Day 41 (best guess)

We got some groceries delivered yesterday. Weirdness has been staved off another while. I’m not hearing from too many people right now, I seriously don’t know how people are doing, it feels weird. Also, I like to help people and it’s super hard to do right now.

My handsome hubby is kicking so much ass at his job right now. It helps that he is kind of the single point of failure and that much seems to have become clear to his boss at last. He’s finally getting some real recognition for what he does. He’s working so much it’s crazy. He’s exhausted. Now he’s talking about running a virtual RPG for the kids at my library… to make me look good. What did I ever do to deserve this amazing, wonderful guy? Seriously.

I pulled together some little prizes and got the word out as best I could about the next round of my “would you rather” card design contest. We’ll see if I can rustle up a few more entries this time. I’ve been brainstorming ideas, going to webinars about virtual programming, checking out other libraries to see what others are putting out there for teens. There isn’t a whole lot in our area. I think if I hit upon a good idea I will get a decent response.

Prizes I scrounged up from my stash of hidden wonders. I hope they will interest enough of the teens.

How much longer are things going to stay this way? No idea, no one can know, there is no safe day to come out of this that we can just pick. It sucks. I’m hearing that rural areas are starting to see spikes in covid 19 cases in the states without shelter in place orders. That’s scary. Services are thin in places like that and it is going to SUCK for those who get this thing. I just want to escape all the time now, just live in video games or whatever, I can’t, but I want to. I want to go hide in Ferelden where I can vent my anxiety on darkspawn and hang out with Alistair and let him tell me I’m pretty even when I’m covered in gore or I just slaughtered like 11 bandits or something. Or I could go hide in Skyrim and hunt down vampires, dragons, and giant spiders, while scraping up gold to make a pretty cool house out in the woods and adopting random orphans and pets. Mostly I actually just go coal mining and building in Minecraft. I breed vast flocks of chickens and run around dyeing sheep in a rainbow of hues so I can call them Pride Flock.

I watched a girl use boxed mac & cheese to make 3 different dishes and now I need ingredients so I can try out her recipes. I miss going to the store and picking out the things I wanted and needed. I like wandering the aisles and picking and choosing and comparing prices. I ordered a new journal today because my current one is almost full and I am relying heavily on it to keep track of all my classes and webinars and tracking my work etc. It was painful to have to choose one without handling 20 -40 and weighing my options when I could clearly see what my options actually are. I ordered one and I hope it’s the right size, with decent paper and all that. I mean, obviously I can make-do with whatever comes and it is the very definition of a first world problem. Gods, I must be so freaking spoiled. Honestly, there are people out there dying, people out there risking their lives trying to save lives, there are people who have real actual problems. I don’t mean to sound like I think my “problems” are such a big deal, I know they aren’t. I just miss the good parts of the way things were just a few weeks ago.

Time for me to get back to laundry, meal prep, cleaning, and knitting. How are you all handling the stress of confinement? How are things going for you and yours?

we’re lucky but some combinations are not for the timid.

I don’t know why I’m finding so much to say about this quarantine.  Maybe I’m just venting.  When I link to my FB I generally tag it with “Blogging for Sanity.”  Talking into the void so I don’t lose my mind as my beleaguered brain overloads with stress is my new normal, I guess.

Today I want to talk about food.  For background, I spent many years of my adult life living in poverty, I had WIC and Food Stamps for awhile before we managed to get our feet under us, but I have never seen my fridge so bareas it is now, not since my early 20s when finances were extremely bad and I wasn’t getting any help.  My cupboards are better than the fridge, of course, the fridge is perishable stuff so we eat it or it goes bad in short order.  We had a few grocery deliveries, about 1 every 2ish weeks, so we still have some milk and cheese and that sort of thing.  I think the only fresh veg we have right now is a bag of carrots I forgot was in the drawer or I would have served them already.  Oh, I think there are a few onions and potatoes in the cupboards too actually, but most fruit and veg is now frozen or canned and the fridge looks empty to me.

More Background: Years back, we had a weird Fall snowstorm sweep through and it took out power everywhere.  Ours was out for 4 days, which wasn’t bad compared to some places nearby that took weeks to get power back.  Everything in our house was electric so we couldn’t cook anything and had no heat.  All the grocery stores were closed because they couldn’t use their registers so we had to make due with what we had.  We tried to eat through the fridge and managed to save some stuff in a cooler by packing it in the snow, but it was PB&J for days. I tried to use a fondue pot to heat some things up, didn’t go so well.  We BBQed a bit which was perilous as the trees above melted and dumped snow over us while we tried to cook. 

Anyway… after that incident, I have made sure to have a good stock of TP, toothpaste, flashlights & batteries, etc. on hand.  I also keep a supply of canned tuna, instant soups, cooked reheatable foods like canned pasta and soups etc. and insisted on moving into a house with a woodstove.  4 days without heat and cooking scarred me a bit.  If an outage happens in summer we have the outdoor grill.  I also keep a supply of pasta and sauce on hand, ramen noodles, teas, canned and frozen veg. etc. because I shop sales and buy most things only when they hit a price I like, then stock up and don’t buy that item again till another excellent sale,  I keep my cupboards and freezer very full under normal circumstances. So now that we’ve been working our way through all my stores I find I have no tolerance for thinning reserves.  They are thinning for sure.  There is room in the chest freezer, I can see to the backs of my cupboards.  It makes me feel insecure even while I know I am lucky.  I have been able to keep things pretty ok without leaving my house.  I wish everyone could be so lucky. 

We’re lucky, but we’re at a point where food is getting a little weird.  We’re having to look at what we’ve got and figure out what we can make to eat and it’s becoming clear that my preparations have some pretty big holes in them.  I have several containers of mayonnaise but didn’t think to try and freeze cold cuts or maybe buy ham and freeze it to be cut for sandwiches later.  Tuna fish gets old fast when it’s the only choice.  I have pasta and marinara sauce but that gets old pretty quick too, plus I’m allergic to tomatoes so I’m eating buttered noodles when my family has spaghetti.  I’ve cooked everything we especially liked already, we’re down to things like tuna casserole, spaghetti, I made a chicken casserole, pancakes, I’ve gone through most of the stuff I could make soup from and I’m seriously running out of ideas. 

We’re supposed to get a delivery of groceries today.  I ordered things that will bring us back toward normal but who knows what we’ll actually get?  The stores are constantly running out of stuff so it’s been very hit or miss.  Depending on what we end up getting I might have to start making cooking videos with my son.  He had the idea and we keep joking about doing it; making a video series of the weird stuff we have to cook and eat because we are out of everything else.  I’ll let you know if things get that bad.  I hope you are all doing well, staying sane and have plenty to eat.  We’ve all lost weight trying to conserve what we’ve got. Not a bad thing really but we are looking forward to a time when we aren’t feeling so insecure. Hopefully, the insanity of this virus will cause more people to really look at how insane and inequitable the system we’ve crafted really is and maybe we can fix it at last. Everyone needs a living wage, health care and housing. PERIOD.

The Binge… Isolation Viewing

Too subtle? I’m playing on “The Purge” a movie about everyone legally committing crimes for 24 hours once a year, even murder. Instead of that heinousness, in this the hours, days, weeks, and months of our current apocalypse, I am bingeing videos, shows, & movies. I comfort-watch a bunch of shows like Parks & Rec, Brooklyn 99, Community, The Tick, Sherlock, etc. Now I’m all caught up with The Rookie, Grey’s Anatomy, Criminal, etc. I could still track down and catch up on the Doctor Who I’ve missed, plus a few others. I’m hunting for a new show to become a comfort show after viewing the entirety. These are mostly lighter shows, comedies usually, stuff I can fall asleep to and know that nothing super dark will happen to give me nightmares.

I binge police procedurals, The walking Dead, Dexter, and other heavier shows too, but not these days. If I’d noticed it earlier I probably would have been into Pandemic or Outbreak but, as fictional as I am sure they are, they are too real right now. I heard about another one that was medical-based too and the second season deals with… the black plague? It must involve time travel? Stress is destroying my memory.

Stats for Quarantine so far:

  • Most Watched: Community (Hulu)
  • Commentary: A Late Show & Last Week Tonight (Youtube)
  • Weirdest Movie so far: Under the Skin (Netflix)
  • Tried it, didn’t stick: Dr. Ken (Amazon Prime)
  • Funny so far: Schitts Creek (Netflixs)
  • Want more episodes: The Rookie, Grey’s Anatomy, Law & Order SVU, The Orville, Good Omens, (that one is not going to happen but What a Gorgeous Show) Firefly. (no, I will never stop wishing this.)
  • The World as I wish it: Liziqi (Youtube)

Other than watching shows I did pick up my knitting last night. I’m sorry, I should have made sure you were sitting down before typing that. I hadn’t knit a stitch since we locked ourselves down. I knit several rows on what will probably be the last Harry Potter Washcloth I knit for awhile. A small part of the reason I stopped knitting was that I was bored of the washcloths. I’m knitting my way through Harry Potter Knitting Magic; by Tanis Gray but seven washcloths is a lot. I’ll finish them up at a later date but I’m ready to move on. Think my next project might be the Beauxbatons Capelet or one of the House Mug Cozies. I’ll have to see what I have the materials and needles for. undefined A very cool book if anyone likes to knit. It was a post-Xmas gift from my husband because it didn’t come out til January… I think. While I knit I am, of course, watching shows or videos, mostly Liziqi or tiny house tour videos.

What are YOU doing during isolation? Please let me know! I’d love to hear from you, other humans, people… is anyone out there still? ~_^

Day, like, 38ish of Isolation

So, life continues, quarantine continues, the virus seems to be spreading slower so that’s good. Now we just need to stay inside for a really long time and try to keep everything from spiraling out of control again.

Keeping Busy: I’ve been working hard in online classes relating to my work. I’m learning so much about how I should have been doing my job all along making my anxiety PEAK but keeping me humble. We’ve been gaming. I started my GURPS game and my hubby continues to run Pathfinder. We’ve had a couple of Cards Against Humanity games online with friends and my husband is playing Axis & Allies online with his brother who’s quarantined hundreds of miles from us.

Family keeps being family: my mother continues to drive me nuts asking “when do you think you’ll go back to normal?” “Has hubby gone back to work yet?” Mom, WTF? On the first question: How the heck do I know when things will be anything like normal again??? And what is with the phrasing? Like this is some weird thing I’m doing… I just decided to stay inside for unknown reasons that affect only me or my family somehow? (OK Boomer.) Is she not getting what’s going on? Is she not staying inside too? I think she is because she claims to be going mad stuck with her husband playing scrabble and monopoly and making jigsaw puzzles. She’s baking up a storm too. She made herself 3 cakes for her birthday. I don’t know what that’s about if she isn’t giving them away or having people over or something. On the second question: What part of “Hubby doesn’t plan to leave the house till, conservatively September or later.” sounds like he might have gone back to work since our conversation 2 day ago? And was I unclear the dozen times I said “This virus will KILL him with his horrific asthma.”?

ART. I need to Art. I need to create. I want to knit, paint, I’ve been writing a little, I want to sew too, not that I’m good at it but I like making things. I need to get back on track with my Knitting through the Harry Potter knitting book at the very least.

Reconnection: I am connecting with friends more the last couple of weeks. We’re gaming online, holding virtual dinners together, skyping or whatever to see each other’s kids or pets. I connected with an amazing artist friend of mine just in time to get to buy her fantastic embroidered portrait of a plague doctor. Wow wow wow. It’s GORGEOUS. I think you can see more of her work by searching for “Tapestry of the Geek” on facebook and Etsy.

Her amazing embroidery makes my heart sing.

Little Update from Quarantine

We’ve been holed up for quite a while now. We are very lucky in that both my husband and I can work from home so far. I’ve never had a job where that was possible, or a boss that would fight for staff to be able to do so, before. We’re also lucky that my daughter and son are able to continue their classes from home and hopefully get full credit for everything so they can graduate and/or advance. We’ve also been lucky enough to get a few orders of groceries through Instacart. I can’t tell you how disgusted I am in the people who are abusing Instacart drivers by offering big tips then revoking them. Those delivery drivers are risking their health and their lives and it is utterly cruel to steal from them like that.

Anyway, we’re very lucky, but we’re also stressed. Our house isn’t huge and having everyone home and not having friends over is wearing on us. I am sure you know what I mean. The underlying annoyances between the kids seem much bigger, it gets weirdly tense, my husband’s issues with the my daughters … there’s just no breaks, no nights off. He gets moody and tense. I sit here in the middle of it all feeling nervous and stressed. Good times. I don’t want to make it seem like things are bad, they aren’t, things are medium which is pretty good these days. We’re all able to game together and mostly keep things mellow, mostly.

I am trying and failing, so far, to get anything off the ground with the young adults from my library. I suggested gaming online and a virtual book club and got 1 response to each, not enough, so I am trying a quick, creative contest: design your own “Would you Rather” card. I sent the email 2 days ago and I have… 1 response so far. I’m really hoping I can get just a handful of entries. I would love to be able to tell my boss at least one program attempt was successful. Yeah, our library is so small and rural that 3-4 teens participating is considered successful. Maybe I will mail the contest rules to the school librarian so she can send the idea to a wider audience. Or I could actually send the info to my boss to post on the website. Gosh it’s fun having such a sluggish brain lately. I blame the pandemic. ~_^

  • my example card. sorry the image is so big and sideways I can’t find where to change that!

Fraying Around the Edges

The stupidest thing is eating at me. I’m tearing up as I try to type this. The groceries we ordered March 22nd still haven’t arrived. On the site our order page says both “arrives by Sunday afternoon” and “arrives by Tuesday afternoon.” The order costs $140 and the note at the bottom says our credit card is temporarily authorized for $90. I have zero freaking confidence this food will arrive, ever.

This isn’t an emergency, it isn’t, it’s just I’m living with my 3 adult, and near-adult, autistic kids and my youngest has always had issues with food. Wrong textures sicken him and his range, despite MAJOR progress, is pretty narrow. My younger daughter has acid reflux and has lists of foods that help keep the acid down. The order isn’t critical, it isn’t, there’s still food everyone can eat, I just want to be able to give the kids the things that… make life seem normal, sort of. I feel like I’m failing them which is insane because everyone is doing their best. All the parents out there are agonizing over everything and at least we have food. I would have stocked the cupboards differently if I’d known my youngest hates rice and that rice causes acid. (??? I had no idea)

Gods, I’m such an ungrateful jerk. We have food, we have a roof over our heads, we aren’t sick, probably.

Work from Home

So many people are now working from home it’s astonishing. Most of what I’m hearing suggests that it’s working really well for people and a good deal for their employers because, despite fears of employees goofing off and very real distractions, people are finding they are more productive this way. I am dead-sure there are exceptions, total layabouts bilking bosses somewhere, but I haven’t heard from any of them. I’m getting tons done at home and my husband is accomplishing so much it’s absolutely staggering. Working from home seems to have revealed his super-powers. He’s amazing.

I normally work in a library serving the public face to face and running programming for teens and tweens. It’s fun. I help people find books, dvds, audiobooks, and the like, run craft workshops, host role-playing games, help folks with technology, order books for the collection, and so on. Now I’m working from home and not seeing anyone face to face at all. I’m taking webinars on how libraries can serve the public through this pandemic crisis, concocting ways to run some teen programs over the web, sending emails to the groups I run trying to check in with all the isolated, learning from home kids I’ve come to know and love, and I continue to work on Summer Reading hoping at least some of it will happen somehow. Will we be back working at the library by then? I don’t know. I do know I have ideas on how to run at least some of the programs I have planned through email, posts, or online chat platforms. Oh, and I order ebooks now! My boss used to handle it because it was a tiny little bit but now it’s half the budget.

So I broke down and got an ereader, got a Nook from Barnes and Noble. I’ve downloaded a couple of books onto it and I’m hoping I can sort out getting Libby/Overdrive onto it. That’s the library app where you can check out virtual books and it’s really cool. I have it on my phone but my phone is tiny, plus I want to learn how to do it so I can help patrons figure it out. I bought Serpent of Venice; by Christopher Moore. The first few pages are great. ^_^

Oh, and I won a physical book on goodreads.com an awesome site for readers. There are a lot of contests to win free books, I think I’ve won 3 or 4 over the years and it’s lovely. You can track your reading there if you like, stock a virtual bookshelf with books you own, books you’ve read, or books you want to read. You can post and read reviews and sometimes chat with authors. Yes, I am a huge book nerd.

this is the book I “won” in a free drawing. Can’t wait to read it.

How are you all staying sane while confined at home? Let me know in the comments.

3 Weeks in.

My husband figured it out, I think I’ve been in denial, we’ve been inside (mostly) for 3 weeks now. I did make a couple of surgical strikes on the grocery stores early on. I was still dropping K off at the community college early on, and we do still have to take our trash to the transfer station. (where we wait till we can do it with zero human contact and without touching anything) We’ve had 2 small Instacart deliveries of groceries but our last order got cancelled and now there is no way to place new orders. Peapod also delivers in our area but they are full too. Shit is getting real for me now.

We’re ok. Just stressed. The Schedule I made of activities hasn’t taken off and it needs to, that’s clear to me now, I made it for a reason and NOT doing it is proving how much we need it to stay sane. So, today, I’m going to bake a nice B-day style cake, we’re going to play Pathfinder, we’re going to try ordering a whole bunch of pizza, maybe I’ll pop some popcorn and put on some music. We’re got to fight the GLOOM.

Normal *nods* yep, normal…

The new normal is weird. We’re probably all thinking about ‘when things get back to normal’ but I’m not sure that’s what will happen. The virus seems to be changing things more than I thought it would, I never imagined having to actually avoid all human contact outside of the people I live with, and … how does this ever go back to the way things were? I’m not sure I will ever regard surfaces as innocent, harmless things again. I’m not sure I will ever hear a cough or see someone who is obviously ill and not have a reaction of anxiety. I’m not sure I will ever be able to believe that symptomless people are safe to be around. Will we have loads of people with a kind of PTSD-like reaction to crowds, coughs, stores, etc?

I took part in some webinars recently, having to do with my job, and there was a repeated theme of ‘our jobs are, right now, fundamentally changing and we shouldn’t think that this will be temporary because it probably won’t be. I know my boss is or has been thinking that things will just revert to normal, last I heard she was hoping w/in 2 weeks. (!!!) There is no way that is a safe timeframe at all but I hadn’t thought about things not going back. We’re shifting the materials budget more into ebooks and other digital content, we’re coming up with programming to reach people at home, to interact online. There is a lot of worry over the digital divide which is suddenly even more of a problem. How can we serve those who need us most if they can’t access our services from home? Yeah, I don’t know. I’m seeing a lot of experts saying things aren’t going to be safe anytime soon. Summer Reading is in serious question right now. Everything we’ve been planning is in doubt.

And there’s all these kids and teens at home trying to go to school online. They are having no face to face contact with peers or anyone outside their households and it’s important that they don’t. But what is that doing to them psychologically? Keeping us all healthy, protecting our communities is obviously vital and the top priority but how do we keep this from scarring our kids? I know we’re all trying, we’re all doing our best, but the situation right now is NUTS and it’s scary.