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Tag: stay at home

Summer At Last

We are a couple weeks into Summer now, which is feeling a bit more normal. School is done for the year and the stress of online learning is gone. For the kids, the days are much more relaxed – staying up late and sleeping in had already become the norm, but now I suppose it is a bit more acceptable. The only difference for them at this point is that I am home with them during the day instead of going to the office.

A few activities have slowly started back up. Caleb is back at piano lessons and has tutoring a few times a week. One-on-one tutoring has been much better for him than online summer school would have been. The other two kids don’t have much going on yet, but Evie will have volleyball camp in July and Fall team sign-ups will be starting soon. She’s scheduled for church camp if that gets to happen as well. Zach doesn’t have a lot of plans, but will be turning 15 in a couple weeks, so we have printed off the driver’s guide so he can start studying for his permit test. We’re also starting to look into job opportunities for him.

After three months of doing virtually nothing outside of the house, it seems strange now to be making all these plans. My calendar is suddenly starting to fill up again. We’re planning a trip to Texas soon, and while I thought I had a pretty blank calendar, I’m now having to try to schedule that around other things.

As of next week, my office is officially back to regular hours with most of the staff being on-site again. I still plan to work mostly from home for now, but will most likely be back at least one or two days a week. It will feel strange for a while.

Honestly, thinking about going back to a regular schedule after these last few months is giving me nearly the same amount of anxiety that I had when everything started shutting down in March. I feel like things are good right now. I’ve really settled into working from home. I love my home office and finally have it set up to function well. I’ve got my routine down and I’m feeling more on top of things for work than I have in a long time. I am also really enjoying having my evenings free to relax or work on projects around the house. I’ve never really been a fan of change. I guess it will just take a while to get used to our normal amount of crazy again.

In the meantime, I’ve still got a long list of projects to keep me busy and help squash the anxiety for a while. Hopefully, within the next couple of weeks I’ll actually be able to park my car in the garage. We’ve been in our house for a full year now. I suppose it is time to finish unpacking those boxes!

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Day 59

We’re on day 59 of social distancing – essentially two months at home. Our family started a couple days before the official orders came down. We didn’t have any plans really, and with all the uncertainty it seemed best to stay in for the weekend. Things are starting to open up again, slowly, and with restrictions. Some people are ready to just get out there and get back to regular life, but I’m feeling a little more reserved about it – not quite ready to jump back in.

Everything feels different right now. After two months of being home, slowing down, no rushed schedules, no running here and there, and only a very few obligations that require marking things on a calendar, I’m wondering what it will feel like to return to that life. I don’t miss the busy, the packed calendars, the late nights after practices and activities. But then I glance at the calendar and see that Caleb’s soccer tournament should have been this weekend and Evie’s volleyball season should be wrapping up and I am sad for their missed opportunities. I am sad that they are missing the end of their first year at their new schools. They are missing the fun part after working hard all year. There are no yearbook signing parties, no field days, no celebrations for a job well done. It will just be over.

The coming of summer, which normally is an exciting and welcome change every year, seems so anticlimatic this year. Camps the kids were looking forward to will most likely be cancelled, or at the very least be a very different experience than they were expecting. Staying home from school doesn’t seem very exciting as we’ve been doing that already. Travel plans are questionable as we wait to see where things stand in the world.

I feel myself being a little more moody lately, going up and down from day to day. Some days I’m all in and ready to make the best of the situation, and other days I just want to sit and get lost in netflix and video games and ignore the rest of the world. Once I get myself into a project or my work I’m usually good, it just takes a lot of effort to get going. My sense of motivation for the things I *should* be doing is really lacking most days. I’m sure the lack of urgency is a big factor there. There is no deadline. I don’t have a problem completing work tasks or even mowing the yard, but I can look at a sink full of dishes for two days before I decide to actually do something about it. I mean, no one is coming over to see how dirty my kitchen is anyway.

In all of this, I do find myself being so very thankful for the internet and all the amazing ways we have to communicate. I can’t imagine how much more isolated and alone we would all be feeling without the ability to connect to our people online. Between gaming, social media, video chats, sharing photos, streaming church services, and even classroom conference calls, we are all able to connect to the people and the things that are most important to us. Those are the things that are getting us through this strange time right now. As much as I enjoy being alone and having time to myself, I do have to say that I’m realizing just how important that human connection truly is.

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