Week 3 Quarantine: The Rainy Days

It's been raining for awhile and our walks been thwarted many days.  The children have taken to screening people as they go up and down the stairs in our house, "Have you had any flu-like symptoms?  Have you been out of the country in the past two weeks?" as a game.  Quarantined Kids' Games...

Making Tents in the Living Room

The decrease in walks have brought about a bit more fighting amongst the younger ones.  We had to bring back our "Tummy Time" again.

In case, you missed this technique of mine for resolving fights between littles, I make them touch tummies until they are laughing and have forgiven each other.  I started this when the girls were little.  It had been a while since I needed it.

Grocery stores are actually getting better.  They're not stocked with toilet paper and dried beans, but they also don't have lines waiting outside just to get in.

The schools continued to send home packets, but since they are going to be closed at least until May 4th, they are now moving towards using Goggle Classroom, despite trying desperately to avoid screens, being a Classical, technology-free school.  They can not sustain the printing costs of the packets.  Next week will be the last week of printed packets.

Some of the children, mainly Hannah, are sick of games.  I found a new Christian book series for her that are re-tellings of fairy tales that the library had on ebooks.  Melanie Dickerson writes them.  She read five of them this week and as I write this a week later, she has read fifteen of her books.  She's a little hooked.

I have been remiss to mention that our churches have been closed.  Our priest has been sending out ways to fulfill our Sunday obligation from home since we are prohibited from attending Mass.  Another benefit of having no outside activities, we have been able to do our nightly read alouds every night again like we used to when we were a fully homeschooled family.  And we are able to pray together more often than just bedtime prayers.  We say the Divine Mercy Chaplet together often at 3pm, and our decade has turned into a full rosary again.  Our dinners and, therefore, our bedtimes have been later and more relaxed.  SO nice not to worry about the clock all the time!

We started the carrots in soda bottles and the Marigolds a while back in my Botany class, but we added a bunch of vegetable seeds when I was able to talk Brian into making me a couple of wooden planters to put them in.  I bought a pack of vegetable seeds that grow well together in a two foot planter.  So we are going to try it this summer since it wouldn't hurt to have some fresh veggies growing in our own backyard the way things are going.

I have been working on a few different projects in the evenings.  I am making myself a light spring crocheted sweater, but unfortunately Hobby Lobby closed down before I finished it and I am stuck without any yarn to finish it up because online they are "Out of stock" of the color I need.  I am so close to finishing.  I then started making five sets of nativity scenes like I made for my nephew out of wooden peg people for gifts next year at Christmas time.  I also ran out of peg men though and was temporarily paused on this project as well, but Amazon came through and I now have new ones to complete the sets.  Then I was suddenly inspired by a tapestry to draw this.

I am also working on a saint doll for a new baby boy, but again ran out of thread in one spot.  Grrr.


I've had a few "get togethers" via various video conferencing methods this week.  I had a harder week, but it was just because I can't be alone here easily.  I took a walk by myself one day and made a few extraneous trips to drop things off on my siblings' doorsteps and to Sonic just to get out alone.  The rain induced bickering was the main cause I think.

Week 1 Quarantine: The Coronavirus Strikes

and I suddenly have time to catch up on my blog.  My house is the cleanest and most organized that it's been in a long while.  I've been homeschooling and tackling big projects.  EVERYTHING  is cancelled.  We are literally down to the private in home piano lessons and online guitar lessons at this point.  No church.  No school for the big kids.  No field trips, dances, or sports.  No dentist and doctor appointments.  Nada.  All cancelled.  This is the weirdest thing ever.

I went to pick up my prescription refill and was stopped by a very commanding voiced lady who screened me with questions like, "Have you been out of the country in the past two weeks?"  "Do you have a fever and a cough?"  etc.  After I answered all the questions to her liking I was allowed to approach and get my prescription.

Hannah and I went to the grocery store after the initial mayhem died down and the shelves were just so bare.  I felt like I should just swipe my arm across the shelves and take the rest.  I felt sorry for the last few remaining jars of crunchy peanut butter, and, oh, the lima beans and split peas!  All the other beans were taken.  How sad for those lima beans and split peas!  And just forget about toilet paper at this point.  I am sure this should be remembered as the Great Toilet Paper Apocalypse.

First on my to do list was to get our homeschool closet and overflow of books back under control.  This has been bothering me for a long time.  I also had a growing pile of books that just would not fit on our wall to wall bookshelves.  I was brainstorming one night as I was falling asleep and it suddenly occurred to me that I have a few bookshelves and dressers being used "outside of the box" for other purposes.  I moved a dresser that I had been using for crafts in my room to the boys' room, therefore freeing up a bookshelf to take down to the school room.  Then I had a bookshelf used for my sewing stuff that I moved down.  For now I condensed my sewing and craft supplies into bins until Brian can build or find me a sewing table/storage.  I'm imagining one of the old TV entertainment centers re-purposed with a drop down table for my machine, but we'll see.  For now, at least my school room looks better.

When I finished putting my sewing stuff up, I saw a project waiting to be completed that I figured I should just do now.  So I grabbed the fabric letters that Isaac had cut out for me and the fabrics I had sitting out, and in less than an hour I had Luna's new pillow ready for lounging.

The next day, I thought the game room needed a little make over and some better vacuuming since my vacuumers are sometimes less than thorough with the corners.  I was only able to get rid of a few more toys since I have really pared down already so much, and the kids really haven't added too much to the collection since then.

Riddles and Couch Pieces

 One time I got the idea to write riddles on the boys' paper plates with the answers on the bottom just to make lunchtime a little more fun and to change the course of an argumentative day.  They loved it so much that they now ask me every once in a while to do it again.  These kids go through riddle and joke books though like candy, and they usually know the answers.  I even use Google to try to find new ones and they rarely get stumped.  Here's another way we shake up an otherwise monotonous or trying homeschool day, by heading outside with our lunch.  This particular day, Judah chose Luna's favorite spot in the sun.

Luna is quick to cuddle with anyone who sits on the couch.  

Speaking of the couch, something happened in the shipment of our couch and the fabric (not real leather, but the fake stuff) started just falling apart.  It started slowly and we were just putting pillows in front of it or hanging blankets over the bad spots.  But at some point it just got out of hand.  The couch was shedding so much that I was finding pieces everywhere, and sweeping them up daily.  We even found some in our suitcases when we were traveling.  My dear husband's plan was to just tough it out until we made our final military move, but when we found a piece of the couch in his cereal bowl he finally relented and said we could look for a new or gently used couch.  No one has couches as big as this though, so we went with a new one.

I mean, this is embarrassing, folks.

But, alas, we have a new couch!  It is shorter only because it doesn't have the middle arm rests.  We love it!  The kids think it is awesome that it has USB plugs everywhere and electric foot rests.  This was the first movie watched on the couch.

Life in January

Not too long after we got home with Nanna, Luna had surgery (spay) and had to recover as well.  She had to be on a leash so she wouldn't run and jump, potentially splitting her stitches for ten days.  She had the cone on for fourteen days.

One evening when Nanna had to go to the hospital unexpectedly, Isaac had to babysit after school with all of his regular duties.  He made the best of it, practicing his guitar and making it a musical chair game for the kids.

 Brian is building us a headboard now to go with his king sized bed frame.  I helped design it and am going to be stenciling fleur-de-lis on the white slats.  Here's my sketch.

Skip ahead to the Coronavirus Apocalypse, and I was finally able to finish my stenciling.  Here it is before being sealed and put together with the rest of the bed he made.

in progress

final product

Brian was able to take two of the boys to the March for Life in Austin, TX.  I had to man the fort and cover four basketball games that day because it was the playoffs.

Drew used some of his Christmas money to buy Monopoly and we had a big family game with Nanna.

The Story of How we Acquired Luna

Meet Luna!  She's a miniature (only 8 lbs) wire-haired dachshound who is probably about 2 years old.  She's got a lot of pep in her step.  She's house-trained and crate-crate trained.  She sweet as can be with  kids and LOVES (a little too much) other animals.  She was found nameless, collarless, and micro-chipless in a neighborhood by a big dog lover friend of ours through the kids' charter school.  All neighborhood apps and Facebook pages have turned up no owner.

I rarely check Facebook, but I happen to be looking on the school page for something specific and saw this post about this sweet dog.  I showed the post to Brian, expecting to be shot down, and told him just to think about it because we obviously can't have a bird or any other prey for Trinity and if we wait until we have land and are settled, the girls will already be out of the house.  He gave me half a dozen reasons why we shouldn't get a dog, and I said, "Just think about it."  

The next day, I get a text while homeschooling that showed me another puppy for sale that had been neutered, house-trained, etc in the neighborhood.  I was shocked because I thought he'd never give in, and here he was bringing it up to me.  I immediately asked him if we could just go meet these dogs, and he agreed as long as we didn't tell the kids about it yet.  

Turned out the puppy was $300 to adopt and Brian nixed that one, so we only went to see this stray dog.  Brian picked her up and immediately fell in love with her...more so than I did.  He was all about doing it, and I was the one saying, oh no, what if this is a huge mistake and too much for me to take on.  

The kids met her for the first time before we brought her home.

She's a huge fan of riding in the car, so she usually goes with us for drop off and pick up.

Overall, she's a very good dog.  We definitely have some things to work on, but she is already sitting very well, and I taught her to ring a bell on the back door when she needs to go out in less than a day.  I am somewhat regretting this because she is a very curious and busy little lady, often asking to go in and out and in and out way more than is necessary.  Her biggest issue is barking at people or animals, and she has made marked improvement with that already in just two weeks.

This is from after Drew's camp out, he came home, showered and crashed with her on the couch.

Trinity came down once the first day when we got her and hissed at Luna who just wanted to be friends and has refused to come downstairs ever since.  We tried forcing the issue, leaving her litter and food in the pantry where they already were, but after one peed on bean bag, I quickly moved the litter box up to our bathroom.  I tried still to leave the food, but when she hadn't still ventured down to eat in three days, I caved and moved it all upstairs.  We currently have a gate at the bottom of the stairs.  Luna gets the run of the downstairs except when we are gone or at night when she goes in her crate.  Trinity can come down whenever she feels like it, but two weeks and she still hasn't.

Naming her was fun.  I wanted a literary name that had a religious tie in.  Hyacinth was from a book and also a saint name.  Trinity wasn't from a book, but has the religious theme while still making light of her three leg situation.  Mr. Bubbles was named after a character in a book. So we had the following list...

1. Merrylegs, nickname Merry (from Black Beauty and has tie in to Mother Mary)
2. Ladybug, nickname Lady (from Lady and the Tramp and has tie in to Our Lady, plus ladybug is our family's favorite word in German, Mariankefer, translating directly as "Mary Beetle")
3. Hildegard, nickname Hildie (no literary character, just a German saint name for a German dog for a family that has lived in Germany) *Brian really pushed for this one, but not many others really liked it.
4. Luna (from HP and has tie in to Mary because she is often referred to as being like the moon and reflecting the son's glory, plus it's a Spanish word and we got her in San Antonio)

We did many votes, even trying out some different weights to the adults votes and still it always came out against Hildie.  So Brian relented and her name is Luna, with nicknames Lulu, Lou, Luna Love, Loonie Bird, Loon.  She's learning it.

Dog beds are expensive, so I made her a quick one for the time being out of spare fabric and old socks.  It was such a quick project.  I am going to have to make her a nicer one with her name on it when I find the time.