Currently: June 2021

I looked back and I've been linking up regularly with Anne at in residence for her "Currently" posts for over six months now, although I used her prompts for blog posts a few times before that. Since Covid and lock downs (we're hoping to come out of our current two month lockdown in the next few weeks...ugh) have stolen all routine from us, I really look forward to monthly blog link ups to help bring some consistency to my life. So read on to see what we're doing this month...

Also, I should clarify, our province has been in some sort of "lock down" since April 3, and under a strict stay-at-home order since April 16 (Maybe? Time has really lost all meaning...). Technically our stay-at-home order ends today but we don't go into Step 1 of our reopening until June 14th so these next twelve days are... unclear. Everyone is confused but we still can't do anything.

Lastly, we have no clarity on whether or not our kids are going to be able to go back to school this year. Our last day of school is June 28th and our government is supposed to announce "any day now" what the plan is. Try living in limbo (with your school aged children) for over two months -- and most intently for the last few weeks. I talked to a few friends yesterday and we used the words like "depressed" and "frustrated" and "angry." Imagine a whole province of people in that space. It's not pretty..

With all this out there to explain some of my answers, let's move on to "currently..."

[celebrating]

Well the biggest things we're celebrating lately are that Dave and Sam both got their first doses of the Covid vaccine in the past couple of weeks. It feels like Dave was among the last of the adults we know to get his shot and Sam was among the first of the 12-17 year olds we know to get his shot so they were almost exactly a week apart in getting their first vaccines.

Trust me, when there is something to celebrate these days, we celebrate BIG!!! (I can't wait until the blog can be filled with nothing but all the small normal things -- every day will be a celebration around here!!!)

[collecting]

Ummm... I really struggled with this one. I guess we're collecting "a list of things to do once our current lockdown ends" -- for so many things we (or the kids) want to do, our answer is always, "Once the lockdown ends." I want to buy some new capris, Dave and Sam need haircuts, Rachel wants to get her ears pierced, we all want to see friends, Rachel needs some black craft paint, the kids want to get back to school in person, Sam wants to play baseball, we want our pool to open up -- we have quite the list! Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, we'll get to do all these things in the next days, weeks, and months, but for now... we're still waiting. sigh.

[gifting]

 I know this should probably be what we're gifting to other people but I'm going to talk about a couple of things we've been gifted recently. Our friends divided their mint and gave us a bunch of it. I planted it in our raised beds and I'm really hoping we'll have fresh mint all summer! Whooo hooo!!! And another friend gifted us a package which included a delicious pie! I might have eaten some for breakfast yesterday :)

We do need to figure out what to gift Rachel for her birthday in a few weeks but I'm hoping our restrictions will have lifted enough by then that she can have a few friends over to play in the back yard for a couple of hours, which after two months of not seeing any friends in person, and not getting a birthday party last year, will feel like a HUGE gift. Plus the ear piercing if the salons are ever allowed to open again...

[thinking]

I've been so focused on getting all the beds in our yard edged, that I haven't yet planted my planters. I need to get on that so I've been thinking about how I'm going to combine all these flowers into fun combinations!

I ended up with an unexpected few hours yesterday afternoon so I did start to tackle my planters but I still have a few to go. I was so happy to get some of that done. 

Plus, honestly, pretty much everyone in our province has been thinking about, wondering, and talking about if our kids are going to get to go back to school in person this year. Our last day of school in June 28th so we've still got enough weeks of school left that an "in person" return would be totally worth it. Our province has been pretty much silent on the topic which is really frustrating for many people -- parents, kids, people who work in the schools, etc.

[trying]

Every month I try to read every single blog in the "currently..." link up. One blog I read in May talked about making "garden focaccia bread" and I spent fifteen minutes down the Pinterest rabbit hole drooling over this amazing bread art. So I decided to try some. I made two pans of it in May and I was thrilled with how it turned out and I loved how much fun it was! I will definitely be making more of this.

So that's what's up with us "currently." As I've said for most of 2021, let's hope that by next "currently..." life will be in a much better space and I will be cheerier. I'm so tired of feeling so discouraged all the time and I'm ready for better times. Thanks for reading along today.