Ok - so...: Self Isolation

So when I started to write these I literally thought, kinda, that we would only be self isolating for the 14 days. I mean, I knew that it was likely that it was going to go on longer but I didn’t really think about that as I started a daily blog. Some days we are going to have a lot of stuff going on, but days like yesterday and today where its cold outside and we can’t do any of our outdoor work kinda suck. Days like tomorrow where I get to go pick up groceries, curbside at Zehrs dropped right into the trunk, and pick up dog food in Whitby the same way (usually you have to go into the store but because I emailed them with my order and advised I was on a self isolation for 14 days they’ll bring it out and put it in the back of the pickup truck and I’ll just wipe down the back handle before I go and when I get back), at least there is something to do those days.

Today Jay will go over to my brothers shop and pick up some bags of salt from outside for both us and the Faust’s and Paige has a ZOOM meeting with her therapist at 4pm. We could cancel it if we wanted, but I think actually Paige might like the virtual aspect of the meeting. She can use my iPad and do it in her room. I don’t think Sophie’s therapist is offering the ZOOM meetings but I can find out if she asks about it. So I just downloaded the ZOOM app and will test it out at 4pm today.

In the news today:

Doug Ford announced that Hydro One has eliminated peak use rates so everyone is getting the lowest hydro rates for electricity all day, every day, while this continues.

The 2020 Summer Olympics have been postponed to 2021.

Trump is talking about ‘the cure being worse than the illness’ and is talking about easing up on social distancing restrictions in order to boost the economy. They’re 7 days into a 15 day restriction phase and say they will maintain them until the end of the 15 days and then wants to loosen restrictions and isolate only people with symptoms and get the country open again, despite warnings from medical professionals.

The WHO Chief said yesterday that the pandemic is “accelerating”. “It took 67 days from the first reported case to reach the first 100,000 cases, 11 days for the second 100,000 cashes and just 4 days for the third 100,000 cases. You can see how the virus is accelerating”. (Checking the numbers we will hit 400,000 cases today within the next few hours). (I wrote this about 11am, now its 8pm and the count is just over 418,000, according to my photos last Wednesday was 218,000, Thursday was 245,000, Saturday was 307,000, Sunday was 337,000, Monday was 378,000 - this is usually around 9pm when I’m getting ready for bed I take a screen shot of the total and the country numbers).

In Spain, Madrid’s ice-skating rink is being used as a makeshift morgue.

Ontario has released the list of essential services. https://www.ontario.ca/page/list-essential-workplaces?fbclid=IwAR0i4wqPecMaiAyPGxCxwB0chIdek6VuqiJ_HC1BbN5B6DQvh-BhES9bk-I
Among them real estate agents, lawyers, land titles and banks. Also restaurants, construction, companies like Matthew’s that service and maintain potable water equipment. Really it seemed like almost everyone is still considered essential. The LCBO and Beer Store were also considered essential which has a bit of controversy on Facebook, lots of recovery centres responding saying that alcohol withdrawal could cause a secondary medical need as people go through withdrawal, not to mention an increase in anxiety for the general public. Considering we are home A LOT we aren’t actually drinking even casually at home really. In the past 7 days we have had 2 bottles of wine and 3 beers between Jay, Trev and I.

Kitchen news - the girls are talking about Brazilian waxes and how much that would hurt (after I explained what it was because Avery wasn’t sure if she should or not). I finally pulled them out of the bedroom at 11am, last I checked at 10:30am Myah was still sleeping so when she woke up I said “Up and out of bed, no more screen time, get outside, go for a walk, ride the ATV, play Wii but get active!” So they came out and had a muffin, had a breakfast protein shake (chocolate peanut butter banana) then they went outside to play hide and seek where the ‘seekers’ get to ride the ATV to find the ‘hiders’.

Our Costco order arrived today!

Checking in with some friends to see how they’re doing. Everyone is holding up well in isolations, lots of little kids that we’re not used to being around 24/7 so patience wearing a little thin in places I’m sure. The kids don’t know any different, they’re literally just happy that we are home all the time with them. Well not my kids, they’re tweens, they want more screen time.

Actually, they’ve been great actually, today they spent several hours on the trampoline - probably close to 3 hours all told.

This afternoon I helped Jay with the yard work, emptying the ATV trailer at the back of the property. So he raked leaves for an hour into big piles and then I drove down in the ATV, he loaded them into the trailer and I drove it to the back of the property, tipped the dump trailer, cleaned it all out and then went back for more. All in all I definitely got the better end of the deal, I think that I made 5 trips with the trailer to the gully at the back in the trees. Tomorrow I’ll take some pictures.

At 3:30pm I took the Faust girls home and said to Jay, who was on the phone, (I did try to get him to pause his conversation so that I could give him proper instructions) if I’m not back by 4:00pm you need to get Paige set up for her ZOOM appointment with Joelle on my iPad, the instructions are on my email. Thumbs up. 3:58pm I got a phone call from Jay as I was walking in the door - ‘how do I do this? What’s she supposed to use for the call?’. Oh my God, for a smart guy some things just don’t translate.

I took pork tenderloin out of the freezer earlier for dinner tonight and got the ‘that’s so gross’ look from Sophie. Dinner should be fun later.

Kerry posted on Facebook that Sarah has a bit of a messy tea drawer so I figured out that I could make her some tea refresher if she’s a tea lover and she would probably enjoy it. I still make a batch every 3-4 days and I just finished mine so I needed to make it anyway, so I made a double batch and wrote her a return note.

Jay, before dinner, was trying to decide if he will keep training for Iron Man he has scheduled for July in California. At this point it might not even be running in July and he doesn’t want to continue with the intense training if he’s not going to be able to do it. He ended up skipping the bike to help the girls gather sticks and branches on the ATV because they would have to hook the trailer up again - but 20 minutes later I looked out the window and he was driving past with a full trailer and they were on the trampoline. So much for that.

After dinner Paige and I drove the tea over to Kerry’s house for Sarah and dropped off a couple of cheese crackers - only 5, its all I had that wasn’t in the freezer, plus I’m a little selfish with my cheese crackers. I’ll drop off more if they like them. Maybe. Since Sarah’s notes have been so nice and she took the time to write the last one and cut out a heart I decided to make hers a star and write around the perimeter of the star until I wound the words into the middle. I forgot to take a picture but Kerry sent me a photo of Sarah reading it and said “it hasn’t occurred to her to remove the star to read it easier”.

When I wrote it Paige said to me “Mom, how is she supposed to read that?!?” I said she would be able to take it off and rotate it to read it! I guess not. Haha.

Paige and I were playing hangman on the iPad. She didn’t do very well on her first word,
p-o-s-s-u-m and she said “Dude needs hair and freckles. And pants..and a dress over his pants”. She only got as far as pants last time - this time she got to feet, hands, eyes, hair, pants and dress.