It has not escaped anyone's notice that life as we know it has changed.
For instance, this is now our classroom:
All the comforts of home. Because you ARE home.
The boys now meet with their teachers and classes in that spot right next to my bed, for the sole reason that this room has a lock inside the door and thus can exclude any unwanted siblings. Which is all of them.
They use A.'s work laptop to do this, because we discovered that of the two laptops and one desktop computer in our house, A.'s is the only one with both a functioning microphone and webcam for video conferencing.
So for the moment, the three boys are using that laptop for their school meetings, I'm using it for my online teaching, and A. is using it for his law practice.
Convenient.
On the plus side, our food supply situation has actually somewhat improved. The school decided to temporarily allow community members to place orders for limited items through the school's Sysco delivery. This means that every Wednesday, a truck arrives ten minutes from my house with gallons of milk and pounds of ground beef, potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, butter, and all kinds of other things.
Unfortunately, that list of limited items doesn't include fresh vegetables, but I can get four gallons of milk and 36 pounds of butter, so that's fun.
Also, Rafael stopped by yesterday with a box of food for us that he couldn't use:
Cubby helpfully sorted it for me.
It was mostly a lot of dried beans, brown rice, and Cream of Wheat, although there are two bags of instant dry milk, which is a pretty hot item these days I understand.
We have watermelon seeds sprouting, as well as some pepper seeds (FINALLY). The small tomato seedlings are growing rapidly, as are the basil plants. We expect beet seeds and carrot seeds outside to start sprouting any day, and the lettuce, radishes, and arugula are growing apace.
So that's how it is for us. How's your life these days?
We are in a statewide "stay at home" order which began last evening.
ReplyDeleteHusband & I are still working M-F.
Still going to care for my 99 yr. old Father, which freaks me out. I'm praying I say disease free & not give him anything.
Linda
Linda: I will pray with you (and for you and your dad).
ReplyDeleteThank you, Kristin. You made my day!
ReplyDeleteI did want to add that my husband & I are still deemed "essential" so we are leaving the house everyday for work.
Linda
And I meant stay not say. :)
you likely will welcome this in no way what-so-ever....Have you ever looked up making your own masa? Involves hydrated lime, dent corn (the dried stuff that is ground to make corn meal) boiling, soaking and then grinding while wet to form the fresh masa dough. My children(three boys and one girl!) have grown and left the nest, so thank you, I know where you are at this time. Apparently you can use a grinder with a hopper made by corona (irony, right?) or a mortar and pestle. I watched a few videos, and must say was relatively impressed. You all seem fairly handy and live in the right part of the world, I live in Canada. Good luck. And, by the way I have followed you since Cubby's pregnancy, and you are who I refer people to who moan about child rearing, kudos to you, children all deserve parents such as you guys.
ReplyDeleteDebi: Thank you do the kind comments. We have looked into making pretty much everything we use, though I so far have drawn the line at grinding my own flour. One of our neighbors grows, dries, and grinds her own corn for flour, and I would LOVE to get some from her to try. I've never had freshly ground cornmeal. One of these days we may try growing the right variety of corn for it, though.
ReplyDelete"for" I meant.
ReplyDeleteI teach online, so while on the surface we don't seem to be changing, in actuality quite a bit has changed. I'm working from a corner of the living room instead of from an office cubicle. Pluses and minuses to both, honestly. Many of my students have siblings at home now or share computers with their parents, and several have expressed major financial concerns. One family told me, "I think we'll work ahead through Spring Break in case anyone in the family gets sick later." Unfortunately, it's a good plan.
ReplyDeleteHusband's job is considered essential (he builds fire trucks), so we remain a two income family, thank goodness.
Your lock on the door makes sense for the main computer for educating and working.
Wishing you luck and good health!