In my last post, I again forgot a detail I should have added. On that Sunday evening, March 29, it was Josiah's turn to choose a family activity, so he asked for a Zorro movie (when he and David were quite young, Jeff used to occasionally show them old black-and-white Zorro movies, leading to one of the most outrageous, funniest incidents of young David's life--the kind of incident he'll never live down!). On Sunday, we ended up watching one that was made in 1975, I believe; and it was great fun. Occasionally, the sliding-upward opening to the theme song can still be heard around here as someone belts it out. It's such a grand, but yet cheesy song! ;-)
On Monday, March 30 (Day 19), I woke up ready to tackle the new week and make it productive. The night before, I had made plans for how to help it be a better week than the sluggish one before it; and I ended up with 20 items on my to-do list for that Monday. Just 20. ;-)
As it turned out, by the end of the day, I had accomplished six of them. Just 6!! Hahaha! And if I remember right, at least one of those was a reminder for me to ask Jeff about a task I needed him to do...which he did...which I then crossed off my list and counted as one of my achievements for the day! :)
Regardless, it was a good, energetic day, despite my inability to get done everything I thought I should be able to do. (And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of my life, my autobiography in a nutshell: My Inability to Get Done Everything that I Think I Should Be Able to Do!) We ended up spending a significant amount of time doing school things, so that compensated, I guess, for all the other things I didn't get to! ;-)
On this day, I spotted Moriah reading my favorite Mother Goose book, and that made my heart happy. :)
As I was thinking through the week, I suggested to the family that on my birthday (Wednesday), we take some time in the afternoon to go for a drive out in the countryside, maybe all the way to Skyline Drive. We wouldn't need to interact with anyone, so it would be safe, but I just wanted to get out and enjoy the beauty of the springtime.
But then on Monday afternoon, the governor of Virginia issued an executive order, cracking down even further in the interest of public safety; and honestly, I understood why he did it because I knew that many people were still not taking seriously enough the need to isolate in order to get ahead of this virus. So I wasn't upset, just a little disappointed that my birthday outing wouldn't be able to happen. Late afternoon on Monday, we took one more family drive to "celebrate" before the lock-down got tighter (although really, not much has changed, but the governor's announcement that it will continue until June 10, unless modified, was sobering). We took some supplies to Uloma, a good friend from church (it was strange to not hug her for one thing, but even more, to set the stuff we were giving her on the sidewalk, then step away as she approached; regardless, it was good to actually see her with my own eyes!). Then we stopped at Home Depot for Jeff to get some plants; the kids and I stayed in the car as he shopped (it was strange to watch him pull out a rubber glove, that we already had at home, by the way, to put on his hand that pushed the cart). Lots of things are strange these days.
For dinner that evening, I made spaghetti casserole, using leftover spaghetti from the day before and mozzarella cheese, and also served peas, one of my favorite vegetables.
It was David's turn to choose a family activity, so he picked watching The Emperor's New Groove again, which he had also selected during our first official family activity night of this quarantine, back on March 19. Why did he choose it again so soon? So Jeff could watch it (because he had never seen it, and we wanted him to be caught up with us so we could all watch the sequel together). :) Until I saw it again on the 19th, I had completely forgotten what a funny and good movie it is! It's really fantastic, so I didn't mind a bit to watch it again.
Tuesday, March 31 (Day 20) held some unusual activity. At this point in the confinement, Jeff had been doing virtually all the shopping; but I wanted to go to Walmart primarily so I could look for some gifts for our upcoming April birthdays--Moriah's on the 9th, and David's on the 17th. Jeff and I decided to go together to Walmart on this day, and it felt a little strange and a little exciting--imagine that! :)
We were gone for several hours and really did a comprehensive sweep through the store, starting with the plant section outside (since Home Depot the day before hadn't had all the plants Jeff was interested in) and ending with...well...with the register, I guess. ;-) We didn't miss many aisles in between, because, since we were there anyway, we decided to basically stock up on anything we might need in the coming weeks.
We also had a special assignment: Jeff had told the kids he wanted to bring home a little gift for each of them (trying to keep this quarantine fun, you know). Josiah asked for a black notebook and smooth-writing black pens for writing sermons--he's working on a powerful one right now--and they were easy to find. David asked for Milky Way candy bars--also easy to find, the only difficulty being resisting the temptation to eat them on the way home since they are my favorite candy bar, too. ;-) Tobin asked for sour gummy worms--and prismacolor colored pencils, if we could find them, which we did in the art section. That was over the price limit we had set for each child, but Tobin had been wanting them for a very long time, and we wanted to give him a little extra gift to support his art, so we gladly got them anyway, and he was so excited. Shav asked for a set of red Bicycle playing cards to do magic tricks, and we got those. Moriah asked for either a stuffed cat or Sweet Tarts (we could not find a stuffed cat...Jeff pulled a rainbow-colored something out a bin of stuffed animals and told me he thought it was a cat...but I think it looked like a llama!), so we ended up with Sweet Tarts for her. Benjamin asked for either a LEGO set with ALL of the ninjas from Ninjago (haha, yeah, right! he has no concept of how much such a thing would cost!) :)...or Sour Patch Kids. He got the latter. :)
Early on in our romantic stroll through Walmart (it actually did feel like we were on a date!) ;-), we had passed the empty toilet paper aisle; but later on, when I was spending some time in the greeting card aisle, I saw a lady pass by with a pack of Charmin Ultra toilet paper on the bottom of her cart! Whaaaatttt??? I was briefly tempted to tackle her and grab it--hahaha!--but then I decided it would be wiser to just go to the toilet paper aisle again and see what we could see. When we got there, we discovered an employee at each end of the aisle, blocking people from actually going down that aisle; but when we asked the one closest to us for a pack of toilet paper, he handed us one. The Charmin Ultra had run out by that point (we should have sprinted there) ;-), but we got regular ol' Charmin, and that was still pretty great. :)
Spoiler alert: something happened later that week that reduced the intensity in our search for toilet paper--basically, somebody gave us a bunch :D -- but at this point, we had no idea that was coming, so we were still moderately concerned about our future supply of one of life's little "essentials." ;-)
As we drove home, we sort of marveled at how, over the past two and a half weeks, we have stocked up so much (and spent a considerable amount of money to do so). Was it too much? But realistically, it won't go to waste! Even if the quarantine is lifted sooner than expected, we will be able to use this stuff anyway because most of it is not perishable. And to be clear, we never stocked up to the point of grabbing half a dozen packs of toilet paper or bottled water or anything that was in such low supply that by us taking it, someone in need would be deprived. In fact, in situations like that, I took care to not take extra--or any. The fact remains though, it is reassuring to have plenty of supplies on hand; the future is so uncertain, and knowing that our necessities are already here brings some comfort.
This day was specially blessed by a completely unexpected gift of $150 from an out-of-state friend; it is humbling and uplifting to be encouraged by such generosity during this time of Jeff not being able to work. It's a good thing we're spending most of our time barefoot, because gifts like these would blow our socks right off, if we were wearing any! ;-)
Dinner late that evening was Clean-out-the-Frig night. :) We're trying to keep leftovers eaten up and the refrigerator cleaned out because we need to have room to store milk and other groceries. Sometimes I really miss the extra frig and freezer space at our old house. ;-)
We had no family activity because of an online teen Bibletalk that Josiah and David were involved in, an online women's Bible study I watched, a late dinner, a big LEGO clean-up in the living room, and a story I read to the younger four kids.
It had been a wonderful couple of days. And the next day...
...was my birthday!! :)
Happy Belated Birthday and I am sorry that I did not see this post earlier. It seems as though your family is enjoying the situation a little better than some.
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