Day 17

We've been in our house for 17 days now, punctuated by short walks around the neighborhood and trips to the grocery store. Our weekdays are organized, loosely structured around work. Barclay's gearing up for, hopefully, some semblance of a landscaping season (who knows?) and I'm trying to finish edits on book 3 so my agent can maybe sell it, if publishers are still buying books right now (who knows?).

The days look like this:

Barclay homeschools Sully (and Scarlett) (sort of) in the morning while I write in my bedroom office, and then we all have lunch together, and then Barclay retreats into his basement office to work for the afternoon while I hang out with whatever children are awake.

We play games. We play in the backyard. We watch TV (I'm attempting to get them hooked on Mr. Dressup). We make stuff—crafts, baking. Sully and Scarlett play in the backyard without me.

We all have supper together. The kids go to bed. Barclay and I have set aside Tuesday and Thursday nights as "Pretend You're Home Alone" nights so I don't have to feel guilty about crawling into bed with coffee and chocolate and watching shows Barclay doesn't like and he doesn't have to feel bad about practicing guitar for three hours (not that we don't feel like we can ask for space or whatever, it's just nice to have alone time built into the schedule so it doesn't get lost). Wednesday is still date night.

Because our weekdays still feel like weekdays, our weekends still feel like weekends, and I think that's part of what keeps us sane. I really look forward to Saturdays and Sundays. We sleep in. We hang out. We drink lots of coffee. We use FaceTime to check in with friends and family. We're going to do some light backyard renovations using leftover supplies Barclay has from last year's landscaping jobs. We're reading a lot of books, cleaning the house. We're keeping it simple. We're keeping busy. We're letting ourselves be lazy.

I'm reading the news. Like, a lot. People say to me that I shouldn't read the news so much, that it's not good for my mental health, but I think those people are wrong. I mean, not that those people should read the news, just that I shouldn't not read the news. It feels somewhat like reading your own book reviews—I get why people don't do it, and I get why people say not to do it, but not reading the news, not reading my own reviews, both of those things feel like sleeping with my back to the bedroom door. I actually feel much better when I can see what's coming at me, as opposed to having to imagine it. I have a really, really good imagination.

Sometimes I'm anxious about what's happening and what's going to happen, sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I worry we'll lose our house or won't be able to afford groceries, sometimes I feel optimistic about selling my book or about Barclay being able to keep working.
Sometimes I miss normalcy, sometimes I think about the things that I want to bring from this time with me, when we come out of it.
Sometimes I worry we're not going to come out of it for such a long time, and that when we do the whole world will be different.
Sometimes I hope that the world will be different.

What else? Nothing else.
Maybe there will be something else tomorrow.