The Break

I can't really put into words how badly I needed this week off.  I'm pretty sure I didn't take a day off after February break, and considering the generally odd stress of the past two months, it probably would have been helpful.  But it felt weird when I was already home and the kids were doing school anyway.  If Carter had spring break off, I probably would have taken a day then.  Instead I worked for a couple months straight, some days really busy and some days not.  It's been different.  Despite the reason being furlough, I was so grateful to finally have some time to get my life together.

I was excited to get to work with Carter on school a bit more.  While I originally had great thoughts of getting creative with him, his current setup (with his tolerance level) doesn't really leave a lot of time to do anything beyond the existing lesson plan.  When this all started, there were suggestions for different at-home math activities, and we added in the opportunity to watch an educational show or play a learning game to round things out.  But after spring break, things got a bit more intense.  He got his laptop from school and that's the focus of a lot of his learning.  He usually has five or six things to do, and it takes him until a little after lunch (with a couple breaks) to get through it.  Some days are easier than others.  He hates getting corrected and will find every excuse to run off and find the tablet for a while.  It's a challenge.  But it's been nice to see him having online meetings with the boys in his class and getting a one-on-one reading session with his teacher.  I did really enjoy having more time to sit with him and help him through his subjects, or snuggle with him while he read.

It was nice to slow down and not be constantly distracted by work (or worry about being distracted from work).  I could even think clearly enough to resume using the checklist of his subjects on a dry erase board.  I gave it up when things got more complicated, but this week I was able to think through it more clearly and figure out how to do it so we always know what he has and hasn't finished.  I can't say his school work this week was fight-free, but we did have more good days than bad days, I'd say.  And I did get to do one extra activity I'd been wanting to do: I took all of the words he spelled wrong in his daily writing since we started, and wrote them out neatly in a notebook.  When he misbehaved and lost his tablet one day, I had him write all of the words correctly in order to earn it back later in the day.  All in all, it was much easier to work on school without my work...but I'm still pretty excited for him to have Memorial Day off!

When the first weekend started, it felt like a wave of stress just disappeared.  I felt like I could get myself organized, and I had seemingly unlimited free time to get done all of the things I'd been putting off for months.  The good news is that the weather improved considerably as my break went on, and I had a lot of outside work to do!  I knew I was going to go to Walmart and Lowe's--and possibly the garden store--early in the week when the weather perked up, and all of a sudden I was adding items to my list left and right because I was realizing all of the little things I needed to do during this time.  From last weekend to this weekend, I managed to bust through a ton of stuff:

• Two batches of amazing chocolate chip cookies
• Another batch of gluten-free bagels
• A batch of meatballs
• Send in our tax return payments (finally)
• Change up some décor in the boys' rooms (some of the superhero stuff out of Carter's room, and Jacob's baseball decor into Carter's)
• Change out Carter's closet to fully move summer in and pack away some too-small stuff
• Check the hand-me-down bins for additional clothes and especially bigger summer PJs for Carter
• Do more seasonal changes in my closet and switch around my shoe storage to bring out the sandals
• Change Jacob's bedding
• File for unemployment
• Call for our window that we've needed to replace for two years (which I did do, but now have to call again because they didn't call me back with a new quote)
• Call for quotes on getting two diseased trees taken down (one quote down, one scheduled, one I could call if needed)
• Call to take my car in for an oil change and a bunch of maintenance (done--it was pricey, but should be good to go for a while)
• Buy a bracket to fix my desk, as an old plastic bracket broke and trim was hanging low on one side...and then actually fix it
• Buy new window sheers for my dining room, since the old ones had rotted and tore when I washed them...and then iron them and hang them.  And of course one that I bought had a flaw, so I ended up back at Walmart to return it and buy a couple more things.
• Buy mulch for our back flower beds (and maybe the front if I had enough left over, which I did) and put it down
• Buy my garden plants and two new perennials and plant them
• Buy flower seeds and plant them in random spots--cheap quarantine entertainment!
• Split a hosta and move one piece to a back flower bed and another piece to a front flower bed
• Dispose of a small Norfolk pine tree that I kept alive for over two years but somehow managed to kill in the last couple months.  I guess I waited just a bit too long between waterings (which I thought was hard to do) and the whole thing dried out, so I had to take it out of the pot in my dining room and leave the pot ready for something new.  Maybe an aloe plant or a jade?
• Spray some dandelions in the yard when I realized how badly they were taking over

So basically I did a crap-ton of stuff.  It felt so good.  I also got in some TV catch-up, relaxing, a run (which fortunately went well after hurting myself on a run last week), a bike ride, lots of laundry, and some reading (two books down, one in progress, one on deck).  I can't remember the last time I had this much time at home to just get things done.  Maybe when I was off for Carter's surgery?  But even then I had to keep him occupied.  

It definitely felt a little like my unemployment early on--particularly that feeling of not having much purpose to force myself out of bed.  But that went away pretty quickly and I just enjoyed the feeling of not working.  I didn't miss it a bit.  I did check emails once when I had to go into my account to pull the unemployment info mid-week, just so I didn't come back to anything crazy.  But I had no desire to do more than that.

I definitely had plenty to do--and while unemployment issues wasted part of one day and there were a couple other times where I know I didn't use my time wisely, time went super fast.  Now I'm a little sad I just have one day left before three weeks back to work.  But I'm thrilled I had the time, and I couldn't have asked for better weather.  It was in the mid-to-upper 60s most of the week, then creeped up into the 70s, and now we're in a solid patch of 80s.  The pool is still a work in progress, so we did a water fight today to cool down.  Probably a bad idea with constantly battling siblings, but it was good for some laughs, and we did cool down.  We did s'mores on the patio tonight, which was nice, too.  

Let's see...what else...

My evening wine after wrapping up my last work week, in my Mother's Day gift

On the first Saturday of my break, there was a flyover of an old warplane in honor of medical workers.  It started at the airport in Geneseo, flew over parts of Buffalo, including the hospital where I was born, then came back east and flew over the hospital that's five minutes from our house.  I took video, which I might get around to posting someday, but this was the best picture I got.  Still, it was sort of cool.

Cookies!  It's the original Nestle Toll House recipe, but with gluten-free baking flour and replacing one of two sticks of butter with a 1/2 cup of applesauce.  We finished them up in a week.

On Friday night, we rewarded Carter for a good day of school (as part of something discussed in video therapy) with a trip to Dairy Queen.  The sunset was lovely while we sat in a line that wrapped around the parking lot.

Otherwise, we're still trying to figure out what our new normal looks like now that we've entered phase one.  Still no barbers (much to Jacob's dismay--but all the males in this house are looking shaggy!), but with more things opening and the virus not going away soon, we need to figure out our new standards for where we're comfortable going and who we're comfortable seeing.  I went through a whole debate on Facebook about churches--because President Trump made a statement basically forcing governors to allow churches to open, which seemed to be a purely political move since every state is moving through their phases as appropriate.  It's still not safe in some areas, so making a national blanket statement just seemed like a weird way to grab Christian support in November.  But anyway, indoor transmission is so much easier, so I feel churches that open need to be incredibly careful and people need to take responsibility by wearing masks.  But after all of that back and forth, it's clear to me I won't be rushing back to the building anytime soon.  Ironically, our former family church apparently opened today--despite the pastor battling cancer.  Luckily it's a huge building with very few remaining parishioners, but it seems very early to me.  Baby steps, people.  But clearly no Memorial Day picnics for us :(

But we did take a first step back into public life with the kids on Saturday night...and more on that in my next post!