Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Day 7 - Coronatine

Day 7 was rough. It was cold outside, the Smidget and I both had headaches. We discovered PBSkids games online and spent a lot of time flying dinosaurs into storm clouds.

I'm really trying hard not to be harsh on myself as I have temporarily revoked all rules about limited screen time and healthy eating habits. Pop-tarts and cartoons, here we are to stay. I thank God daily for streaming video and Dora the Explorer. I can't really explain to a two year old why he can't go with me to the grocery store or play at the play-place. We're going to walks when we can but I'm unmotivated to spend 20 minutes bundling us up just for a walk around the block and we've had more cold days than warm ones.

I spent some time weaving in the end on one of my mandala blankets. I think we're at 33 rows out of about 50 and I don't think it's going to be as big as I'd hoped even though I'm using the recommended hook and yarn sizes. I may have to do some math to repeat a set of rows.  And while I was weaving in the ends, I misplaced the hook and haven't been able to recover it yet so I moved on.


To this motif blanket, which I added two rows to last night and started weaving in all the ends while watching NCIS LA.


I now have just about all the motifs that were completed added, so I'll start working on the next row of greens. These little guys are just 4 inches across. I think I calculated that I needed somewhere around 200 to make a full afghan.

Hoping for a better day today (Day 8), but we started the day by snarking at eachother so I guess we'll see.

Friday, March 27, 2020

Day 4 - Coronatine

Lets see today is um... Friday, right?
It's hard to keep track without all the usual activities. Every day is exactly the same.

So mental health-wise, we're all doing better. I was able to get the Smidget outside for a few hours on Wednesday and a few hours on Tuesday. Going to try again today because tomorrow it looks like rain all day.

My new loot arrived yesterday. I'm waiting for someone to accuse me of Russian Collusion because I ordered these Russian cross stitch kits. 


They are two out of four seasonal snow globes and I plan to pick up the other two sometime soon.

My Coronatine project is coming along. I plan to finish it by the time we are released back out into the wild.


And I even managed a little crochet yesterday while The Smidget was throwing sand and mud around the backyard.


We've been abiding by the Governer's Stay-at-Home order, making do with what groceries we have in the house (we're fine, don't worry) and generally not sticking to any of our healthy eating and low screen time standards. The Smidget now alternates between wanting to be Dora and wanting to be Diego. Thank goodness for streaming video.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Day 1 - Coronatine

Well here we are like five months after my last post. We've had ups, we've had downs. I acquired a work from home job and then got laid off due to lack of work about 6 weeks later. I've started several projects since my last post, and more importantly, I have finished two projects this year already. The first being The Castle, my oldest project.


And the second was Small Cuppa, one of my newer projects. No, it didn't all line up when I closed the frame of the cup, yes I fudged it anyway.


As a family, we were sick this winter, almost constantly, from Halloween until just a couple of weeks ago and now that the Plague is making the rounds I expect we'll be sick again before too long. It seemed never ending this year, one cold after another, but most significant was the weeks-long fatigue that seemed like it would never end. I was so tired I was barely functioning and I'm afraid this blog took the hit.

Mostly I'm back because I've been feeling a need to document what is going on these days and I wanted something a little less transient than social media.

The hubs was ordered to work from home about a week and a half ago. We've been slowly watching our civil liberties be eroded by the panic and fear. And yesterday, our Governor dropped a state-wide  "it's not a lock down but it's really a lock down" order, requiring all non-essential workers to stay home for three weeks, certain reasonable exceptions in place, for now anyway. This has resulted in multiple rounds of panic buying at the grocery stores, even though the food supply chain is fully intact. I nearly had a meltdown yesterday when I couldn't find Cheerios in the store. (Long story short, the Smidget has a pretty limited diet due to food allergies and Cheerios are a staple, most substitutes he cannot eat.) I was able to acquire some at a different store thank goodness or we would have been in so. much. trouble.

I am already at the end of my rope. I have a toddler who is both hyperactive and extremely social, so even if I give him a movie to watch, he wants to sit on my lap. It's cute and adorable but I'm all social'd out after the last week and a half of trying to meet the Smidget's social and play needs and the hubs, who is also an extreme extrovert, and literally never getting a break. I haven't been sleeping well for about a week, my vitamins are out of stock everywhere so I haven't been able to take the supplements that keep my mood stable. I can't even take the Smidget to the grocery store at this point, let alone anywhere where he could have fun and play and burn off some energy. It's been too cold to play outside for long, although that might start changing soon. Consequently, he's both cranky and hyperactive and not at all inclined to listen to anybody. We spent most of today yelling at each other and if I have to listen to one more episode of Dora the Explorer, the consequences will be severe.

I am grateful that we have not yet been impacted significantly financially at this point but we were only promised two weeks work from home and I literally don't know what will happen at the end of this week, whether they will continue to pay salary or whether they'll temporarily lay everyone off. 

In a last-ditch effort to maintain my sanity, I started a new project yesterday. I'm going to attempt to work on it every day of the "not-lock-down" and as it is smaller than most of my projects, I expect it won't take to long to finish. The project's text is a blessing that I wish upon every parent stuck in the house with one or more small children right now.



The pattern was acquired on Etsy and due to the salmon floss matching the fabric I chose, I swapped it out for a yellow.

I expect I'll be updating every couple of days, if only to get my thoughts out of my head. I hope you all are hanging in there okay these days.