Hex Mountain

About 100 miles northwest of our house is the tiny town of Cle Elum, nicknamed "the heart of the Cascades." Many recreation areas are still closed due to the pandemic, but extensive research revealed a gem of a trail hidden tucked away down an unmarked unnamed gravel road. No parking lot, no facilities, no closure--the perfect pandemic escape! This area was burned during the horrible wildfires of 2017, so trail info warned that it was a full-sun no-shade excursion. I knew I would need water for the endeavor. When my snazzy new hydration vest was delivered a few days early, I decided it was time to tackle the Hex Mountain Trail.  

May End

Another month is drawing to a close. Journal excerpts from the end of May: 

Monday, May 18, 2020. My book came today! The one I wrote! Well, it's the first draft, but I started reading it and got about a quarter of the way through. So far so good. I thought taking 2 weeks away from it felt like forever, but it all feels more familiar than I expected. I hope I can be objective and figure out what to do to it. 

Tuesday, May 19, 2020. Last night/early this morning I had the weirdest dream where I was preparing to fight Lord Voldemort and I couldn't find my wand. My wand was a tiny sewing pin and I kept losing it amidst a bunch of non-magical pins. In order to find my wand, I touched the pins and said "lumos" over and over until my wand-pin lit up. I knew I was going to fight Voldemort in my parents' house instead of Hogwarts, and I was stressed about making a mess in their house during my duel with my tiny pin-wand. It was a stressful dream, and I never actually got to the part where I fought Voldemort. Thank goodness! Haha, I haven't remembered a dream that vividly in a long time! Random!

Jay's Birthday

"It's not every day that your young man turns eleven." --Rubeus Hagrid in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Scanning the pages of HP book one made me relatively certain that this quote is only spoken in the movie, not the book, sadly.  I have been holding onto Hagrid's movie-quote for the past few years in anticipation of Jay's eleventh birthday, and at last the day came. Thursday, May 21st was Jay's day. He turned eleven in his calm collected easygoing way. No fanfare or dramatics; just a boy joyfully digging into a pile of new books wearing his new toy sword. We love our Jay!

Halfway through May

Somehow we are already halfway through May. Somehow we are only halfway through May. The days are all blending together in a long blob of quarantine sameness. May marked the beginning of the end of any given day "feeling" like a specific day. For example, pre-pandemic, Monday felt like a Monday because we had just done the usual church Sunday routine the previous day. Friday felt like Friday because we had finished four full busy weekdays. Sunday felt like Sunday because it had been a week since we had a day of rest and went to church. Now, we have precious little to mark the passing of our days. Even my journal entries feel bland and similar. It is a challenge to TAKE each day and MAKE it useful when we have zero plans outside of our home. Running is my sanity right now.

Whites Ridge Run

Abstract, aka short version, aka Instagram summary of my glorious Monday run: I indulged in a long rugged solo run with wind-whispering pines, sun-warmed sap scent, sky-hugging views, and rushing icy water for company. It aired out my soul.

Detailed version: On Monday, May 11th, I decided to go on a trail run in Ahtanum State Forest, since most WA state parks opened back up the previous week. Jeff endorsed the outing and manned the home front while I wandered. Before I left, I looked up Whites Ridge Trail online to make sure that it was actually open. It was, so I packed a sandwich, an extra pair of socks, and some water, and drove the 75 minutes to the trailhead. I listened to piano music on the way there, and felt that familiar heady soaring sensation of freedom with every lovely note. Then I started passing actual trees and my anticipation mounted even higher. I asked myself over and over why I hadn't sought natural solitude before now, with all of the relentless home-home-home time we've had lately. Then I remembered that state parks only just barely opened up one week ago, and many of our favorite trails and all of our nearby national parks are still all closed. This outing was an extra-special treat.

The day for mothers

Mother's day is complicated. It catapults so many mixed up emotions into the air all at once, I get into a tangled twisted muddle. Normally I am content to do the mom gig and all that goes with it--currently, everything I do goes unnoticed and is taken for granted. But stupid ole mother's day comes along and makes me want things, like a little extra appreciation and love. During the week leading up to mother's day, I ran my own annoying personal gauntlet of emotions regarding the idea of mother's day. It was exhausting, but I made it out of the dark cavern little by little and now I am safely on the other side, back in the open air, back in my usual position behind the spotlight. I realize that my issues with mother's day are tame and lame compared to what many others go through, but that doesn't make them any less valid. I have a loving husband and three healthy kids; I shouldn't complain about them not "caring enough" on mother's day, whatever that even means. But I feel that way and it's ok. I get over it and we move on.

Spring Sunday

Jeff wasn't feeling well on Sunday (talented man managed to catch a minor bug while quarantined), so while he holed up in our bedroom, I did a home church lesson about trusting in the Lord. We read the story of Moses parting the Red Sea in conjunction with the words of Limhi in the Book of Mormon. We talked about how remembering times when God helped us in the past can boost our faith that he will help us in the future. We sang five verses of Book of Mormon Stories and two verses of Nephi's Courage alongside my messy piano playing. Then I declared a 4/5 family walk. The kids and I journeyed west along the canal, which feels exciting because we have to cross our street to go that direction and the kids never go that way on their own. We threw lots of rocks into the water. My elbow actually felt kind of sore later from all of the throwing. Jay and Rose kept finding me flat rocks to try and skip, but I could not for the life of me coax a single skip out of any rock, no matter what I did.

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.

Moments

This week was made up of a bunch of disjointed everyday moments. I lack the mental power to link them with a spunky narrative, so I made a blog post photo album with captions of moments from the week:

Virtually

Sometimes it feels like we're living in a virtual reality. Virtual lessons, video calls, video messages, emails, text messages, phone calls, etc. all from home. After Easter, we decided to stop getting together with our local family in Grandview, in order to protect Jeff's parents. It just seemed more responsible, although I fear we may have ruffled some familial feathers with that decision. Now we have one exception to our immediate family quarantine: Jay's buddy/brother Ian from next door. Upping our quarantine game! These are strange times. I don't want to judge other people for the way they do or don't keep apart. We're just doing what currently feels right. It's not perfect and I'm trying hard not to worry too much if we're being rude or doing/not doing enough, etc.

Tent towards home

For our home church lesson today, we had the kids pitch our tent in the front yard. We handed them our ancient three man tent and told them to set it up. Jeff and I sat on the porch and watched them struggle, chuckling quietly and occasionally calling out hints. Why is it so fun to watch our kids struggle? We had a grand time watching their ten-pitching show. It took Jay the longest time to get the tent out of the bag. He fiercely refused Rose's assistance for that part, so the girls played on the rope swing until Jay finally got the tent out of the bag. Then Jay and Rose wrestled the springy poles into the correct position on the roof while Amber wielded the short rain-fly-pole like Ninja Warrior Wonder Woman in the background.

Another weekly album

Here are the everyday pictures from April 5-10, aka quarantine/stay-at-home week four. One of my personal quarantine activities has been to attempt writing a cute little novel. It's something I have always dreamed about doing, and now that my time at home alone with Amber has suddenly been cut short and is over forever, I decided I had no reason to wait. I am loving my first attempt at large-scale fictional story crafting! It's hard and absorbing and fun. Since a whole lot of my writing energy is being spent elsewhere, this is a bare bones photos-with-captions post. Even if these captions aren't eloquent memories, they are still memories I want to hang on to!

Spring is sprouting and I have been admiring it from all angles. If we have to stay in our little bubble, at least it's a beautiful bubble.