Does this feel bizarre to you too?

Coronavirus.

Social distancing.

Flatten the curve.

So many new phrases and mandates and suggestions. It's been a weird and bizarre last week as life became full of regulations, expectations, caution, fear, and distance learning, or forced homeschooling as I'm calling it.

I'm not the first to say this, we are living in an interesting time. It's all new to everyone. It feels bizarre and surreal and it's upending all of our lives. We all need to work together to flatten the curve. We all need to work together to stop the spread. As much as I get this. As much as I want to be part of the effort, it's hard. It's hard to be flexible and to live in a state that causes so much uncertainty. Will we go to school next week? (nope) Can I return my library books on Monday? (nope) Will I be able to work out at the gym? (For right now, yes. But you're better off staying home.)

Last week it was announced that my daughter's school will transition to distance learning until April 13th. I'm declaring us homeschoolers,  and we will treat it as such. I want to document this time, because it's just so bizarre and unprecedented. It's weird. It's frustrating. It's scary. So for the next month, I'm just going to write about my experience. You're welcome to join in.

Today's COVID-19  developments:

• CA Governor, Gavin Newsom, orders all bars and wineries closed. He mandates limited capacity in restaurants, and tells people over the age of 65 to self-isolate.
• The Nevada County Library announces that they will be closed until April 12. (Good thing the Little and I checked out a dozen books on Friday in anticipation of this happening)
• All California Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) classes will be transitioning to online classes. I've known this for a few days, but it went public today in our class. 
• The NM Governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, announced that all NM State Parks will close. All thoughts about going to NM for spring break have been squashed, and I can only imagine what came out of my brother's mouth when he found out that he can't go fishing at Elephant Butte State Park. 
• The CDC announced that people should avoid gatherings of 50 people or more for the next eight weeks.  There's a mandate already in place that discourages gatherings of more than 250 people. 
• Our Girl Scout Council extended cookie sales to friends and family for one week. Thank God they did not extend cookie booths. I'm done. 

Wasson Household Homeschooling

The Little's teacher had some foresight and sent her students home with two full weeks of work to do, so we have stuff to get started tomorrow with our forced homeschooling. I've always wondered what it would be like to homeschool, and now I get a free one-month, possible two-month, trial.

Today, we discussed expectations and made a plan. I wrote it out for my Little and made her agree to it and sign it. Tomorrow will be day one of homeschooling. Let's see how that goes.

Keeping Busy
As a family, we made a list of things we would like to do during this time of.....(what is this time?).....social distancing. We have some cleaning goals, a goal to play all the games in our game closet, some crafting goals, and a list of movies we want to watch. The Little and I thought about working on some Girl Scout badges. The weather has been horrible, so we have been stuck inside, but once things clear up, we also have some yardwork goals because once the Coronavirus passes it will be just in time for wildfire season to take over.

What we did today:

• church (it hasn't been canceled yet. I'm expecting that to change this week)
• Science experiment - growing crystals
• Played a round of Yahtzee (The little won)
• Laundry, because if there is ever a time to have clean underwear, it's during a global pandemic
• nightly movie; Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (the husband wants to watch all the movies, so we started the series tonight)

Funny Things I Saw

I know that the CoronaVirus Pandemic is serious stuff, but sometimes you still have to look for the funny and laugh. And today this video, which is a few years old, had me laughing so hard that tears were coming out of my eyes. I watched it over and over and over and over and each time it got funnier and I laughed harder. It felt so fitting as I begin to help set-up the local BSF school program to an online platform.