Safer at Home Week 9

Week nine ran from May 11th-May 17th. So many things happened during week nine that I have struggled with how to best blog about it.  I write blog posts while sitting one foot from my daughter as she does school or after the kids are in bed.  During one of the times I am highly distracted, during the other I am highly weary.  Over the years I have shared countless times about my desire to share life with my readers being much higher than my desire for typo free posts.  Thank you for continuing to extend grace as you read posts that sometimes might make very little sense.  

Monday, May 11th: 

Monday was a pretty typical day with school and OT for T.   She usually does OT in the basement.  Her amazing OT figures out obstacles for her and has lots of fun plans that T seems to enjoy.  On the 11th she did some dancing and some animal walks across the basement to gather parts of a puzzle. 

T: I like OT, but the dance video was skipping some times. 

While T does OT we usually puzzle in the basement.  We finished a Thomas Kinkade Lighthouse puzzle.  Interestingly, we finished the puzzle with two open spots and one extra piece.  This was the first time this puzzle has been completed, so I feel like we might be losing puzzle pieces like people lose socks in the dryer.

M: Thomas Kinkade puzzles are hard!

In the afternoon the kids were doing car races like the old days.  T decided to sort her cars by color and made a pretty cool rainbow.

It is hard to see the beginning and the end, but she did a great job. 

After work Brandon took the would take the kids biking while I cleaned out an under the stairs storage area at church.  The closet needed to be cleaned out so that carpet can be put on the stairs above it.  I have been thinking about this task needing to get finished since early March. It felt so great to get that closet cleaned out.  Because the staircase is open, the amount of dry wall dust in there was almost impossible to imagine.  Besides the drywall dust, a light bulb through the stairs at some point and it had shattered in the storage area.  Because I have to crawl on the floor to reach things I had to sweep it well.  My black clothes were a light gray when the job was complete haha.

All of these piles were under the stairs. 

Totally empty and a bit cleaner than before. 

As I shared in a previous post.  M took quite a tumble on his bike on Monday night.  Thankfully, no trip to the Dr. was needed. After the kids were in bed I blogged about the current COVID cases.  I will note here that there were 9 cases in our community on Monday (11th) night. 

Tuesday, May 12th:

I don't have too many pictures in this post from Tuesday.  We took Buttercup to the vet (more in upcoming post) in the afternoon.  Tuesday night was the night of the military plane flyover and M's stitches.  You can check out the last two posts for details about each of those.  Besides the vet and the urgent care and military places... room rearranging was the highpoint of the day.  T decided to rearrange her room and managed to move everything completely on her own.  It was great heavy work.  Her finished product is not practical at all, but it suits her well.  

T: I am moving around my room all by myself!

As you might be able to tell, the clearance for the desk chair is just the right size for her.

T: It is totally my style!

Wednesday, May 13th: 

Wednesday was a pretty low key day around here.  M was really struggling with the antibiotics.  They caused him to have horrible stomach aches.  His lip hurt a lot and it was hard to stay on top of the pain. Two of the stitches came out in the morning so we told him to only eat soft things for a couple of days to try to protect the last stitch. We did a lot of cuddling.  

This was my view much of the day. 

In the afternoon a vet friend came to check out Buttercup (more in upcoming post).  

We had a fun adventure before dinner. Each day on my walk route I spotted a cool sidewalk sight that I needed to share with the kids. A local kind soul wrote out all the words to "Mr. Brown can Moo! can You?" and did all the illustrations too.  We knew rain was coming overnight and I wanted them to experience the book too. T wanted to bike there alone while M and I drove.  I vetoed this idea.  T was so upset that we spent about an hour going back and forth.  Eventually Brandon came home from biking and he agreed to bike over there with her.  They were so cute biking together that I had to snap a pic on the way home. 

So much fun!

Both kids read the book and did all the noises!

My cute biking buddies. 

Wednesday was also the day of very unexpected news.  Suddenly, without warning, our Safer at Home order was dropped.  We knew that the order had been taken to the state's supreme court, but didn't know the outcome would be like it was.  We understood that even if the order was struck down, that lawmakers would work together to come up with a plan to reopen our state.  Sadly, that isn't what what the judges decided.  New regulations were up to each county and our order was replaced with NOTHING!  That very day things opened back up with no guidelines.  While many people are taking things seriously, our community made national news for a bar that was full of people not adhering to any CDC guidelines.  I will admit that I was (and still am) saddened by this.  I ache that a health issue has become a political issue.  Establishing social distancing, requesting masks, and opening things in a systematic way was was I was expecting and hoping for.  I was planning to make a big shopping run BEFORE things opened back up and that didn't happen.  Now I am stalling in my shopping and am planning to do more curbside pick up rather than in person shopping.  I am encouraged by many businesses who are taking things slowly and cautiously.  Community spread is still very much happening here and in the weeks to come, our states totals will let us know if we were ready to open or not.

Thursday, May 14th:  

On Thursday we took Buttercup back to the vet for x-ray and blood work. I actually brought him in the morning and we picked him up in the afternoon (more in future post).  The kids were with me during the pick up.  The kids spotted a full parking lot and an OPEN sign at a bar and started to ask questions.  I explained things to them and they were pretty upset, especially M who feels concerns deeply.  T was praying for the people in the bar. 

M continued tummy and lip pain all day.  Lucky for him we had plenty of soft food options.  We chuckled because everything looked the same in the containers.  We actually had grits, potato soup, and tapioca pudding.  Dad you will be happy to know that Brandon made the appropriate Norweigan food joke :) 

M: Check out my food variety. 

That evening we took some measurements for masks, because that is what the cool kids do in 2020!

M: This feels a little silly. 

Such a sweet little head. 

Without me knowing it T took this gem of a pic sometime on Thursday :)  A bluejay, by T!

T: I just saw it and knew I needed to take a picture of it. 

By Thursday night the cases in our community had risen to 16 (up from 9 on Monday night).  This seems like a very odd time to relax restrictions in our area.   

Friday, May 15th:  On Friday T and I went to drop off some books at the library and pick up some curbside holds.  I love my reader family and we have to do what we can to keep the books flowing.  Thankfully, the libraries are starting to take returns.  We had over 130 items checked out so we needed to part with a few.

This is an oversized bin.  We returned 66 books and 6 DVD's!

Because swapping books is pretty much a field trip right now, T and I decided to take the scenic route home.  The pictures don't capture the beauty of the day, but you can get an idea.  The Lake was an incredible blue and T and I just took it all in!

We love our Lake!

A beautiful day in our community. 

T was making silly faces and wanted to see what she looked like.

T: Whoa, that is sort of creepy. 

The pic below sort of shows the moods of the day.  T was eager and excited about everything. If you look closely you can spot M looking pretty pathetic in the background.  He was not feeling the best.

T: Mom says I am looking like a teenager. 

In the afternoon the kids and I went for a bike ride (more in upcoming post) and then they watched The Sword and the Stone.  M was so excited for a King Author movie after reading some books about him.  He was a bit disappointed. 

On Friday night we did some stargazing (more in upcoming post) and T enjoyed yelling to our next-door neighbor/classmate/friend over and over again.  It was pretty tricky to wind down and it became a very late night. 

Saturday, May 16th: I started my Saturday with a walk/talk with my mom.  Later in the walk I ran into some old friends.  We had a lovely socially distanced chat.  Saturday was such a relaxing day.  In my old world, it was the hardest day with the most kid time.  In this era, it is the only day when I really get time to myself and a day I look forward to all week.  While I was walking and chatting Brandon and the kids were playing piano and playing outside. 

M: I love learning piano and playing with dad!

Before lunchtime the kids and I did some weeding outside and we all started to plan the garden.

T: This tea is so good I just can't get it in my mouth fast enough. 

After lunch we did more weeding and trimming and garden planting (more in upcoming post).  

On Saturday afternoon Brandon and the kids went biking and ended up at our dear friend's house.  They decided to eat there.  They ate outdoors, but it was still a very tricky situation and one that will most likely not be repeated for a long time.  

While the family was away I was cleaning and working in the kitchen and noticed that Sunshine was in his spot waiting so patiently for the sun to shine on the wall.  He truly loves the sun and sat staring at the wall for the longest time.  Sadly, it was cloudy and he wasn't able to chance any beams.

Sunshine:  I know if I wait long enough, I will see the sun! 

Sunday, May 17th: The final day of the blogging week ended with a bang.  Home church went well.  T and I were dressed in red for Norweigan constitution day! 

Happy 17th of May!

The latest COVID curve reading for our state do not seem to be declining.  We actually had our highest total to date on Saturday and the results were posted on Sunday.

502 cases on Saturday. 

While it rained and rained all afternoon the kids watched Joseph and McGee and me.  I decided to surprise them and make a pumpkin pie.  It wasn't quite as good as my moms, but they both still enjoyed it.

If only you could smell this pic!

While the pie was cooling I decided to check to see if any water entered the church basement (more in future post).  

We had an odd dinner of burrito bake with homemade refried beans and pumpkin pie.  The paring was strange, but it all tasted great! 

At bedtime that night I was checking my phone and noticed our community cases rose to 19!  

Usually on Monday nights I write a little recap from the week, but this Monday night I was too weary from the hard week and told Brandon I just needed to watch a Hallmark movie.  Amazingly I managed to stay away for an entire movie (something that hasn't happened in months) and then went straight to bed.  On Monday the cases in our community rose to 21! This means our little community rose from 9 to 21 in a week.  

It is now Thursday night (5/21) and I am finally sitting down to give some updated stats on the COVID scene.  Since my days are already mixed up I am going to transition my stats to Johns Hopkins because I feel like they are more accurate.  There are 5,101,967 cases in the world, 1,577,140 cases in the US, 13,885 cases in our state, 131 cases in our county, and  21 cases in our city.  332,900 people have died around the world, and 94,701 Americans have died from this coronavirus. 

In ten days the cases in the world grew by almost 1,000,000, while the cases in the US grew by about 200,000.  The cases in our state grew by about 3500, with 22 new cases in our county, and 12 in our community. In the last ten days 45,763 people around the world have died while almost 13,000 Americans lost their lives. 

As I mentioned above, Saturday was our states previous high number at 502.  Today's reported total from yesterday was another record high with 528.  

We continue to abide by the Safer at Home standards in our home.  We go out when needed, we keep a distance, and we mask up when in public.  

What a wild week!  There is always something happening around here.  Thanks for joining in on our adventure.