Quarantine and COVID-19 pandemic

I purchased this artwork to hang in our home and forever remind my family of our season of quarantine.  We started tracking the worldwide pandemic flu, COVID-19, in January. 

And over the weeks and months we’ve watched with sadness and concern the numbers continued to go up, up, up. 

On March 30, 2020 i journaled: 

“It’s 1:30 am and I cannot sleep. COVID-19 is sweeping across the world. We’ve followed this pandemic flu since early feb when it was only in China and only had 4K infected. Now there are 723,000 infected with 34k people dead. We are social distancing. School is out. Spring break was canceled. Everything is closed. Church is at home. 

We leave the house to buy groceries and go for drives. That’s it. Cello lessons and counseling are the only things left, and after this week, cello and counseling will also go virtual.  Aaron works from home. I can feel the heaviness of my responsibility to keep everyone safe, sane, fed, educated, quiet while Aaron works, and also keep up with therapy protocols for the twins. And keep the 3 littles entertained (and from being triggered, and from destroying things and from not melting down every 5 seconds so Aaron can do his job without a small human screaming in the background) and help the 4 school kids with their work as well. I’m outsourcing what I can and downloaded Reese’s English literature on audiobook instead of reading it to her myself, have reached out to most teachers to stagger their “face to face” google classroom meetings so there aren’t more than two trying to do life videos and chats at the same time.   

Everyone keeps posting about how bored they are and all this free time they have. I wake up and literally run from child to child for 12-14 hours. And cook. I always cook a lot, but our kitchen is in constant use right now. It’s all very wonderful and exhausting and I hope I can keep up at this pace.  Life is definitely not any slower than it was before, but it is still better because we are home and together.  I need a date night though. Or a few hours be alone when it’s not 1am.”

And here we are today. Nearly 100k deaths. Arkansas is one of only a handful of US states not placed under a Shelter In Place order. But we are staying home. All non essential business are closed. Restaurants are curbside pick up only. Schools are closed for the remainder of the school year and we are doing online education (which is still terrible, by the way. Only one of Reese’s teachers has been even willing to make any adjustments to accommodate her 504 plan, and even that has been an uphill battle.  Quincy received a 2 hour listening assignment just for orchestra class in addition to her regular practice.  Soren only finished his work half the time, avd I don’t care.  Reese wakes up at 5:30am and works for a little over an hour before her early morning seminary class via zoom begins. Then she goes and goes and goes until 9pm on Mondays and Tuesdays. On Wednesdays I force her to quit at 4 or 5, and she finishes by 12 or 1 on Thursdays and Fridays, with only reading left for her English class. I bought the book on audible so she can just listen to it on her kindle while she goes for a walk or sews or does art.  1.6 million people have tested positive but those numbers are WAY higher, as no one except really has had access to testing until this last week. 

Then there were shortages of goods. Hand sanitizer, clorox wipes, hand soap, and Lysol all became extinct.  Toilet paper flew off the shelves and every market across the country looked like this.  Then chicken and beef, pork. Bread, eggs, rice, flour, beans, and bottled water, all difficult or impossible to find.  I was grateful to have a small supply of everything we need but have never longed for my food storage so badly. 18 months ago we had enough dry goods to last us at least 6 months. I had a grain mill and grains, and a deep freezer in the garage stocked with meat and frozen vegetables, butter, yeast, jam, and homemade soups. With a family of 9, my current freezer holds a few weeks of those items. But, being a family of nine I feel very uneasy about not having food laid aside against then unknown so I am grateful to have had what I did have stocked up, and even though it’s not what it was before the fire, I have knowledge. I know how to cook what I do have a small supply of. And we always have toilet paper.  

Arkansas is still one of the very few states not under a “shelter in place” order.  

Everyone is handling it fairly well though.  Especially since they don’t go anywhere. I’ve been to the store and sonic to pick up treats a few times, but other than drives, and an afternoon kayaking at Kasey’s lake, we are at home or up the street at my parents’ house.   My teens/tweens are like baby ducklings. They stay very close, especially once the littles go to bed. 

On April 2 I posted the following pic on Instagram with this commentary:

“I’m used to having 3-4 tiny humans attached to me by day, but being the bringer of food and entertainment means I’m quickly growing in popularity for company with the teens/tween as well. These three shadows give in to my magnetic pull and jump in for second shift to make sure someone is sitting on my face at all hours of the day. 🦆🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥”





Corbin is missing his routine. Here are some of his school journal entries:

I took this pic of him last week when he said, “mom, I miss my life.” 

He’s been busy and working hard though! He mows our lawn and my parents lawn for commission and the last few days he and Soren have been shoveling dirt to clear a path in my parents yard and spreading rock. He counts up his dollars every day. 😂 

We’ve all been busy in free moments making PPE masks. Kasey came over to teach us how and the past couple days Reese, Quincy, my mom and I have really taken it next level. Reese is especially getting very confident at the sewing machine and it’s really something amazing to see.  My mom donated her fabric stash and set up a sewing station and assembly line in her living room and we have joined the worldwide battle against this nasty virus. 

As soon as school work is done they skip up to my moms to sew. So they finish working hard, and then go work hard.  They have given masks to the nursing staff in Jay, Oklahoma, to their uncle working at a hospital in Utah, two family practice docs in Bentonville, to the ER, nursing staff and radiology techs at Mercy, to the twins’ therapists, to a therapist friend, and to several neighbors and friends.  Today, they participated in a worldwide fast and prayed for relief from COVID 19, and they pushed up their sleeves and provided 20 masks for Area 1 Arkansas DCFS caseworkers.  There is so much hope for the future because it is in the hands of these young, faithful, industrious and compassionate thinkers and doers. I think that years and decades from now, when they remember this pandemic, they will not focus on the problem, but instead will reminisce that they were active participants in solutions, prevention, and recovery.

There is so much everyone can do. 

In the worldwide fast we were asked to pray for everyone affected, the economy, and for life to return to normal.  It was a rich experience. I thought a lot about how I can help. And I pondered what “normal”  means and why the prophet declared it to be important.  While I dislike schoolwork overload and I miss church and friends and hugging everyone and having people in my home, I do like most things about our new normal. I’m honestly a little thankful for the chance to “skip spring madness”.  Of course I’m sad for all of us missing the things they love: soccer season, orchestra, March madness, piano lessons, preschool, friends, YW, seminary, and the list goes on. There isn’t really anything there I wouldn’t put back into our schedule when life returns to normal. And doing all the things virtually is still an appointment and often leaves much to be desired. The work needs to go on though. temples need to reopen. Saints need to gather to worship and fellowship.  Courthouses need to reopen. Business need to not fail.  We need face to face interaction and ministry.   So that’s the normal I hope to restore. 

 But today is a respite from the typical pace of April and I’ll take it, even though I’m still running in circles most of the time. Similar pace, different track.