Social Distancing Diaries: Day 366

Dear Diary

Hello Darkness my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.

This Afternoon is brought to you by…coffee!

7:15am: I awoke and dragged my lazy bones out of bed. Let’s pause here to acknowledge this Major Perk of online school—sleeping in! Also no need to get dressed right away. Lily often does her hair during class.

7:30am: Began my run

7:37am: Returned from my run. I aborted the mission soon after it started because it was so windy. It was a choice between breathing or running and I like to think I chose wisely.

8:30am: Walk with my mom. This is a practice we began a year ago. Prior to the pandemic we would walk together about once a week, as our schedules permitted. After finding ourselves with plenty of time on our hands last March, we began an almost daily walk together. It’s been a fantastic way to start the day! We walk for 2 miles and I love it! Some days I do my run first and then I walk with mom. Some days none of that happens.

Hightailing it AWAY from the cattle truck!

10:00am: After about an hour of Mom Tasks I finally got myself ready and out the door. Let’s pause here to reflect on changing pandemic fashions. Reading my early blogposts reminded me about my “Don’t Care” attitude towards fashion. At some point this year I decided I actually feel better about myself when I take the time to do my hair, wear something more akin to an Outfit, and wear a bit of makeup. I may not be leaving the house but it makes me feel more put together. I also had a rude awakening late last spring when I tried on my summer shorts only to find that they had shrunk in the storage boxes over the winter! The nerve of them! That prompted me to start running again since the daily walk alone wasn’t making the waistbands any larger. Then I discovered that the run AND walk also was not enlarging the waistbands of even my stretchy jeans so now I’ve taken it up a notch and am adjusting my diet accordingly. Finally, the waistbands are getting with the program.

My destination this morning was the high school to pick up the weekly lunches. Daily lunch pick ups last spring were literally the highlight of our day! This year it’s not quite as exciting and the kids can’t go along because they are in classes, but there is still much excitement when the brown paper bags get unpacked. We have quite a system for organizing the fridge and lining up the tiny milk cartons in order of expiration date. Lunch pick up usually coincides with grocery shopping which means that Monday mornings test my Refrigerator Tetris skills to the max!

I called to them. They stopped but pretended they didn’t hear me and took off.

12:30: With lunch over I turn my attention to the piles of laundry waiting to be folded. I lost count of the number of loads we’ve done since returning from the cabin yesterday. Today’s folding was interrupted by the Cattle Saga happening just beyond our back yard. Over the weekend (we missed this thrill!) some cattle escaped their farm which is at least a mile away, as the crow flies. They wandered over here to our neck of the woods, even traipsing through our back yard. Turns out they aren’t particularly cooperative creatures but the wranglers did manage to get them through an open gate and into the fenced area behind our house. That was on Saturday. Today is Monday and the Amish Wranglers are still trying to persuade the ornery fellows (Fellows? I don’t really know.) to approach the eagerly waiting cattle truck. As the remaining 3 bovine wandered in the opposite direction of the truck, they reminded me of a posse of middle school boys. I called to them from my deck. They stopped. Turned. Looked at me. Took off again. I’ve seen this same behavior in middle school boys.

Just a small sampling of my proud work!

I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on Business Business, not Mom Business. Supper was simple because we can’t fit another blessed thing into the Tetris Fridge, so leftovers were on the menu! Lily started spring field hockey tonight. I’m so thankful she’s had field hockey as a physical outlet as well as a social outlet this year. It was touch and go there for a while, like most things this year. We didn’t know if the fall season would happen, but it did. Then we weren’t sure if the indoor clinic would happen, but it did (with a break for a few weeks during the fall surge). It’s been another one of those areas that leads to Decision Fatigue for us parents. It’s that tricky balance between mental health and physical health and it’s exhausting!