Day 42... The warmth of the sun

The past two days have been the sort of spring glory that gives you hope for the future.  Even during a pandemic.  We (along with all the other Clevelanders) have been flocking to nature to soak up the blossoming trees and brilliant blue sky every moment we can when we're not trying to muddle through our schoolwork...When we're outside in the spring-warm, breezy sunshine, with happy people walking about enjoying it with us (from a safe distance), it's hard to remember that this is not normal life.   It's hard to be scared when the tulips are singing with color and daffodil hill lights up yellow-gold.  It's hard to be sad when your daughter gets to roll down the hill at the park 6 feet from her best friend and the joy radiates for miles.  We are cruising along with schoolwork and I'm at a 75% attendance rate on my newly scheduled 1-1 instruction sessions with students and it is nice to feel almost like a successful teacher for a minute or two.  Our spare time this week has been filled with family bike rides and dandelion chains and morning coffee in the sunshine-- its been a pretty great two days by any standards but shockingly nice for an apocalypse.

Fast approaching our May 1st "reopen" date and debates are fierce and information, like always, is shifting every day.  Our governor has reversed his position on mandatory masks in reopening stores and businesses, moving to just a "recommendation," and people are up in arms.  I agree- I really think people can't be trusted to consistently behave in the interests of the common good without legislation and consequences.  A mandatory order from the Governor takes the questioning and debating out of the issue and honestly, helps people feel safe.  We like to know what the rules are.  There's been a lot of back and forth about wearing masks outdoors, too.   Some friends are now wearing them on all their walks and runs.  Others are confident that outdoor distance is fine.  The only consensus seems to be that we still don't know enough about this virus to actually answer the question. It will certainly be... interesting... to see how this all plays out.

Thinking of masks:  the new Norwex masks were just released and we were able to get our set of 12!  So we'll be ready for whatever guidelines come our way...Now if we can just get Ivy to wear one for longer than 30 seconds...  (or me for that matter!)

Day 40

40 days in the wilderness!  Or something like that.  If the wilderness involves a lot of time on a computer, photo shoots with baby chicks, and spring flowers, then we are definitely in the wilderness.  

After a surprisingly busy school week it is good to have a weekend.  With the ramp-up in workloads for our respective schools, there really is a distinction now.  Handy to have a way to differentiate time, I suppose.  These are the days when we sleep in late and clean the house and DON'T nag anyone to get their schoolwork done.  As opposed to those other days where we sleep in late, clean the house, and CONTINUALLY nag people to get their school work done.

I feel like there's not much news to print just now.  No big changes.  Almost a million cases here in the US so that's something.  Meanwhile the state of Georgia is prepping for a full, go-ahead-and-get-your-tatoos-now reopen on May 1st.  Nice of them to be a guinea pig for the rest of us-- hoping DeWine keeps us on our measured approach here in Ohio.  Oh- and the President of the United States speculated at a live news conference about whether we ought to inject disinfectants to treat the virus.  I really truly thought the headline was a parody when I saw it.  Now Lysol and other manufacturers have had to issue warning statements to consumers to NOT inject their products, because we are living in the land of the stupid.  It's pretty embarrassing to be an American right now.  

In other news Ivy's new behavior plan is going well so far.  She had a much better day Thursday and Friday.  Sometimes we just need a visual structure to help us cope. And, Jack finally finished his Comparative Analysis essay for ELA, that was due 3 weeks ago!  A true accomplishment.  We are hopeful that his grade will now be higher than 10%.  Poor kiddo. He does not relish writing and he does not enjoy poetry and this essay combined them both.  Recent assignments from ELA have seemend more reasonable (this essay was assigned early on, and maybe his teacher was still thinking-- like so many of us-- that they'd be back in the classroom in time for revisions...) so I am crossing my fingers that he can get caught up...

Here are the things we've been doing besides schoolwork and cringing at the news.

Chick pictures:  Day 4, gamers and boarders

 Zoom Happy Hour, the "wear a hat" edition....

 Sunset Adventure Night: 
A trip to Voinovich Park to take in the Sunset on Friday night...

 ... turned into a bit more of an adventure than we bargained for when the BMW lost a belt on the drive home and we had to stop at the E 55th Street Marina and call for a tow.  After weighing the risks we decided to not call an Uber and instead just walk home.  For 5.4 miles.
Luckily it was a beautiful night and I had good company.  Winter was pretty confused as to why we were still walking after about Mile 3, and kept sniffing sewer grates looking for water, but she was a trouper and held up the whole way.

Lovely Saturday... time for an adventure outing!  Close to home again this weekend, as we'd noticed lots of tulips in bloom on our nighttime walk... A tulip scavenger hunt , with stops anytime we spotted some. 

The kids were not super psyched about the experience....

 So we mostly posed this needle-felted gnome, who was much more cooperative.

 The sadness of the day was discovering that the grounds were closed at the Rockefeller Greenhouse.  We figured the greenhouse itself would be closed, but had been hoping to see the tulips outside, and engage in our annual tradition of tag on the lawn in the Italian Statue garden.

Pictures through the fence will have to suffice for this year.

 Undeterred, we moved our tag location to this perfect little vale in the Cultural gardens...

 ... where Jack was able to do some fingerboarding...

 ...and Ivy assembled tiny bouquets.

 So much spring glory abounding...

 Another of our favorite locations, closed for now.  Over-the-fence views are better than nothing...

 Finished the day with an 8 mile run...

 ...a fire...

 ...and cocktails, outside and on Zoom. 

Not the worst wilderness just now.