Summer Routine Begins (Day #58 Phase I)

Monday, Day #58 Phase I of Reopening

We request continued prayers for my husband's mother D. She has been sick with COVID-19 for six weeks (now negative, but still sick) and is now out of ICU and recovering at a long-term, acute care facility. She is still on a ventilator with tracheotomy: the rehabilitation team's next goals are to get her off the ventilator and teach her how to sit up in a chair! Praise God! 

Today, a Monday, I announced to the kids without any ceremony whatsoever (very unlike me) that they were now all rising-whatever-graders and we were on summer school routine, and here were their new lists. I think perhaps at the end of the week, I will share on this blog our summer educational goals.

I set about starting to file away papers from this past academic year and prepare binders for next year.

After being paralyzed by options for a new label maker for months--as they are so varied, offering whizbang features, and quite expensive--I finally bought a simple one for ten bucks. I discovered today that some Very Discerning Child had labeled my labeler "Mama only." That's one smart kid.

This morning, the roofing team arrived. We enjoyed watching them from inside through windows and safely from a distance outside.

We did gardening work, both inside and out. Now that we are past the unseasonable cold snap, Joseph got to plant his little vegetable garden. He was joy-filled and spent the day making repeated requests to just go sit next to his pot of seeds and dirt (which I could not even let him do because of the roofers).

I took on an engaging and meditative task making improvements to the stone path through our back yard, created by the previous owner's children nigh 35 years ago. I made the straight path jog this way and that to curve around two trees which have encroached. I'm also continuing to gather rocks from around the yard to make the edges thicker and stronger. I'd like to pick up a few bags of red mulch to fill that back in as well.

Boys playing Legos while I read to them at bedtime

Bonus Reading for Posterity:

• One of the latest and greatest issues for examination and controversy is whether to wear facial masks and what kind. It's mighty hard to swallow when all scientific study before this was against the healthy wearing masks, and the warnings by the CDC, WHO, and Surgeon General just a couple of weeks ago were strenuously against wearing masks. Anyway, I'm reading up on what I can. (Face-Masks-For-All Is Not Scientific; But What’s the Harm in Wearing One Anyway?)
• Why Face Masks Don’t Work: A Revealing Review
• "Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%." (A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers.)
• Our neighboring state Georgia received a lot of guff when it opened up. (Georgia reports lowest number of COVID patients in a month.)