Rather than talking about today’s irritation in self-isolating, I thought I’d post this instead as it is food for thought:
Category Archives: Personal Issues
Gratitude in the Midst of COVID-19 (II)
I didn’t post anything yesterday because I was dead exhausted. I slept a chunk of today as well. I’m trying to be gentle to my body, so I took my last chance to take naps for a while.
Here are some more things for which I am thankful.
- For the opportunity to be part of live streaming worship for my congregation on Sunday. Yes, we were sideways for part of it and upside down for others, but we still got it together!
- For Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church (and Royal Wedding homilist!), who is posting a meditation every Monday on his official Facebook page while we are in the midst of COVID-19. The first one is here.
- For my black beastling who snuggled and napped with me today. Mama loves you, baby.
- That, in the midst of restaurants and bars being closed for everything except take-out or delivery, I can still mobile-order my latté from $tarbux every morning before 9:30 and have it brought to my car.
- For getting to start physical therapy tomorrow so that we can get me walking normally again.
- That Daniel got one more day of school today before he is off for six or more weeks. He is going to miss his teachers, aides, and specialists and they will miss him. (They love their kids like their own.)
- For Pure Leaf Raspberry Tea fresh out of the freezer. (I like drinks chilled, and this chills it relatively quickly.
- For YouTube and the amazing things one can find on it.
- For discovering that I can set an image as a virtual background on Zoom. I have a meeting inside the Great Hall of Hogwarts tomorrow!
Gratitude in the Midst of COVID-19 (I)
I vented my spleen out yesterday and it helped a bit, so I thought I would look for some things for which I could be grateful today.
- The existence of Zoom which allows me to work with students remotely and meet with people while there is a prohibition on meetings and such here.
- My house panther who is keeping me entertained.
- My alcohol gel obsession which means that I still have a little bit left.
- Amazon Prime which is helping me keep a little ahead of people’s hoarding habits
- A roof over my head.
- A Lenten diet that actually lends itself pretty well to eating shelf-stable food.
- A boss who works with me to make it possible to deal with Daniel’s issues and work.
- A job I love.
- A church here who is committed to making sure its members can worship and me being able to be part of that.
- The new case on the Skagit County Public Health site is someone who was released from the hospital to isolation at home. It’s someone who is getting *BETTER*. (My theory is that these are workers at affected nursing homes.)
- A stack of books on my e-reader to work through if I’m bored in the next few weeks.
- A beautiful view of Little Mountain and evergreen trees from my bedroom window.
- An amazing publicity and web person to work with on the church website who gives me perspective.
- Last, but not least, knowing WordPress well enough to set things to send comments from trolls into my Trash so that I only see them on the rare occasions I look in there. That way, it’s like they don’t exist unless I give enough of a rat’s butt to look for them, and I can go on with my life without having to care about their commentary.
COVID-19, You Suck
I had just sat down at Daniel’s IEP meeting when Governor Inslee announced that all K-12 schools in Washington would be closing for the next six or more weeks, effective March 17th. The teachers and specialists present were feeling sick over it because they love their kids something fierce. They’re feeling sick over it because parents like me are being put in really difficult positions where our jobs could be on the line because being stay-at-home parents and homeschooling our kids is not a luxury we have. (I’m a single mom. I *HAVE* to work. I’m waiting to find out if I can work with students remotely until Daniel can go back to school.) They’re feeling sick over it because they know the kids are going to have a hell of a time dealing with school, the one place some of them feel joy, is being taken away from them.
I honestly feel myself like everything that brings me joy is being systematically taken away. My church is functionally shut down for the next two weeks at least. (I’ll be there Sunday only because I’m part of the effort to live stream worship, but there are only going to be 5 of us present and we’re basically going to record stuff and then vacate the premises.) Daniel’s teacher, aides, and specialists are part of my support network with him, and now I’m losing them for six weeks. My degree program, which transitioned into a job for me, was 75% of what got me through my divorce, and now I’m uncertain about how much of a job I’m going to have come April 5th.
I’m honestly pretty angry with the world right now, and it seems like Satan is rubbing salt in my wounds by throwing tone-deaf remarks from homeschooling parents in my path about how interesting it is that everyone is going to be homeschooling now, how we’ll never stop once we start, how we withdraw our kids from their public schools, and/or how we give notice that we’re going to homeschool them. They all seem to be from the people who are the absolute last people I would seek out for advice on the subject, especially because they managed to raise some screwed-up, sociopathic, and/or barely literate kids. All the people I would seek out for advice have been classy enough to trust that I’ll seek them out if/when I need their help. (I have a large number of behaviorists and special education teachers in my friend group.)
Comments are disabled on this post because this is me venting my spleen and none of this is up for discussion.
Lenten Check-In #1
We’re about a quarter of the way through Lent. I’m doing well at keeping a pesco-vegetarian diet (I’m not even taking Sundays off because I’ve always felt that was kind of a cop-out), my posts here are late but I’ve managed to post almost every day, and I end up kneeling consistently most mornings and a lot of evenings.
It’s getting extra Lenten around here because of the COVID-19 cases. We have 267 cases in Washington state as of this moment and it’s all mostly in western Washington. We have one case in Skagit County where I am, and my employer has closed all campuses for the week because of some students and staff being on campus last week after doing clinicals at a nursing home where there are now two positive cases of it. The one case in Skagit County is a woman in her 40’s and I’m hoping it isn’t any of my students, although I’d be most likely notified if it was. Thankfully, my boss and her counterpart on the Whidbey Island campus came up with contingency plans so that those who were willing could continue to work remotely.
In the midst of this, all midweek Lenten stuff is being postponed until after Easter at my church, no laity is receiving the Cup, offerings are being put in plates on the way up to Communion to keep us from passing plates (and passing germs), there is no physical contact during the Peace, and any coffee hour stuff is having to be done according to very stringent regulations. I feel like a brat because I’m feeling irrated at being inconvenienced by all the precautions when people are actually DYING of it.
*sighs*
Prayer Request
I have a prayer request for y’all. My mom, Daniel, and I have to head down to the Seattle Children’s Hospital Autism Center for appointments tomorrow and Tuesday. Could you please pray for our safety and that there is no COVID-19 exposure?
Thanks!
Saturday Music: “Who You Say I Am”
This is my current song to belt in the car when I’m singing along to my iPod. My former father-in-law used to exhort me to remember whose I am, and I can answer that easily: “I’m a child of God–yes, I am!”