Welp, here we are--another week down. And as my watch just started beeping at me to remind me, I should be on a plane to San Jose right now, in that alternate COVID-free universe. At least we only have five weeks left of e-Learning!
Things that I am doing to keep myself busy this week (other than the obvious): refinishing our interior (very beautiful solid cherry) doors & keeping up my Duolingo streak. Totally embracing that quarantine cliche of "learn another language!" Except this is really just refreshing a language I already know (French) and a little bit of dabbling in a new-to-me language (Italian), except then I realized you could actually compete and so I started focusing more on French so that I was competitive. A couple weeks ago I took 1st in my league and gosh, it felt like ALL I DID that week was Duolingo. Like we were on a walk and I had an AirPod in and the kids were like "Are you still beating Roderigo?" because apparently I was talking out loud about crushing the guy who kept trying to challenge me for the #1 spot. I spent a couple of evenings in a row just doing Duolingo while watching a movie with the kids/Netflixing with Neil and I won resoundingly, but since then I'm just doing enough to stay in the top 5. ;-) Saving up my energy for taking #1 in the Diamond league, peeps.
Easter dinner table...this was fun to put together. For journaling purposes, those are my grandmother's silver 50th-anniversary candlesticks (given to her by my mom); the crystal bowl is a wedding gift, I inherited the silver from my dear Aunt Pam after her death, and the platinum-edged china was the thrift store score of a lifetime (last year--found a full 12-setting set with serving platters and bowls and walked out with the whole thing for $60). The china is 80 years old and the silver well over 100.
Neil is getting a loooot of use out of our guest room/office. I snapped a pic of him lying down to take a conference call (he usually works at his desk with a couple monitors and multiple laptops out, but Abigail was using one of his laptops to do a CAD drawing in Inventor with Luke sitting next to her, completely fascinated. That girl is SO good with CAD already--this is for her engineering class that is concurrent enrollment with one of the local colleges. She turns 15 on Monday).
(ps I love love his long legs)
And here is the trifle that I made for Easter dinner--yum! Fresh pound cake, pudding, tons of fruit and cream--you really can't go wrong!
I was doing some grading tonight and it was interesting to read my students' weekly project updates. Usually people are complaining about how they hate doing group work online/remotely, and every semester I'm like "guys I promise this is a valuable skill! Just learn it!" and guess what, this semester everyone is like...wow, the skills that we have been learning this semester about online collaboration are SURE HANDY NOW THAT THE WORLD IS ALL REMOTE. So I was thinking about that a bit just before writing this post, and thinking about how much I absolutely hate technology sometimes (I wish my children had never heard of smartphones, or tablets, or Nintendo, or TV, etc. etc.) but on the other hand--I can't even imagine how hard this pandemic would be without it. And I know that people have obviously experienced these types of situations without technology, but gosh, I am just so grateful that I can work remotely, and Neil can work remotely, and our kids can do eLearning (as much as it also drives me crazy I would be way more upset about NOT having it), and that I can stay connected to my friends through FaceTime, and Zoom, and texting, and that I can listen to podcasts and watch Netflix and read the news so easily! In particular, some connections I am really thankful for this week (in no order):
- the "cool cats and kittens" text thread that is constantly running with five of my good friends here. This is our group of couples that we get together with for game nights, but boy our text thread with just the wives has basically lit up over the last 6 weeks and kinda become a lifeline for me! So darn grateful for those women and the fact that we can vent/commiserate/rejoice together about this craaaazy time. We have a Zoom game night tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it (we spent almost 5 hours just talking on the last one!)
- doing virtual workouts with my dear friend Kelsey who moved to Sacramento about 10 days before the world locked down. On our last run together at the end of February, coronavirus was not even on the radar. This week we started a new 8-week workout challenge together and I love checking in with her every day, even if we can't log hours of talking time on the run!
- similarly--doing virtual baking with Kelsey and Stephanie. Before Kelsey moved, the 3 of us got together to do baking nights (croissants, croquembouche, macaroons, eclairs) and this week we are doing a "challah challenge" all week with a Zoom at the end of it.
- weekly writers' Zoom group faciliated by my brilliant friend who is a professor of creative writing. Truly therapeutic and I'm so grateful for all the effort she is putting into it!!!
and an in-person connection...Abigail and I had SUCH a good time going to pick up groceries this morning, haha! We were so excited to go somewhere that we took the "scenic route" there and another "scenic route" back, and totally enjoyed the half-hour chilling in the Kroger parking lot while we waited for our order.
(ps please do not worry--I am also having my fair share of COVID breakdowns, hence the lack of blogging for a couple days there)
(ps please do not worry--I am also having my fair share of COVID breakdowns, hence the lack of blogging for a couple days there)
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