Pandemic Monday - Day 23

No reason to write a daily update of our lives as we live at home, doing  . . . whatever it is we're doing. Things are happening and changes are occurring, but at the moment I'm not free to write of them.

Stay tuned.

What I can write about is a little weekly diary of how I am feeling about this pandemic, and how we're managing. As a long-time married couple with no children, we mostly have only ourselves to rely upon. Fortunately, we do have family close by - I have a brother who has called frequently, bless his heart, and my father and I have talked some, and my husband has checked on neighbors and his mother. We're not exactly sequestered in silence up here on our little knoll.

That doesn't mean I don't want to get out of the house. My outings previously were limited mostly to trips to the grocery store, the chiropractor, and Walmart, but at least I got out. Now, I go nowhere except on short drives "around the block" which here is an hour's ride because we don't have blocks but eventually you loop back to where you started.

My husband insists on doing the grocery shopping. Because I tend to catch everything, he doesn't want me out of the house.

When things come in the house, they either sit in the sun or are sprayed with Lysol or wiped down with a Clorox wipe. He takes a shower every time he leaves our property and comes back. I stay six feet away from him until he's clean. I wear gloves to handle food until it's all been washed and put away.

I freeze grapes. I used to not do that, they'd go bad faster than I could eat them, but now I am immediately taking half of them and putting them in the freezer. I also froze a half-gallon of milk so I would have milk here if I needed it for recipes. I put two cups each into smaller containers and froze those. I mean, you never know when you may need two cups of milk.

Spring is bursting out all over the place. The grass is green and the cows no longer need to be fed - they ignore the hay in favor of the new grass. The blackberry brambles have leaves. The oak trees have growths of green. The redbuds have been beautiful this year. The dogwoods are starting to bloom.

The deer and turkey have been roaming around the house, unfazed by our continued presence. Sometimes it seems like we're the ones in the zoo and they're the ones looking in.

Around 4 a.m. this morning I woke to a bright shining Strawberry moon, not quite full, as it sent moonbeams sliding into my window. A cloud soon covered it and I went back to sleep.

I tire easily these days. I don't know if it is the atmosphere, the constant drumbeat of "something is wrong," or simply my age, but I feel worn out by the time afternoon reaches its zenith. I don't nap, though, because I don't sleep at night if I sleep in the day.

That constant hum of "all is not well" has become a monotonous drone in the background, rather like the chatter of locust in summer when they come out, or maybe it's like tinnitus, which I have and which frequently sounds like a high-pitched squeal. But now there's a low frequency background,  one not of my own making, resounding in my heart. Drums beating out an unspeakable message: stay home, stay home, stay home.

As an introvert, staying home is not awful. I like to be at home. What's got me bumfuzzled is my changing routine. I had a routine and then my husband had his ankle surgery. That changed my routine significantly. Now he is up and about, and my routine is not yet back into something recognizable. Because now I have to spend much time wiping down doorknobs and wiping off the groceries and worrying over him if I know he is out beyond the boundaries of our farm. I do more laundry. That constant hum of "all is not well" overlays everything, and I can't think clearly, and my focus is that of a butterfly, flitting from flower to flower and never quite landing safely.

So this is the Pandemic Monday notation. It's a partly cloudy day, though we've had a sprinkle of rain. And my routine will once again be interrupted today, because I'm off to watch my governor update us on the latest number of deaths and positive cases, and see what else the officials advise.

Be well, be safe, stay healthy, stay inside, dear reader. Take care of yourselves as best you can.