The Giant Exhale ~ Social Distancing Week Three ~ COVID19

Moving Out of the Dorms

Mary Making Masks

The January Calendar

A Few of the Masks

Someone's Sidewalk Art

A Day of Social Distancing

Yep, Taking Care of Our Peeps

Ready for Online Classes

The Friends We Can Hug

My Grandpa's Barn Coat--Starting the Spring Gardening

Painting and Supporting Local Business

Distance Learning

Facetime Lessons

Turtles Have a Visit 

Get Down. . . 

Watering Plants

I Liked This

An Example of My Distance Learning Day

Hello. . . hello out there. . .

How is everybody doing?

Calvin's recital at the U of Iowa would have been tonight. I think the first wave of everyone's disappointment of the canceling of their events has passed. I didn't say it was gone, just the first wave seems to have passed. The trips and special events have been grieved and the gravitas of the pandemic seems to have sunk in.

I'm peaceful about this week. The distance learning and my Factime teaching gives us a routine. We are using the calendar blocking system, at dinner we block out who needs which room at which times. The four of us are here. I'm teaching video lessons, Mary is doing online high school, Calvin is doing online college, and Bill, well. . . Bill is just here. He's got stuff to do, like fixing the busted off knob to the baking cabinet for me. And other more important things as well.

It's surreal, the news is so bad and so many people are suffering. Yet here I am, almost more peaceful than I have ever been.  I feel a giant exhale.

The four of us are here. This is what I grieved for all fall. It's like a giant emotional tease, I finally came to a peace about the kid having flown and now he is back and we are all eating every meal together again with no parting in sight.

The calendar is just wiped. Completely wiped. No Holy Week accompanying stress. No school plays and concerts. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. A giant exhale.

It's the biggest exhale I have felt since I moved to Minnesota in 1998. A new town. Nothing to do and no-one to do it with. Well. . . I guess Bill and I  were newlyweds so we had that. . .

I've tried to cut back and fight the busyness for years. I've blogged about it and tried to come up with systems and new plans and ways to add margin and observe Sabbath and protect family time ad nauseam. I'm a helpless calendar addict. If there was blank space I filled it. Over and over and over. Now family time is almost all we have.

I guess it took a global pandemic for me to go cold turkey.

In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to.  (David Hollis through becomingminimalist)

If you are like me, and think the world needs you to be active every minute or some pressing thing won't be accomplished, maybe this is a good time to reflect on how how life might be without all of it. And then add things back very carefully. Check your ego. We don't have to do it all. I'm going to be right here, right now and embrace this giant exhale. Teach. Garden. Make meals. Call people. Exhale. Take the rest that has been forced upon us with grace and gratitude. The giant exhale. 

Lord, 

Keep our world under your wings, especially the doctors and nurses and all those at risk. Be with us. For those of us safe at home, help us continue to be at peace and help us continue to reflect on what is the most important. Use us as you will through this time. Amen.