Wednesday: no results

We still don't have results for Isaac's COVID test and the phone nurse suggested that we wait for those.  Tomorrow will be a little annoying, but at the same time since Isaac is able to stay home alone for short periods of time it makes it so much easier.  Ben was planning on working from home in the morning a bit anyway, I'll come home between classes, and then Isaac will only have an (appropriate) block of time by himself.  He did it today with no problems (unsurprisingly).

I really think I need to look at this in a different light...at least Isaac isn't getting exposed right now.  Everyone else is, but at least it cuts the household exposure by 25%, right?  There's also a chance the results will come through tonight and Isaac can go back to school tomorrow.  Here's hoping.

Tuesday: whirlwind

Well, the day started out with Isaac telling me 10 minutes before I left for work that he had a headache.  And that he still had a sore throat.  Couple this with 1) Ben having some symptoms on the COVID list and 2) these being two of the minor things that we're not supposed to send him to school for, we didn't send Isaac to school.  In some ways it worked out well since Ben was working from home today anyway.

On the way to work there was a pop-eye coming toward me as I was turning left.  Since it was a pop-eye I misjudged how far away it was when I made the turn.  Now, I got through the intersection just fine, but it scared me a bit.  I proceeded to take several wrong turns on the way to work and found out there is a new stoplight at Michigan and 12th street.

I taught.  It went fine.  The normal things went wrong, but it went smoothly for the most part.

I went back to my office in search of a PCR test for Isaac.  Normally we'd just do a rapid test, but since there were two people with symptoms we thought maybe PCR would be better.  I must have found a canceled appointment because it was the only one available until tomorrow at 4:30pm.  It wasn't ideal for Ben, but he brought Isaac anyway.  I need to vent: signing up for a COVID test is 100% utterly terrible.  For most of the sites you need to fill in a significant amount of your information (name, birthday, address, covid vacinations, symptoms, why you need a test, etc) before they let you see the schedule.  This is idiotic because you want to shop around for the best appointment and so instead of taking a minute to see the appointments you spend five minutes filling out info only to find out there are no appointments until Thursday anyway.  On top of this, CVS needed our insurance information, which was in the car.  I only had eight minutes left to hold the appointment, so I ran out to get it...and promptly locked myself out of the building.  Without my phone.  I banged on a door when someone was passing to let me in, but it is not what I wanted.  I got the appointment with two minutes to spare.

I then realized I needed to alert the housekeepers and piano lesson.  The housekeepers still elected to come (Ben and Isaac stayed hidden away) and we did a virtual piano lesson.

I got a little bit of work done and it was time to teach again.  Teaching went better this time because I fixed some of the issues from the first class.  This is pretty normal.

While I've normally been coming home after teaching, I elected to stay at Hope until it was time to pick up Joshua from school.  I had gotten almost nothing done during my set-aside hours and really needed to get some stuff done.  I figured I'd be happier later if I just did it.  (I am.)

The rest of the day was busy but uneventful.  The virtual piano lesson went very well.  Joshua's karate class went well.  They had to run a bunch of laps and he kept up with a kid twice his height...his little legs were pounding the ground so fast.  I went to karate...they started late and I almost wished I had just stayed home due to the short class, but it was fine in the end.  Ben had a rapid test at the doctor's and it was negative.

So yeah, that was the day.  A bit weird since Ben and I sort of switched roles, but we can't completely because of knowledge that the other has.  We called and texted a lot more than normal.  We've decided to keep Isaac home at least one more day.  If we don't get the PCR results we'll probably give Isaac a rapid test and then hopefully send him to school Thursday since Ben's result was negative. 

Monday: MLK day

Today there wasn't any school due to MLK day and we had a rather relaxing day.  (We didn't do any appropriately themed activities, but we did watch Hidden Figures over the weekend.)

Isaac finished his juice recipe.  It doesn't make much, as he noted.

Isaac's been helping me fill a few holes over the weekend. Today we painted one (and we can barely tell it was ever there).  The other two we don't have paint for, so a Lowe's trip is needed first.

Joshua worked hard on one of his Lego sets a significant part of the day, although I don't have any pictures.

We also had some colored cookie dough, so the boys made some cookies.

This was the first batch.  It was actually good to bake a few first, because they flattened more than the boys were expecting.

Friday: Grocery adventures

I find myself talking about mundane things a lot.  Butter gets talked about a lot.  Today it was groceries.  I had lunch with Betsy and she casually asked if I had gotten groceries this week.  I had actually gotten them Wednesday morning, but didn't post about it for once because things were mostly normal.  Crescent rolls were still only half full and there were no frozen potatoes, but otherwise I was pretty happy with the trip.  In fact, it seemed like many things were on sale so I ended up with a bit more than normal.

Today she told me that she was only able to get half her order because Meijer was sold out of so many things.  And it wasn't that she couldn't get the exact thing she wanted but there were substitutes...they were completely out.  We both wondered what changed in two days.  Where in the supply chain did the issue(s) happen?  Are a bunch of stockers out sick?  I'm sure I'll never find out, but it'd still be really interesting to know.

Speaking of things I'd like to know, with the Omicron variant here we're being told that surgical and KN95/N95 masks are better than cloth masks.  I'd like to point out that there seems to be a huge range in cloth masks.  Are they making this comparison with a single layer gater?  A double layer homemade mask?  A three layer mask?  There are significant differences in those three options.  While this doesn't mean that the statement isn't true, a bit more information would be helpful as I try to figure out what to buy (or not buy).

Thursday: Grey Bear

Today I found a picture of the day we brought Grey Bear home.  It said 14 years ago today, but that is obviously wrong.  It was a baby shower for Isaac from Mom's family and I was maybe 6-7 months pregnant.

Anyway, it was exciting to see the day we got him.  Joshua didn't care.

Tuesday: classes start

Classes started today!  Everyone showed up to the 7:30am class, but one person has already dropped.  The first day is always a bit annoying, but overall it went pretty well.

Joshua was finally promoted at karate after a bunch of delays.  He ended up being a yellow stripe instead of a plain yellow belt which was pretty exciting.

Monday: not a snow day

While snow days are fun, I also felt like I wasn't getting much done.  So...I was glad for school today.  I managed to get everything on my "do today" list done along with a few extras!  I did take an extra stop at Eagle Crest because Joshua called saying his tooth hurt.  He didn't sound all that out of it, but I said I'd stop by with some ibuprofen and he could stay in school.  He seemed ok with this plan and I didn't hear anything about a toothache later in the day.

I made a new orange chicken recipe today.  (Everyone loved it except Joshua and he doesn't like anything I make.)  It involved squeezing some oranges, which Isaac was excited to do.  He then proceeded to do more fruit squeezing and juice experimenting.  (I had gotten some oranges at the store and they had way too many seeds in them, so he was free to use those.  We also had a few lemons and some old apples.)  He made several different version of his juice, trying to find the proportions that are just right.