outside. We could all use a break from being cooped up.

Quarantine Day 9

I had to do the math today because nine days both sounded like a lot and not very long. 

I couldn't sleep again last night. I read in bed until after midnight, but when I went to lay down and sleep, I just couldn't get my brain to quiet down. I ended up staying up until 3am, but Thomas woke up at 3:30 am crying for me, so I ended up crashing with him until he woke up and then zombie walked to my own bed and slept until 10:30.

We spent the day inside again. It was freezing outside and gloomy. The boys played superheroes while Evan and I drank coffee and read/watched a Cubs game from 1988.

The girls have decided to start sending letters to their friends. They are alternating between handwriting them and typing them. It was sweet to watch Julia help Vivian type her letter. (If you receive letters from us, you know, just disinfect them and wash your hands and whatnot!)

There is a lot of baking going on in our house. This weekend it was Evan making sourdough bowls for our leftover soup and it was DELICIOUS! I am very thankful for our baking bread cookbook.

After lunch we watched Mass from our Parish's website.

I printed out coloring sheets that went with the readings from the Bible.

Not going to Mass today was really hard for me. They zoomed out to show the full church so we could see the priests leaving and it was so empty. It was sad and weird and it hurt to see pews that we normally have to kindly ask people to skooch over (because we are always running at least 5 minutes late and the church is always full, no matter the Mass time) completely empty. I ended up going up stairs to cry for a while. I miss going to church, I miss receiving Mass, I miss seeing our friends.


We have resurrected our old Wii and original X-box so the kids can play video games. The boys were THRILLED to find out Evan had a race car game.

The kids have started video chatting with friends! We don't have FaceTime, so it's been over FB messenger. They've also been old-school talking on the phone. Like, just talking. They love that, too.

Here's my menu plan for the week:

I went to the Walmart app on my phone to put a few more things in my cart and went to see how far out I could reserve a time. They had no openings and weren't offering anything into the future. They said to check daily for future time slots. I'm not going to worry about that today (or tomorrow), but I had planned on making another grocery run at the end of the month, which is only 9 days away. But, as we all know, a lot can happen in nine days, so maybe I'll be able to place an order by then.

Oh, and it snowed today.

We caught up on our art from McHarper Manor (air dry clay animals!) and are ready to create art with them next week. Discovering them has definitely been a huge blessing in all of this.

We nixed making pancakes for dinner and decided on popcorn, a veggie tray, and chocolate chip cookies that Julia made. We also ate in the living room while watching Lego Masters.

David declared it was the best meal of his life and it felt like we were having a party!
I'm really glad he's so happy. He's probably loved us all being home together the mostest. He's definitely a homebody and likes having all of his people together where he can keep tabs on them.

Tonight when I was laying with Thomas, waiting impatiently for him to shut up long enough to actually fall asleep, he kept asking me what tomorrow was, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day. It's a game he loves to play (because he likes hearing the days of the week in order), but it was making me feel a little anxious because just saying those days back to him, knowing we're still going to be in this house, quarantined, not knowing what the future holds or when definite answers are going to appear, made me feel trapped (well, that and the fact that Thomas insists on holding the face of the person who is putting him to bed, and that also feels claustrophobic-y).

But, you know what, there's nothing you can do with unknowns. You can only focus on what you do know; with what is right in front of you. So, here's what I know:

-Evan has set up an office in our room with his monitors and laptop from work. He has to get work done, but he can come eat lunch with us and take a break as needed, and the kids like seeing him home during the day. I can also move dinner time up a bit (therefore moving bedtime up a bit) because Evan is already home, so I'm not having to wait for him to pack up and head home from his office.
-We were already homeschooling. Our schedule doesn't change except we don't have our science classes or co-op (which is a huge thing we miss). I am just going to keep going with our planned curriculum and add in the resources being so generously offered by people trying to help all of these kids having to do be home instead of at school.
-We have a great back yard and a beautiful neighborhood with sidewalks. It's one of the reasons we house hunted in this area. Starting tomorrow, unless the weather is unbearable, we're going to carve time to be outside moving.
-I have menu planned and we're good with food right now. I don't need to think about stores or grocery shopping again for a while.
-We have friends and family to lean on; who pray for us as we are praying for them; who miss us like we miss them.
-We will take it one day at a time. There's nothing else we can do.

Our Second Weekend of Quarantine

Yesterday I woke and got ready to be at Aldi when it opened. I had a list (our fav Aldi snacks, fresh produce, milk, coffee, cheese, meat) and had planned on maybe grabbing more rice and one more thing of toilet paper (ha! yeah right, like it'd be there). When I got there, this was the line:

I sent this picture to Evan and then had to calm myself down because this was what I had been worried about. No one was rude, everyone was polite and kind, but we were all on a mission, and most of us had hand written lists in our hands. A few people had on masks, but I've been seeing people driving around with masks for a bit now. 

They were completely out of eggs, flour, toilet paper (told ya), rice, most of the Mexican food selection (including tortillas), almost all the bread was gone, there was no chicken left but the drumsticks. There was tons of fresh produce, a good supply of milk (and I could take more than 2!), a good selection of pork and beef, no sliced cheese at all, but blocks of cheese was still available. They did have paper towels, which was good because I saw them and remember we only had 3 rolls left, but no baby wipes. Oh, and their frozen selection did not have much left to choose. They had whole hams (I'm just now realizing those are probably for Easter...), but I don't have room for a whole ham to live in my freezer right now. They did have their Winking Owl wines discounted and that was MUCH APPRECIATED. The lines there were long and for as many people as there were when it first opened, there were that many people coming in as I was leaving, so it was a steady stream of people.

I think not seeing the flour, eggs, and rice were hardest for me. That actually made me feel really wound up and I had to kind of talk myself down. I definitely cried in the car. I ended up making another trip to Valli because they always have the best produce and a great selection of meat (they were low on chicken, too, but did have all the produce). No eggs, no toilet paper, no rice, and they were almost out of flour. The lines there were ridiculously long, the longest I have ever seen them. Again, people were kind, workers were patient, but it was surreal.

I think we're going to mainly use Walmart pick up from now on, not only to avoid being in public, but for my anxiety levels. 

All that to say, I did leave with groceries. We are going to be fine for the next few weeks with another produce trip needed in probably a week or so. But, I didn't have it in me to blog yesterday. I decided to hole up and really dive into my book instead (which is wonderful!!! The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes) and watch the younger kids pretend to be superheroes and villians and play with kinetic sand.

Today, we had nothing planned but art projects we didn't get to during the week. Evan tried out the sourdough recipe from the baking cookbook I'm working my way through. He made the starter at the beginning of the week and then made sourdough bread bowls for us to eat leftover soup tomorrow for lunch! My favorite!

I am endlessly grateful for all of the art classes and tutorials sprouting up all over the internet. Painting with Thomas is not relaxing (by any means of the word), but he loves it, and once he paints his masterpiece, he tends to wander off and the rest of us can then take our time finishing longer projects. 

We are doing some sort of art project almost daily right now, which is not our norm, so I am going to be doing some rearranging to accommodate all of the supplies we have gathered (both from the basement and Amazon) to avoid getting them off of my dining room table.

I also read a lot today and banned most screens after 11am to avoid the rage that screen time tends to bring to my children when I let them use them too long.

We also have reinstituted saying our Favorite and Least Favorite at dinner time. I had wanted to bring it back to practice being quiet when people talk and listening to what they say (because dinner had become one, giant scream-fest), but I think it's going to be a great way to talk about what's happening and to look for positives. Everyone's Least Favorite is that we're stuck in quarantine, but everyone has had Favorites.

I'm worried about people I know starting to get sick, but I'm thankful for all these ways of communicating with them to keep tabs on them. I hate the news, but am checking it daily because I need to and have to. I'm trying to just think about tomorrow and not what next week will bring. So, with all of that turmoil, our plans today, our mood today in our house, was a balm.

It was a good day.

Making Food For Others Is My Love Language

I didn't take any pictures today except this one today:

Julia painted two little Olafs for the boys.

I can usually tell how the day has gone if I haven't taken pictures because I love taking pictures. I love documenting our days with snapshots of what we're doing. I usually send a few pictures of the kids to Evan throughout the day. (Although, as of this evening, he is now working from home for the foreseeable future, so he can just see it all with his own eyes!!!)

But today...well today was a hard one.

I feel anxious about going to the store tomorrow for perishables. A lot of my mental wellness, I have learned over the years, revolves around the kitchen. I like being in the kitchen, I like cooking and baking, I like providing food for my family and loved ones. Food is my love language. It's how I tell you congratulations after having a baby. It's how I thank you for inviting us over to your house. It's how I show you I'm so glad you came to our house to eat with us. I like sharing cooking tips, favorite recipes, kitchen gadgets I love. It's a really big part of who I am.

In January 2011, I broke my ankle while 8 months pregnant with Vivian. If you would like to read about the hell of those weeks of hobbling around in a boot while being the most pregnant I have ever been, I wrote about it here.  Anyway, one thing that really bothered me was that I couldn't be in my kitchen. I was couch bound for weeks (literally weeks...I slept there...it was miserable) and would just watch Evan and my mom (who flew down to take care of me!) make dinners and lunches and go grocery shop and I just hated it. Don't get me wrong, I am very thankful that they fed the kids and me, but I felt displaced.

This pandemic has caused a real panic, rightly so, but the shortages of foods and necessities in the grocery stores really unsettles me. Tomorrow I am supposed to go run to the store, and I am dreading seeing empty shelves. I hate thinking about people who are now worried about feeding their families. I'm just in knots about it all.

One of my facebook friends commented that, since I've rebooted Elisablog, maybe I'd think about rebooting my Viriginia Cooks! blog. I had almost forgotten about my cooking blog, but now I think I might reboot it. When I started Virginia Cooks! I was wanting to share recipes on a small budget. We were a family of four back then and we really did have a pretty tight grocery budget. I'm thinking that maybe it might be a good idea to share meal ideas, not only on a budget money wise, but on a tight pantry supply "budget". Now, please keep in mind, there is no way I could blog daily on a cooking blog, but I probably could a couple times a week!

Since I can not personally bake every one of you a loaf of banana bread and drop it by your house as a way of showing you all that I care about you and am worried about you and this whole crazy world, I'd love to hear from any of you if you have any questions about recipes or meal ideas!

The Difference Seven Days Makes

Last week at this time, I had my regular Wednesday babysitter over in the morning. She got her at 9am and Elisabeth and I headed out to my favorite coffee shop. We ordered our usual coffees and sat down so I could spend a couple of hours reading my book and she could get some work done before I drove her to school for her afternoon classes.

When I got home, I piled all of the kids into our car so we could drive the babysitter home. I forgot to put the new checks in my purse and had no cash (per usual), so I told her I would just pay her for both weeks next Wednesday. 

I dropped Julia and Vivian off over at their friends' house (they are both friends with sisters from a family we go to co-op with) and their mom was going to drop the girls back off at our house before dinner time because her oldest was in both weekends of the show Julia was in--Music Man. It was tech week for Weekend One and Julia's friend wasn't going to get to go to youth group. Julia was disappointed, but the next week was going to be her turn to miss youth group for Weekend Two's tech week. I had sighed at the time because Julia was in the local community theater's (The Studio) production of The Music Man and Elisabeth was in her high school's production of Once Upon A Mattress and both of their shows were the same weekend. The next week was going to be chaos schedule wise.

I came home with only David and Thomas, which is rare since we homeschool, and the boys were SO WONDERFUL!! Seriously, it was like a gift. I added to the Walmart list I was making because Evan and I had been talking earlier in the week to make a big grocery run this Friday, just in case. We had decided to have enough food for two weeks at a time and to make a plan to do that for a while, just in case. 

I am sure I fiddle farted around on social media, did some laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, and read my book some more. Elisabeth had play practice after school and I didn't have to get her until 8. Julia was getting a ride home from a friend, so I didn't have to worry about being two places at once. Evan came home at his normal time and we had dinner with the younger three. After dinner clean up, I went to go get Elisabeth and got home just as my friend was bringing Julia home. She and I chatted in the driveway for a while about how two of her kids were sick again, how hard it was to believe that some of our friends' schools in other states were closing for a couple of weeks because of this coronavirus. We both wondered if that would happen with our district as well. Later that night, I offered to host a few friends on Friday morning for coffee because we were on spring break from co-op and we try to meet for coffee on Fridays during the school year when we can (something we do every Friday in the summer!).

Everyone went to bed that night like normal; I put Vivian to bed after reading a chapter of Harry Potter, Evan read books to the boys and Julia helped him by cuddling with Thomas (the worst kid at bedtime currently! Holy moly, he is a beast), and Ebeth worked on homework in her room.

I'm writing all of this down because that was just one week ago from today and it feels like a freaking lifetime ago. I feel like every day since last week had actually been a week unto itself. I want to have it written down what we were doing that last week before our lives were turned upside down. 

Today, we woke up and got dressed. One friend told me about the shortage of eggs in all of the stores she had tried in Rockford and I let her know I had reached out to another friend who (THANK GOD) has chickens and that I would go and pick up some eggs for the both of us. I asked the kids if they want to go with me and they all enthusiastically said yes! (Except for Elisabeth who decided to take her hour of solo time while we were gone because she is a genius). We all piled into the car and I realized I hadn't driven since last Friday when I had gone grocery shopping at noon. I looked at the gas prices as we drove to our friends' house and realized that the prices had really tanked and felt that continuous knot in my stomach get tighter.

We got to our friend's house, the same friend I had dropped my girls off to the week before, and kept a socially acceptable distance from each other as we talked the last few days, things we can't find at stores, meals we're planning, how bizarre the world has become. 

We drove home, had lunch, and went about our new schedule: school work, playing, art work everywhere, not leaving the house, washing out hands to the point they are now cracking, worrying that there is a new news break that I both do and don't want to read.

But, as with all things in life, time keeps moving forward, and we adjust and adapt and hope for better days soon. We make the most of what we have and try to live life well. It's our job to make home a safe place, and not just from this virus. It's our job to keep our home the safe place--where expectations of kindness, responsibility, growth, love stay stable and firm--when the world feels scary and unsure.  

So, I have decided I am going to keep trying to bake my way through this cook book:

 I love Judith Jones! I read her memoir years ago and bought this cookbook. She was good friends with Julia Child and I just found her life of cooking and working as a cookbook editor fascinating. I had made it a goal last year to bake our way through the whole cookbook, but as my mother-in-law's health continued to deteriorate, and with her passing away last summer, I found myself avoiding the kitchen because it reminded me too much of her. She'd taught me to cook and bake and really ignited my passion for the kitchen, but being in there was too painful and raw.

But, I have found myself drawn to the kitchen during this past week. Baking is how I often deal with really stressful things, and I wanted to be doing something that I know Jana would have totally understood--using the kitchen as a way of making something productive at a time when I have zero control. So, I used this cookbook last week to make pumpkin bread, we are using the recipe in it to make a sourdough starter, and tonight we made cloverleaf dinner rolls.

We are also loving the free art classes from McHarper Manor in Ohio that has opened it's studio online to anyone who wants to participate! The owners are putting up live videos daily and leaving them up for people to look at at their leisure. Tonight, the girls and I painted peg dolls.

 Vivian painted a penguin, a girl, and a fox (who still needs ears, she'd like me to clarify).

Julia made Harry Potter, a dotted non-person thing (?), and a girl.

I made me and Evan.

We ended up staying up later than normal, but it was fun.

Now, if this bedtime monster would SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT, I will be much better prepared for another day of quarantine in the Bonnett household.