May Days

Yesterday, the governor of Indiana lifted the stay at home order that has been in place since sometime in March. There are restrictions accompanied to this lift, but it is lifted none-the-less which makes the people in my household ecstatic. The mother in me in worried as our neighboring states have their orders in effect until mid to late May. I hope that we are not lifting our order too early. Being the mother of a daughter with a comprised immune system I have extra reason to worry. Our household will remain extremely cautious for the time being about where we go and who we expose ourselves to. As cautious as I am feeling about the lifted ban on leaving the house, I am also feeling immensely grateful. There are so many simple things I have missed being able to do; things like going to the library or having access to certain hiking trails which will become available to us in the coming days/weeks ahead.

  Like other states across this great country of ours, Indiana has those who are extremely opposed to the safety measures put in place. I try to hard to see their point of view as I know that many of these people have perhaps lost their jobs or other means of income. I try and wonder if I would share their frustration if Bob lost his job or was temporarily furloughed. At the end of the day, I keep coming back to my main priority and that is my children. I am not willing to take the risk that one of them (particularly Sarah) could get this virus, and if there are things that I can do to lower their chance of exposure to it then I am willing to do so.  If this means that protecting people like my daughter, parents, or grandparents inconveniences the rest of us, I am okay with that. I am an extremely compassionate person, and I would hope that that compassion would be returned to families like mine.

The boys took the month of April off of work for us. They work in a grocery store and a pizza shop. Both of them were exposed to a lot of different people and this increased risk made me incredibly nervous; One of their employers has done a great job trying to combat this virus. The other employer has done an awful job. Thankfully, they were both willing to take the time off despite the need for that income to help pay their college expenses. Each will be transitioning back to work in the next week. I am hoping that they will be able to remain safe and virus free despite being on the (secondary) front lines behind healthcare workers.

Sarah has two weeks of e-learning left. Her school district gave the kids off this past week to allow the teachers their final prep week before the end of the school year. She misses the every day rhythms of public school life, but also enjoys not having to get up at the crack of dawn to get there. E-learning has been harder than I thought it would be. I definitely feel like it is much harder than homeschooling, so if you are getting through e-learning with ease - my hat's off to you.

Bobby is working from home and will continue to do so through the end of the month. We were both a bit skeptical about him coming home to work, but it has actually been pretty fantastic. I think if there were ever an opportunity for him to work from home permanently he would seriously consider doing so. With the way our life has been pretty much always centered around home the addition of him being here so much more has been a blessing.

May is always a busy month in our household. Andy, myself, and Josh all have birthdays this month. Andy is turning 20 this year. Joshua will be 18, and I will be turning 41. We are looking forward to a slow return to the new normal that will be put in place now that COVID-19 has changed the way we all do life.

I hope you and yours are all well and that you are doing your best to get through these strange and new days. Until next time - take care.