One week down

For the boys and I, today is our seventh day of social distancing. Nadia attended a youth group event on Sunday night, so tomorrow will be her seventh day. Thus far no one in our county or any of the neighboring counties has tested positive for COVID-19, yet some times it feels like we are acting like everyone has the Bubonic plague. The kids in our neighborhood usually play outside. I've seen kids outside a tiny bit, but 99% of the time they've just been playing in their own backyard. Oliver was SO excited when he saw his friend Karyss come out on Thursday. Normally they play together whether that means Oliver joins her or she comes over here. "Playing together" looks very differently with a quarantine. She was swinging on her swing in her backyard facing Oliver and talking to him while he was on our trampoline. After only interacting with our immediate family for several days, he was grateful to at least be able to talk to her even if he had to do so with a fence in between them. Similarly, the youth pastor at FBC hosted a "game night" on Zoom last night, and Nadia enjoyed participating in that. I haven't developed a sense of cabin fever yet, but I know if this lasts for many weeks that will set in eventually. The weather was really warm yesterday (quite appropriate as it was the first day of spring), and I was hoping to go for a walk, but it rained most of the day. Hopefully the weather will warm up again soon, and we can at least enjoy the fresh air. I thought of my mom a lot yesterday because she would have turned 75 yesterday.

We had to cancel our trip to Chicago/Ohio/Detroit that we planned to take next month because of the coronavirus. We had planned to spend two nights at a cousin's house, five nights at my sister's house, and two nights at a hotel. I had booked the nonrefundable rate through Priceline because it was cheaper, but thankfully due to COVID-19, they did give me a full refund when I cancelled that reservation. Our tickets for homeschool day at the Hershey Museum were moved from March 26 to June 4. A homeschool day on the Battleship New Jersey has been indefinitely postponed. The other things likely to be cancelled in April include: Sidewalk Prophets concert (I had bought 2 tickets), For King and Country concert (we don't have tickets but three of us had volunteered to help Compassion), a Priscilla Shirer simulcast at our church (I bought one ticket), and seeing Esther at Sight and Sound (I purchased 7 tickets last summer). I feel confident we'll receive a refund from Sidewalk Prophets and in the case of Esther the opportunity to reschedule or receive a refund. The other things I'm not expecting to take place in April as originally planned would include egg hunts, a dinner at the home of one of our pastors, Maker Faire at the children's museum, homeschool gym class, and art/chorus classes at Meadowbrook. I'm wondering how long it will be until we can return to church for youth group, Sunday mornings, AWANA, choir, Bible quizzing, etc. I also am curious how long the public libraries will be closed. I think libraries could offer only "to go" service like the restaurants are doing now. Thus far the schools and libraries in our state are supposedly re-opening on March 30, but that seems 100% unlikely to actually happen. Assuming the restrictions might continue to become greater, I decided to return our library books and DVD yesterday afternoon in the outside drop boxes and since we were out used a gift card to get pizza at Domino's. One perk of the economy taking a beating is the gas prices have really dropped. I paid only $1.99 a gallon for gas this week, and since the only place I think I'll be driving for awhile will be the grocery store that's less than 2 miles from our house, that tank of gas should last a LONG time.

We have been praying multiple times a day regarding the pandemic - for the doctors and nurses to be protected, for the virus not to spread and to peak ASAP, for researchers to come up with a vaccine, for all those in our state and federal governments to have wisdom, for the protection of the elderly, etc. Our governor ordered many businesses to close on Thursday. I thought at first that Paul's company would have to close, but they don't. The problem is that the governor did close the quarries in the state, which means they won't be able to continue making concrete if this lasts more than two weeks. Also, they are already starting to see a reduction in their orders. So far Paul let one employee go and also cut the hours back of most of the employees. Those who typically worked 60 hours a week will now only be working 40 hours a week. If this lasts longer, he will have to let more employees go. Many people are facing unemployment because of the government's decisions. I hope and pray that these closures are actually necessary because the cost is going to be very great. Time will tell.

Aside from not having access to books we planned to read at the library and having field trips cancelled, our homeschooling hasn't been impacted that greatly by the quarantine. We continue to enjoy listening to audiobooks for free through Hoopla and Overdrive. A few we finished recently include A Night Divided (highly recommend that book that takes place in the 60's in Berlin), The Cay, Echo, and three biographies by Janet and Geoff Benge - on Milton Hershey, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. We've had a little more time for working on Junior Ranger badges than usual, and we've used Right Now Media more than usual. I've had more time to read. I read Chasing Vines by Beth Moore this week as well as a Tea Shop Mystery. If this lasts for months instead of weeks I expect to accomplish some spring cleaning and home repair projects around the house. I'm also working on an eight week Bible study on the life of Joseph by Kelly Minter. Because of the virus, Lifeway gave free access for the next three months to many of their Bible study videos. I signed up for two more studies yesterday and bought ebooks to go with the studies as they were on sale for only $5 each. I chose one on Colossians and another on Job. We shall see if I can complete three Bible studies in three months (each one is supposed to last 8 weeks).

I wrote down all of the games that we own and came up with a list of 62 games (not counting a deck of cards which naturally could be used to play a variety of games). I said that every day every child needs to play at least one game, and we are going to see if we can play all of the games we own at least once before this "quarantine" ends. We played Jenga, Racko, and Spot it on Thursday. Yesterday we played a pizza fraction game and Skip Bo. Five games down and at least 57 to go! Similarly, I'm thinking since we are just watching a service online, we could try a variety of pastors. I've heard good things about Alistair Begg over the years, but I don't think I've ever heard him preach before so I think that's whom I want to try tomorrow either in addition to our church's livestream or instead of our church's service.