I Can’t Wait to be Six Feet Closer to You

Here are some highlights of our social distancing time so far.

It all began on March 12th for us. That day, I decided that we would stay home from school and pick up a grocery order for my parents to make sure they were all set. After hearing talk on the news I thought that it seemed like things might be canceled for 2 weeks maybe, (HA-HA) and figured people would start shopping like a snow storm was coming so better to go sooner rather then later. Off the kids and I went to Stop and Shop and my parents house, not knowing that would be our last real trip for at least 2 months, and probably longer.

By that following morning everything seemed to shift, and things started to seem a little crazy. That day Mike started working from home indefinitely, and I talked to friends that said they couldn’t find anything in the grocery store.

I am so thankful that Mike has been able to work at home through this. I am sure it is difficult for him since the kids even at their quietest couldn’t be considered quiet, but it has been been so nice to not worry about what he is being exposed to at work and also (his favorite part) he doesn’t have an hour long commute anymore! He is able to just walk downstairs to his makeshift office in the laundry room.

Here’s Mike with all his monitors and his fancy headset. Also featured is his quarantine beard. He recently trimmed it. He was more beardy last week. We said that when he shaves it off he needs to recreate the time Colleen and I made him shave off his beard in steps. Especially since Declan is obsessed with Mario. He would love it if Mike had a mustache and yelled, “It’s me, Mario!”

One of the benefits of the quarantine has been connecting to people in ways that we normally wouldn’t. The turkey ladies and I have been having frequent zoom chats, which is great because we normally only see Turkey #3 at Christmas time. Colleen and I were able to see far away cousins on our birthday for a zoom trivia night. We also hosted an Office Trivia night over zoom which allowed us to see friends that we rarely get to see. The kids and I have also been taking advantage of zoom to pray the rosary with friends from school on Monday and Thursday afternoons.

Making masks has been keeping me busy as well and I am shocked at how many I’ve made. It has been at least 150 so far, and there seems to be no end in sight. Most have gone to family and friends and some have been donated to healthcare workers. I’ve been having lots of fun making them, and have only sewn my finger once.

In case anyone is interested here are the links to the patterns and tutorials that Ive been using for masks (however I have made a few modifications.) For the one with the seam down the middle I followed a video and pattern from Mimi G Style. The rectangular ones are based on instructions from Sarah Maker.

School ends for us next week, and I’m sure nothing will be close to being back to “normal” so I am putting together some unit studies for us to help keep us all sane. I’ll save my plans for that for the next post…