Weekly Wrap Up - Faith Not Fear

Here we are coming to the close of another week of uncertainty.  I encourage you to look for opportunities to speak words of life and encouragement and faith during this time.  There is already way too much fear being spewed out.  That does NOT mean I'm saying be reckless, or that I'm down playing the situation.   You should still wash your hands, practice social distancing to the extent you can, and PRAY for your family, community, country and the world.  This is not the time to cower in the corner and do nothing.  Prayer and praise are your weapons, use them.  If you're not sure what to pray, then I recommend Psalm 91 as a great starting place.

My husband is still working, 7 days a week as a matter of fact, at his manufacturing facility.  It's considered "essential", which honestly I find odd as he builds industrial sized air conditioning units.  Although, they've been told this week that they are supplying units to "make shift hospitals" at the moment. The validity of that statement is subjective.

I find it ironic, that now that we're under lock down and everything is cancelled, my weekly wrap up's have gotten so much longer.  This is for our benefit, so we can look back on these days/weeks and see how we handled life and responded to the changes.

The weekend was pretty low key, for obvious reasons.   Since there was no jiu-jitsu classes for the last two weeks, the girls spent Saturday morning working on techniques and skills.  You can read about it and see more photos in my post This Is How We Roll.  We worked on housework and laundry during the day.  Lindsey started a new knitting project, and Olivia was holed up in room reading about World War 2 and noting similarities from then and now.   In the evening the husband picked up Chinese carry-out for dinner and then we had family movie night.

Sunday our church was open for those who wanted to attend, and it was live streamed for those who didn't want to venture out.  Since I've spent the last 4 years not missing a single Sunday and having to cover two services per Sunday, I took this as an opportunity to take a break.  There ended up being over 50 people in attendance (yes, well above the 10 person restriction).  We slept in (except the husband who had to work), then we watched several messages from Steve Furtick at Elevation Church throughout the day and had church at home.  LOVED IT!  I fixed a lovely pork roast, baked macaroni and cheese, and asparagus for dinner.

Monday morning Lindsey had to get up early for her babysitting gig. This was supposed to be spring break week here, ahem.  The child's (Bella) mom is a nurse at the local hospital, but in the heart and vascular center.  They stopped seeing new patients in person several weeks ago, so she shouldn't be a contamination risk.  Hearing her talk about the lack of protocol in place, lack of PPE and that they've only received two test kits in two weeks really shows me how weak our medical preparedness is for alarge scale emergency.    School went well, nothing overly exciting.   We had baked fish, rice and salad for dinner.

Our governor announced that all k-12 schools in the state would not be returning to classrooms this academic year.  There will be no graduations ceremonies.  They also changed the "recommendation of 10 or less people in a group setting" to  meetings of 10 or more being PROHIBITED.  It's now a class 1 misdemeanor to be in groups of 10 or more in Virginia.  That means punishable by up to 1 year in jail and/or $2500 in fines.   Interestingly enough, the list of "essential businesses" that can remain open include the state run liquor stores.

Tuesday was pretty typical.  Bella arrived around 7:30am and she and Lindsey started their day.  Since schools are closed here, and Bella is in kindergarten, Lindsey's working on her reading, spelling and math skills with her.  She'll be more than ready for 1st grade in the fall.  I had a phone conference with our pastor, our Wednesday night class has been discontinued (due to the governor's edict) and won't start back up until the fall.

Olivia just keeps pushing on with her academics.  She also keeps getting calls about job applications, but when they hear she's under 18 they say she's too young.  Doesn't anyone read the birthdate info on the application before they call?  This weeks call was from the grocery store, and I know they hire teens.  However, they were wanting someone for the deli and I guess the meat slicer has age restrictions?  She's been doing a lot of walking during her down time.   She comes home and reports how the pets in the surrounding area are doing

For dinner, we had chicken tenders, broccoli and corn pudding.  I typically only make the corn pudding for the holidays, so it was gobbled up pretty quickly.   After dinner we watched the 1998 version of the movie Little Men.  

Wednesday morning was rainy and gray .  Lindsey and I were already finished with our coffee when Bella arrived.  Olivia slept in (she is not a morning person). School work went by pretty quickly with nothing overly noteworthy.   Dinner was homemade Salisbury steaks, mashed potatoes/gravy and stuffing.

Thursday Bella was a bit late getting here due to a main road being closed between here and there, so they had to reroute.   Everyone knocked out their school work at some point during the day.  It was my regular grocery shopping day.  It's weird now (obviously) when you go.  In our area, all the different stores have changed their operating hours, and then each store has it's own "senior/compromised shopper" times.  Trying to figure out where you can go and when is a challenge all it's own.   The first two I tried were a no go, the third was a go, but didn't have much that was on my list.  Once I backtracked to the first two store, I finally completed my shopping and got the groceries put away I took Olivia to the farm to see the newborn calf.  She'll be heading back to the farm on Saturday to work/ride.  

My younger brother had his first follow up visit with the cardiologist.  Everything is healing up nicely and they were very pleased with his progress.  Now he will start adding a little longer walking into his routine.  The husband came home from work and mowed our yard and Ms. Kay's yard.   It's hard to believe it's already spring and time to get out and about.  Dinner consisted of spaghetti and meatballs.

Friday is scheduled to be cleaning day, however the weather is supposed to be incredibly beautiful, so I'll probably forego cleaning to work in the garden and get some lettuce/greens planted.  I bought sidewalk chalk on Thursday, so Bella will enjoy getting outside and being artsy too.  Our dinner tonight will consist of homemade pizza and fresh baked cookies for dessert.

Blast From the Past

Hands on learning is not just for when the kids are little. Check our my post Welcome to Virginia and you'll see how much a teen enjoys learning by doing as well.

Have a good weekend!