Kris's Covid Pandemic Blog

 Today was one of those meh days. I had a cookie for breakfast. This describes pretty well how today went. It is Wednesday and on Wednesdays there's no live required for school so we got off to a late start. I showered at 11. Really, I'm just glad I showered at all. I may go do it again. We spent the better part of the day trying to organize how we were going to do the school supply pickup at 3:30 only to get there and discover it is next week. This is in sharp contrast to yesterday. Yesterday was picture day, which I had weird anxiety about all day, and started with taking James for a haircut first thing after his morning school session and then organizing life around the 1:45 picture slot. It was successful. So I guess there's an ebb and flow to these things.  As I was going to take my 11:00 shower today, though, I pulled James into my lap and told him one of the things I most appreciate about him, which is that it really doesn't matter if it's a crazy day or a do

 I haven't posted in awhile...I did some genealogy for awhile which was eating my evenings and then we had a REALLY nice weekend away. We went to Fort Wordon which is a favorite family destination. It's an old military fort that was decommissioned and deeded to the state park service in the 1950s and it has this hillside overlooking the water of old empty battlements and stuff where lookouts and big guns and things were. Most of it was built in the early early years of the 20th century and the guns and ammo are long gone but the buildings are there and you can climb all over them and go in the hillsides and explore them. It's basically 6-year-old heaven and mom spent the whole time corralling Max so he didn't hurt himself. When you're there you can stay in the old housing that was for army officers, too, it's fun. And Max slept in a big kid bed ALL BY HIMSELF, which was amazing. Back in the school swing today, which is Monday...oh, man, if Mondays are hard norma

 I don't remember who first told me about National Novel Writing Month. I know I participated in 2009 and I managed to win it, I know it went better in 2012 and then I revisited it after I became a mom and have had mixed success with it since then. But it has been part of my world for awhile. It's why I started podcasting, actually. I should go back and start explaining what the heck I'm talking about. So National Novel Writing Month is badly named because it's actually a worldwide event for writers of all stripes, from young to old and newbie to pro. The idea is really simple: the challenge is to write, or perhaps a better word is draft, a novel of at least 50,000 words during the month of November.  That's it. It's that simple. It's free to participate, you win by getting to 50,000 (and it's all self reported, you have to "validate" your world count through the word counter doodad but that would be easy to fake, however there's no point i

...so as a result I'm basically off Facebook again. I was kinda thinking I'd hang around until Halloween and post pics of the kids and then peace out until after the election, but nope, no way, not doing it. Maybe I'll pop IN and post pics of the kids on Halloween. Voter's pamphlet is here. Hoping to see ballots this week and get them turned in ASAP so I can be done with the only part of this democratic process that I control.  Saw Dad this weekend, first time since Labor Day. First time I'd been in his house with him since February. Wore a mask, but it was still weird. Just me. I was headed to a get together that was just adults which never happens so I was in the neighborhood. He was going through old family photos. He's throwing a TON of stuff away and deciding what to save and who to pass stuff off to and it's HARD. Two marriages worth of stuff and he's alone. I wish I could help him more. I try. It was cool to see some of the photos. I have albums t