6710 Grand

I'm guilty...I think.  I didn't do it on purpose.  I didn't mean  to do it.  But I think I did it.  This whole quarantine thing is uncharted territory.  I'm still figuring out how to navigate it.  I did the weekly shopping last week, trying to only buy what I normally would--salad fixings, lunches for the kids, cereal, chicken, milk--basics.  I only went to Aldi, my usual grocery store.  I don't normally buy coffee cream and whipped cream there but they had it and we were low, so I bought some.  The lines were long to check out but it was an orderly process.  Mission accomplished--we'd eat for another week. Then we went to Costco. No toilet paper, hand sanitizer or Lysol wipes.  But they did have coffee and whipped cream--in 3 packs.  So I bought one of each.  Now I had four of everything.  Is that wrong??  I mean, these items aren't in short supply and let's be honest, I use a LOT in a single week....

Quarantine.  It's kind of a scary word.  But here we are.  Holed up at home as this nasty virus makes it's way across the world.  I hope these 2 weeks isolated work.  I hope Nick makes it home.  I hope I don't get sick.  I hope my family doesn't get sick.  I hope no one else in this world gets sick.  But someone will.  It's been hard to explain to the kids why we can go outside but friends can't come over.  Why we can't go shopping and why we aren't going to work or school.  On many levels, the big girls get it but in a lot of ways, social distancing seems like overreacting...until Ike started not feeling like himself.  A low grade fever.  But no coughing and no shortness of breath.  He's pulling at his ears.  That's probably it--an ear infection.  He's jut had one and maybe the round of amoxicillin just didn't do the trick.  Even if it is the dreaded virus, kids seem to weather the storm just fi...

I know a thing or two about long distance relationships.  In a lot of ways, I'm still living in one.  When Nick and I were dating after college and he'd gone home to San Diego and I moved to Kansas City, we wrote a lot of letters (ok, I wrote a lot of letters.  He wrote a few.).  We talked on the phone every night (remember free nights and weekends??) but I still wrote him a letter every day.  Just about what was going on.  What I was thinking.  How I was feeling.  None of it was anything monumental (at least I don't think so) but those were the in-betweens.  In between visits.  In between trips.  We were separated by thousands of miles and hours of flight time.  One of us made the trip to see the other about once every three months. And in those moments, we celebrated!  We enjoyed EVERY SECOND together.  Even just being in the same room--the same state--the same time zone!  It didn't matter what we did.  ...