Day 18

The sun is out!!!!!!!!  I spent the morning working in my new office, the guestroom in our basement with a folding table.  It has been working out great.  I am able to close the door and I have my own bathroom!

After lunch we went outside.  This is Seth doing pull-ups on the basketball hoop!

The 8th grade boy moms now have a Whats App Group - it only took a pandemic!  I expressed concern that Seth wasn't socializing with his friends enough.  I set up a zoom call for the boys.  It last 2 hours!!!!!!  They talked and played Minecraft together.  Seth was smiling, laughing and talking way too loud.  My heart was happy.  

Day 17

We have a loaf of sourdough bread!!!!!  It smelled so good in the house.  Seth just wanted to tear in for snack.  I made him wait for dinner and made lentil soup to go along with it.  Yum!  

Everyone is trying to stay active with our new rower.  

Typical night - Seth and Ezra are now chess buddies and Justin has been drawing up a storm!

Missy is wondering why we are here all the time....  

Day 16

Seth now has an active sourdough starter!  What do we do with it now is the next question.  He is working on a sourdough loaf.  I tried sourdough pancakes - YUCK!  Trial and error is fine - right?

We played codenames this morning - while I was knitting.  Missy was not helping!  Justin and Ezra had a zoom play rehearsal.  Next up - operation clean house.

We spent the afternoon cleaning, and I took Missy for a long walk in the rain.  We ended the night with virtual spades with our friends Rachel and Adam.  It was fun - not just because we won.  

Day 15

We woke up to a sunny morning.  When I was ready to take Missy out, my early riser Justin was already up.  Luckily I was able to convince him to join us on our walk.  It was nice to be with him and to chat about challenges with school and about nothing....

The boys are newly obsessed with scootering and skateboarding - so we headed to a close parking lot from them to practice.  

We all used our new rowing machine, Jerald cooked dinner (Fettuccine Alfredo and fish sticks) and then we ended with a family movie - Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Day 14

I think we all feel a little this way!  Even though we are not commuting or rushing from place to place - the constant zoom calls are making all of us pretty tired!

Seth had to give a tour of our house in Hebrew today.  I was a special guest working in the dinning room.  

It was a beautiful day - the boys were outside playing one of their "games."  I have no idea what was happening here, at least no one got hurt!

One of our neighbors had the idea of a social distancing happy hour.  It was nice to get outside and to chat with our neighbors from a distance.  This is Seth and I holding hands walking home.  Sweet boy!

We had virtual shabbat with Nana.  We lit the candles, said the prayers over the wine and challah all at the same time.  Shabbat Shalom

Day 13

Started today with a really nice long walk with Missy.  Who knew this beautiful path was only 5 minutes walk from my front door!

I made my fave almond flour banana bread - we ate a whole loaf in an afternoon!

We miss our family - but got these beautiful pictures from Grooma and Pa with Penny, Quelly and Ziggy!

Still smiling!!!!

Day 12

Luckily, Missy is still getting to go to her morning playgroups.  We tried a new "hand off" with the dog walker today.  I put her on the leash we have staked in the front lawn and kept an eye on her until she was picked up.  It worked pretty well.  She is definitely missing her regular walker Mike.  They love each other.  He is an older man and not safe for him to be out and about these days.  

No school today, to give the teachers a day to get some stuff ready.  I convinced everyone to start a puzzle.  It is of donuts.  I told them if when we finish - we will make donuts!

Jerald was thrilled because he found all 4 corners!

We took a social distancing hike with the Friedmans.  Nice to get outside for an hour!

In the afternoon, the boys were inspired by Ezra's Super Bounce game, so they spent some time making there own.  They also watched the movie Cheaper by the dozen and then after dinner Justin wanted to do a joint picture.  Pretty funny results!  Seth drew the feet, I drew the legs (bell bottoms!), Jerald drew the torso, Ezra drew the arms, and Justin drew the face.  

Day 11

Busy "regular" tuesday in our house.  I had a bunch of work and zoom meetings.  Jerald had endless calls and meetings and the boys had their virtual school.  After school was over Ezra was inspired by the Mo Willems video we watched yesterday to make our own version of SUPER BOUNCE!  It was really fun doing this activity with Ezra.  He had a very clear vision of what the game should look like and where all the spots should go.  He was great when I suggested different ideas.  He took some and disagreed with others, but I was impressed about how he handled the whole thing!  After dinner we had played the game as a family.  It was fun!  

I am trying to see how many hobbies I can cram into one day.  I worked out using Beachbody App, worked on the blog, practiced my saxophone and restarted a baby blanket for Penny.  Ezra and Justin played basketball, and drew.  Seth worked more on his magic using MasterClass and also worked out using the App.  Jerald spent the night playing Code Names with his Mom and siblings.  We are working hard here!  

Day 10

The new normal is starting to feel regular in a weird way....  I have to make sure I take enough pictures to keep it interesting.  These first pictures are brought to you from the 30 min of cleaning I am doing every day.  The Harry Potter Robe on Seth was supposed to be a channukah present - that was misplaced in our crowded storage area,  The pictures are from one of the many photo albums my Grandfather mailed to me.  We always shared a love of photos!  

The day was good - the boys did their work and Jerald and I got our work done.  It was cold and snowy so not a lot of outdoor time!  We did catch up on our Doodles with Mo videos.  

Missy loves snuggling - even if I am standing up!  

The big news is that I took my first saxophone lesson today for the first time in 25 years!  I figured if the boys could do virtual lessons, so could I.  I sounded better than I thought I would - but I couldn't remember any names of notes - forget about reading music!  It was really fun to access a different part of my brain and think about something totally different,  My dream of our family band might come true!

Day 9

We started the day with family zumba!  There were lots of laughs and some moving around on a cold day - so it was a success!

The big project of the day was.... clean the house!  We are paying our long-time house keeper during this time but not asking her to come.  So we all need to roll up our sleeves and clean our house.  Today's lesson was = how to vacuum (jerald included because he didn't know how to turn it on!)

After the cleaning Seth started his science/baking project making his own sourdough starter.  More to come!  

We played a long game of Ticket to Ride - and there were no tears!   So it was a success :-)

We did a 30 min cousin check in with Catesby, Wilson and Uncle Joshy.  Nice to see everyone's faces.  

Seth made dinner - potato chip cod with potato salad

Justin made dessert - strawberry shortcakes

We ended the day with a houseparty call with our friends.  Great to see everyone virtually but getting harder to not focus on all the bad stories - we tried though!