Kris's Covid Pandemic Blog

It's weird to me when things that were part of my old life show up and try to play ball in this one. So...where to start this story. Once upon a time I went to a librarian's conference. In the summer of 2006 I was a student librarian intern for King County Library System and in graduate school. I worked about 15 hours a week and went to school online (which was more unusual back then but at a time when online higher ed was exploding.)  In summer of 2005 there had been a huge hurricane that hit the Gulf Coast. Flooded New Orleans and wiped out the coastal areas of Louisiana and Mississippi, just awful devastating loss. I really wanted to help but I was a graduate student and had no money. I also had no skills to speak of. I mean, I'm not in construction, I can't go down and help rebuild houses, assuming I can get there, I'd just be in the way. So I remember feeling very helpless. That spring a friend of mine calls me and says she heard from a Girl Scout friend of her...

 I decided last night to do a bunch of reading and finish a bunch of almost read books, so I post about the inauguration today. I don't have a ton of memory of inaugurations. Like a lot of people, I was in school or work for a lot of them. It's a nice tradition but up until this year didn't have a huge amount of significance. I read somewhere that a constitutional scholar from an Eastern European country said to an American scholar, you don't know what the most important day in your country's history is. The guy made a few guesses and the scholar said no, it's March 4, 1801. March 4, 1801 made ZERO impression on this scholar of American history and his colleague said to him, that's when your country made the peaceful transition of power from one party to another. One thing historians have pointed out is what a huge thing it was for George Washington to step down after 2 terms. He could have run for a third and probably would have been re-elected by an overwh...

I'm feeling very ranty today and for some reason of all the things in the world to rant about, this is the one that has risen to the top. Doesn't seem like solid priorities, but I think I'm just sick of ranting about everything else so it was either gonna be this or why Blogger feels the need to throw a random space at the beginning of every post, and that seemed a bridge too far. I really need to unfollow this person on Instagram because really she's stressful...usually I am QUICK with my unfollow finger on Instagram but this one has been ever so slightly complicated...doing it anyway, though, because I do not need more stress. But she was having a conversation about fiscal choices and side hustles today and OMG I am sick to death of this term. I think I'm having my own issues these days around being a stay at home mom...the issues are always there bubbling just a bit, have been since I first officially quit the job I had when James was born, which was in July 2014...

So I got teary in the dairy aisle at the grocery store today when I remembered buying me a coffee and James a chocolate milk for our Christmas morning breakfast in bed date. Even though it was exhausting and didn't really work. I think one of the hardest things about all of this is the lack of things to look forward to. You don't have an upcoming vacation or play date or mom's night or date night...and it's impossible to plan one because you have no idea when you'll be able to do those things again. Christmas at least promised something a little different and now it's over and what is often a dark and depressing time of year has hit HARD. This is why when I know I'm gonna get 2 hours alone in Target I plan it for days. So after Insurrection Day on Wednesday, emotions have been running high. Max has been in a very contrary mood all week, kicking and yelling when he doesn't get his way, throwing food at you when he doesn't get food he likes. It has not...

When I started this blog, it had two purposes. First, as an outlet for me which I have needed, at some times more than others, but never not needed, over the past 9 months. And second, as a record of history so at some point if the world actually does survive I can pass this on to those who come after me as a record of what went down. Or, you know, give myself a hard edit like Anne Frank and L.M. Montgomery did and then pass it on. I often feel bad for Anne that her unedited diary became so popular. She worked really hard to edit the thing. Anyway, if the second thing is a goal, today seems like an important day to record. I'm intentionally doing this before I take to the dregs of Facebook. I have been only on Instagram today for my social media...Instagram is bad enough but I have managed to more or less wall it off as a safer zone for me. Facebook...is a shit show. So I'm trying to get my thoughts down here first. After days of rain and dreariness, today actually was pretty n...

I've probably said here before that New Year's is a big book holiday for us. My mom started buying us new books for New Year's morning when I was about 8 or 9 and did until she died. I have done it for James since he was a baby so I buy books for the kids, sometimes myself, and even on occasion Daddy. This year was big...found some sales and got excited so the kids each got 3 (including one holiday book apiece, gotta love those after Christmas sales) and I got myself 2, one because I wanted it and one because the wait list for this month's book club book at the library was just too damn long. Because of that, or maybe because of my mood in general, or likely both, I spent a lot of the New Year with my book journal doing a year end wrap up and stuff like that. 2020 was the first year I ever kept a book journal and ended up being a good first year to start one. It is VERY simple, it's just a monthly calendar and on it I note what I read every day and how many pages, w...