End of April, Praying for a Better May

So yes, we have survived April 2020.  Our governor is working to open Ohio back up. We've not been hit too hard, nothing like New York.  I think Ohio has like 800 confirmed coronavirus deaths.


Tomorrow, I think manufacturing plants can reopen. Something like that. Doesn't affect us directly. Kevin is still working from home. He had to go in to work today to do something computer-y, and he was required to wear a mask. My wonderful Mom made us a bunch of masks and Lydia made a few as well, so that is a huge blessing. I am truly horrible at sewing.

May 12th, retail establishments can reopen which means Naomi should be going back to work.  They will have all kinds of guidelines to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

So things are not going back to normal, whatever normal is.  Kevin and I were supposed to go to St. Croix at the end of May but that's not happening. The governor of the U. S. Virgin Islands has signed orders preventing any visitors from entering the islands until at least June 1st.  So yeah. It is disappointing but not surprising.

My younger brother lives in Hawaii, Oahu to be exact, and the government has restricted incoming people very firmly.  Perhaps because of that, they have not been hit hard with COVID-19.

We had a sad thing happen this week; one of our cats died. He was a stray and an elderly one. He spent several weeks in our sun room this winter as he injuries on his ears, presumably from ear mites and his associates scratching. We got him the meds and he got all healed up, but last Friday we realized he wasn't eating or drinking (he was back outside at that point.).

We could have rushed him to the vet. Or could we? Vets are mostly closed.  We didn't, anyway, and he died on Sunday. It was sad and hard but he was an old animal with a hard life. He was also a really sweet cat so yes, it is sad.  He actually wandered over to our neighbors, who found him and put him in their garage and tried to give him food and water but he had no interest. He died in their garage, which is not very neighborly of him.  But no one blames him, poor kitty.  We buried him behind our barn.

I have found myself spending a fair amount of time keeping things quiet around here. Kevin is working from his workshop in the basement and Lydia has had more than one presentation she had to give online. I have to keep the kids quiet during that time.  Not a huge ordeal, but it isn't necessarily easy either because our kids are loud.

We have had some lovely days and we also have chalk. So...

Pretty tulips.

Mocha (not the now dead cat) standing looking regal.

My nose.  Kevin was out taking close up pictures so yeah...

A snake in the grass, literally.

I am feeling a bit weary with this quarantine and coronavirus thing, along with the entire population of the United States.  I know I'm blessed. I'm not lonely, I like being home, we have food and water.  Not just blessed, extremely blessed.  But...

  It doesn't help that there is so much uncertainty as to when we should open up fully again.  The data is still obscure and confusing.    Sweden didn't lock down and their elderly population is getting decimated by coronavirus.  Lots of people have died in long care facilities in our country. New York City, hit hard.  One alarming factoid is that in NYC, there was a huge spike in cardiac arrests some weeks ago and it seems likely those heart attacks were coronavirus related. 

There are those who claim we are inflating our death toll but I think it likely we are actually way undercounting, because lots of people who have died have not been tested.

Some claim young people don't get hit by this but reality is, SOME DO. And we don't know why some people basically have no symptoms, and some people die.  More time will help figure out what is going on. But we can't close down forever.  Lots of people have lost  jobs and businesses are going under.

I can't make policy.  I can do what I can to keep people safe, which is to still quarantine for now.  I can pray for wisdom for government leaders.

Ergghhh....

Today I just don't feel motivated. 

It is raining outside.  Kevin had a sudden blorp (to use a technical term) of work to do and is hiding in the basement toiling away.

Have I mentioned it is raining?

Nothing is really wrong. I have a huge project of my own, trying to sort out a possible path for Isaac to get an engineering degree by starting at Clark State University and then transferring to Wright State.  It's a bit complicated.  It will also save us a ton of money because Clark State is much cheaper, especially when we use College Credit Plus credits.

Also, I love community colleges because professors focus on teaching, not research.  Research has its place, for sure, but it really annoys me when undergraduates spend tons of tuition money only to be taught absentmindedly by profs who are focused more on writing grants, sitting on committees, and building research empires.

So yeah, I just need to sort out times and places and stuff like that.  It's going to require a lot of work but I just need to start somewhere.

In other news, we are healthy! Praise God.  One of my aunts lives in the Detroit Metro area, which is being hit hard by coronavirus. Three members of her church congregation have died of it!

Sad.

So we keep on working, and praying for patience, and praying for God's mercy, and for His wisdom for our leaders.  These are not easy times.

I am Jael

So I'm writing a Pride and Prejudice fanfiction called "I am Jael".

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13524581/1/I-am-Jael

That's the link, if anyone is interested.  I'm not done with it yet.

I've been writing Star Wars fanfiction for several years now and thoroughly enjoy it.  Writing is very satisfying to me, and I get positive feedback which is even more fun.

Star Wars fanfiction cannot be published for money because Star Wars is legally owned by Disney.  So I write just for fun.

Writing Pride and Prejudice fanfiction is also enjoyable, but there is at least the option of actually publishing it.  It's such an old book that it is no longer covered by copyright, so a million people have published their Pride and Prejudice alternate books on Amazon Kindle.

I'm playing around with the possibility of doing so with my book when I'm done. We'll see.  It wouldn't earn much, but it would be fun to get paid to write, even a little bit.

Kindle Unlimited is a monthly service where people pay $10 a month to access a bazillion titles which are part of the Kindle Unlimited library.  I have Kindle Unlimited and it is crazy awesome.  So. Many. Books!!

So if I do this, I'll sign up for Kindle Unlimited and if someone reads my book, I get a very small amount for every page I read. Something like that.

We'll see. The big thing for me is that this is a whole new world for authors.  No longer are people required to jump through hoops to have a publishing house accept one's work.  Anyone can publish on Kindle Unlimited, apparently. Some people, of course, try to game the system by writing garbage.  I have no intention of writing garbage. I think my writing is quite good, if I do say so myself. Not Gerald Durrell or Dorothy Sayers or Rex Stout good, of course, but decent.  And fun, very fun.

So we'll see. 

Easter Monday

Easter was yesterday. We of course didn't go anywhere.  We didn't have an egg hunt, except that I did a delightful Resurrection Egg hunt with the three youngest.  I have a dozen plastic eggs with various symbols of the death of Christ and his resurrection in the eggs, like praying hands, a stone (to represent the tomb), a scrap of cloth for the linen, etc.  It was good.

Life continues to truck along.  I actually had to leave the house today, as two of the boys had problems with their glasses.  I wore a mask into the optometrist's office and wore gloves, which I discarded. 

Other than that, we've been home except for occasional forays to the grocery store on Kevin's part.  We had some lovely days last week weather wise, but now we're in a bit of a cold spell. April is like that -- warm days, cold days, warm days, cold days.

Rose is so silly!

We have six computers in this room. Craziness!

Daniel needs his stuffed animals when he is playing Minecraft!

On a nice day, Kevin took the three little kids on a wagon ride.

One tiny silver lining to the quarantine is that we are enjoying more family meals together.  Naomi sits off by herself because she wants to. We could shove her in a corner but realistically, ten of us do fill up the table pretty well.

Mostly we are doing well.  Life is weird and challenging in some ways, but we continue to cling to God.  We aren't suffering physically and I am so thankful for that.  The uncertainty about the future is wearing. I don't like uncertainty. But it is what it is.  May God bless our leaders with wisdom.

Palm Sunday

The days are blurring together for us as they are for most people.  These are weird times.

We are well, physically and mentally and mostly emotionally.  I feel like I am doing fine with anxiety, but oddly I keep having weird and annoying dreams where I am trying to pack up luggage to catch a plane and can't make it happen, or worse yet, I've had a couple of dreams about losing track of kids.

Those are anxiety dreams so I guess I am affected by all this. No huge surprise. Mostly I am doing well with the quarantine though.

Rose likes to go nose to nose.

Spring means Kevin is starting to take pictures of, say, mushrooms.  

Two mushrooms. Obviously!

Lydia graciously worked with the three youngest to put together a gingerbread house from, yes, Christmas.

Kevin has been toiling away outside on our back three acres. There is a lot of scrubby bushes along the fence line, and he is demolishing them.  He also lit a fire a few days ago.  It was a low wind day and the initial flames shot 20 feet in the air. FUN!

A Rose and me selfie.

A Kevin and me selfie.

Chocolate.  A ridiculous amount of chocolate. I don't think I will run of chocolate during this quarantine. Which is a good thing. But I admit this a little ridiculous.  (I don't share because no one else likes my dark chocolate with almonds. That is just SO SAD!! :-))

Easter is a rather strange holiday for us. As weird as this sounds, we haven't all attended Easter services in several years.  They are usual absolutely jammed and there are people everywhere and we've had lots of kids and it has been stressful. So in the last years, we have usually skipped Easter services at church.

We are attending a new church now and there is plenty of space and the congregation size small (though growing!) so this year I was thinking, yes, we can go to Easter services!

Except, coronavirus. Quarantine. So no Easter services.

I am not someone who really needs holidays to think about Jesus.  I mean, I like the Christmas season and the Easter season but I tend to study the Bible based on where I feel God is calling me as opposed to focusing on the Incarnation at Christmas and  the Risen Christ on Easter.  So I am not too distressed about missing Easter services.

I know some people relish such times more than I do.  Certainly, God had plenty of festivals for the Israelites in the desert and in Israel, which tells ME that God has created us for such things.  We do well to remember the basics of the faith and holidays are helpful in that way.

So yes, weird Easter. Weird world. But Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  And I am grateful.