Quarandetails

Another week of quarantine homey moments is done. Another month has ended. Washington's governor has extended our stay-at-home order until May 30th, so the current home status quo isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Since I've been pumping all of my creative energies into writing a book for the past month, I have not felt as focused on writing about the "quarandetails" of daily life right now. Instead of writing about real life, I have been doing my best to snap random pictures throughout the day so I remember what is going on outside of my fictional world. Usually this everyday photography feels more natural, but when my mind is lost in fiction, I have to make a conscious effort to wake up and take a picture here and there.


Seriously, I sit down to write in my journal at night and the first thing that comes out is what happened to my characters that day, not what happened to me or my family! It feels a little scary even to say things like that because it makes me sound like I actually know what I'm doing with this whole book-writing thing, when really I don't have a clue! I am almost done with the first draft of my fluffy [hopefully] funny storybook, though, so once I finish writing and get some distance from it, maybe I'll go back and actually be able to tell if it's totally lame or not--worth editing and sharing or not. The only reason it even matters to me if it's any good is completely internal. Simply put, writing is something I've always wanted to do and I don't want to be bad at it! Even if nobody outside of my family ever reads my book, I want to know it's at least well-written and slightly amusing, for ME. For my own Writing Dream Fulfillment.

See what I mean? I started a blog post about our week and what came out? Details about my writing. As consuming as writing has been for me over the past 30 days, I usually only get 3-6 hours of heavily interrupted writing time in each day. So most of my day is still spent doing the normal STUFF, like cleaning, forcing kids to clean, listing food, planning food, buying food, cooking food, keeping kids on track with their school routines, breaking up ever-more-frequent sibling squabbles, Marco Polo messaging my sisters and friend, playing the piano, phone calls, running, and all of the other day-to-day details that only sound like a lot when they're in a pile with Everything Else.

Weekly photo album:

Amber has the cutest toes. All three kids are still going strong with their Minecraft computer game obsession, and they dug out the old Minecraft manuals this week to study up on more building techniques.

 Legs crossed, bandaid knee, lounging on the only made bed in the entire house (mine). Amber is living the home life right. She scraped her knee this week and must have replaced the bandaid ten times in the first two days after sustaining the injury. For some reason, the bandaids wouldn't stay stuck on her skin and she kept shedding them throughout the house and yard, replacing them whenever they fell off. I finally had to cut her off from our bandaid supply.

While Jeff and I are at our computers, Amber is constantly coming in to our room to read, ask questions, find toys, and watch Jeff work on his computer (far more interesting than watching me type endlessly). 

 Sibling meeting on the trampoline--I'm pretty sure they're discussing rules for their next battle royale. Jeff and I took guesses on how long it would take before someone came in crying. I guessed an optimistic seven minutes, Jeff guessed five. It was six. They ALWAYS take "play fighting" too far! Every single time. It's not usually even angry fighting, just too intense of play-fighting, which I suppose is slightly better than angry fighting, but still not fun. [longsuffering maternal sighhhhhh]

 We ate dinner out on the front porch a few times this week. Spring weather is the best! Except when the wind picks up.

 "Take a picture of me, Mommy." It was blurry, but still cute.

The kids are on a chess kick right now. Jay and Rose taught Amber how to play, which blows my mind a little since she's only five years old, and now I'm officially the only member of my family who does not know how to play chess. The kids taught me once, a year ago or so, but I just haven't managed to keep all of the moves and rules in my head. Not that I've made much of an effort to be honest, but still. Chess games get very heated around here, so why would I want to get involved in that conflict anyways?

Post-family-prayer hug time gone wild. Again. Per the usual.  

The girls climbed onto the random loft in our bedroom to watch Jeff record French stories one day. The rule is they have to be extra quiet and still if they want to watch him record. More often than not, we have to expel them from the room and Jeff has to start over with his recording. 

Mario Kart after dinner: I'm never sad that it's only a four person game. My chess inability and my distaste for videogames makes me sound like an anti-game scrooge! I always play card games and board games when we choose those. In fact, I instituted a family policy wherein we alternate between electronic games and "regular" (card/board) games for family game time. So I do participate at least 50% of the time.

 A sneaky "screen shot" through the window screen of Jay and Ian coming back from walking Ian's dog one afternoon.

 Amber vs. Jeff in chess. Amber is still learning the finer points of the game, and tends to get either tragically sad or ferociously angry when her queen is taken. She loves her queen.

Lounging. Rose stole my spot. 

It's nice to have a reminder that it's not always wild and loud in our house. Jay was staring out the window in his intense, thoughtful way, and Rose was reading a book. I think this moment may have ended when Amber came in and jumped on them, but it was nice while it lasted. 

Jeff has certain time frames each day where he has to be on live video stream so his students can log on and talk to him if they need to--virtual office hours. It's been nearly two months, and not a single student has logged onto the video feed. Jeff gets bored sitting there. He usually reads and preps other things during his office hours, but it's still not his favorite to be tethered to the webcam pointlessly. Amber kindly took over for the last few minutes of Jeff's office hours one day.  

Thursday was the kids' cousin Cole's 3rd birthday, and he loves to ride his bike. We decided we are ok with outdoor playing during this quarantine, so the cousins and family all came over to ride bikes on the new smooth Martin Expressway out behind our house. The adults sat in our uncomfy plastic chairs in the strong wind on the driveway. 

 Amber practiced endlessly with her jump rope, and even made it over the rope a few times.

Rose joined in the jumping rope. The wild wind kept blowing their ropes off course, and Amber only jumps one foot at a time so she kept getting tangled up. But it was fun watching them try and learn.

I rode my longboard for a while in the wind on Thursday afternoon. Jeff rode a scooter alongside me. I got all warm from my efforts, but when I stopped, I nearly froze in that wind. Hence the hooded jacket and blanket.

Family prayer in the evening sunshine. Amber still prefers to sit on Jeff's back during prayers. At the very top of the picture is a cut-off fragment of her satisfied joyful grin. 

Jeff and I ran together five days in a row this week! That's a field of asparagus gone to seed behind us.

 I slipped out to the side porch for a little alone time the other night...or not.

Amber was thrilled when our neighbors' cat paid us several visits this week. I was sitting on the front porch in my rocking chair when the cat came over. It kept trying to rub against my legs until I was sitting in the fetal position in the rocker to avoid the cat hair. I wouldn't mind petting a kitty except I'm allergic! If cat hair got on my clothes, I'd have to put them in the laundry immediately and wash my hands thoroughly. So I called Amber out to the porch to play with the friendly kitty, while I retreated to safety.

Saturday morning, Rose and I ran a mile together. It's been a long time since I ran with my Rose. She kept counting down the distance on her watch, every .02 of a mile that ticked down. I tried to explain to her how that detailed distance counting sucked the joy right out of running, but I gave up. She was happily doing the math in her nimble mind, over and over (only .62 to go! Now only .62! Only .58 to go!) It was a long mile, but I did my best to see the math-joy through her eyes. How did I produce a kid who loves numbers?

The kids started burying each other in all of the blankets we own--Rose took this picture. Amber is under this pile. After Jeff and I discovered this alarming smothering risk, we told them to keep their heads out when they bury each other.

 More chess, more arguments, more tears. This picture was taken before the arguing started.

 Saturday afternoon the wind suddenly picked up, the dust flew, and we had a haboob of sorts. This picture was taken at 4:06pm.

 4:10pm

Zoomed in, still 4:10pm.

4:35pm.

The wind whipped and swirled and the air got all brown and dusty for twenty minutes. Then a brief rain came and settled the dusty whirlwind.  

 Zoomed in, still 4:35pm. It was a wild 20 minutes!

 Saturday evening, a few hours after the storm, a beautiful full rainbow arched through pinky-peach clouds. Our sky has such personality!

The rainbow was too big to fit in one picture, but it seemed to arc right over us, with our house in the middle.  

It's hard to feel cooped up under this sky.