It’s only been a pinch over a month since my last update. Holy Shit. The day after I posted – the “virus” that was a half a world away found it’s way to North America and basically shut us – and the rest of the world down. Slowly over the month more and more things have been forced to shut down. More and more people out of work. More and more isolation. It’s the right thing to do to put this thing down but it’s been a tough ride. I miss our family and friends greatly. Especially my Grandma. We are trying our damnedest to do the right thing and stay away from everyone and everything that we can. Shannon has been split between home and the office. I spent the first 2-3 weeks working exclusively from home (which I have learned looks much better on paper than it does in practice. I’m not built for this). The last couple weeks I’ve been more and more back in the schools – mostly alone – to get things ready for students home schooling. Not everyone has devices so the board is doing what we can to facilitate them and as they say “leave no student behind’. I have my doubts we will see students back in the buildings this school year. Hopefully life will be back closer to normal for September.
School shut down sucks but everyone is in the same boat. And time will be made up for and students will be brought up to speed one way or another. The part of this thing which is really bumming me out is all the things the kids can’t get back. You only have so much time to be a kid. There are only so many summers for baseball, gymnastics and other sports. There is only so much time for camps and school trips. There is only one “grade 8” year or final year of high school/college etc. These are life experiences these poor kids are being robbed of. It has to happen, but it is horrible. I just pray this stuff gets sorted soon and the kids can go back to enjoying their childhood while they still have it. Our babies are growing up far to fast.
Onto the rest of my world if for no other reason than to think of something else. Distractions are the key to getting through this in my books.
The upside of the forced home time is being home in the evenings and weekends. Since we can’t go out and do things I have been busy at home. So far I have re-done the vast majority of the fence around our pool area. Once finished I will have an extra 200sq feet of fenced in deck space around the pool. Gonna be a minute before the deck portion gets built. Hopefully my two weeks of actual holidays at the end of May will find me putting that project in the done column. Shannon and I also finished the new fenced area behind the garage for the dog. “Jabbas Palace” is a big fenced in area for her to play. Took her a couple days to realize this was her new potty, but shes got it figured out now.
Shannon and I “celebrated” our birthdays under this lock down. Hard to call it celebrating but it was nice and quiet. She made me a nice turkey dinner just before the full “stay at home” orders were issues. Mom and Dad joined us. Was very nice. Thanks babe! And I hope you had a great birthday too!
Finally after some bumps on the road I was able to sell my bike. Took a bit of effort to make it all happen. Super strange making a deal like that without being able to “shake hands”. Super awkward. Bike is gone to the new home of her loving new owner. We’ve spoke a couple times since and I think it’s in good hands. Now if I could just sort out my replacement before the weather really improves I’d be stoked. I wasn’t sure if I was going to replace it right away but with the shit going on these days – I really miss being on two wheels. Best therapist out there!