What's Up Wednesday: April 2020

Welcome to What's Up Wednesday for April. Who would have thought back in March that we'd still be in coronavirus quarantine today? Not me, that's for sure.

image from here

What we're eating this week... We've been eating a lot of Goldfish this quarantine for some reason -- pretzel, extreme salt and vinegar, and the new Disney related ones. It's really weird that suddenly Goldfish are our quarantine food.

What I'm reminiscing about... I'm reminiscing about when we could travel. And Rachel's past dance performances. We were supposed to have both of these things in the next few weeks and now we're not and I'm missing them.
Rachel as a gem in Aladdin in her first performance in 2017 * Rachel as a peppermint twist in Mary Poppins in 2018 * Sam as a flying monkey and Rachel as a rainbow in Wizard of Oz in 2019

As for travel, we were supposed to go to California next week to celebrate Dave's cousin's wedding. They have postponed it for now, and while I'm sad we're not going to California, I'm even sadder for them. Hopefully we'll be able to celebrate later...

What I'm loving... All the Coronavirus memes. I could laugh at these all day long!!! 

 Rachel asks once in awhile if she can bring me a drink from the fridge so I think we're on the right track career wise! Bring me a Corona, sweetie :)

What we've been up to... We're probably up to what all of you have been up to -- staying at home, working on online learning, and trying not to go insane :) Thankfully our weather has been warming up so we've been able to spend more time outside which is nice. (And for your reference a "warm" day around here is between 10-15C (50-60F)). We've also been playing a lot of family games which has actually been (mostly!) fun :)

If you're really interested in what we've been up to, I documented a "day in the life of quarantine" which you can read here. I should clarify this was a "good day" where we were able to spend a lot of time outside, which always helps!

online learning * going for a walk

What I'm dreading... We found out earlier this week that our schools are now closed until May 31. Our official last day of school is June 25 so it's possible we'll be able to go back in June, but right now I'm dreading another whole month of this. Can we be done now?

Please hear me here... I don't want to "be done" in the sense of "I don't agree with what is happening" -- I don't want to put people at risk. I just want life to go back to normal because this is hard. No matter our circumstances, this is hard.

What I'm working on... Trying to maintain a positive attitude. It's hard a lot of days. Until the schools are open, I don't have a job. I was unemployed for three and a half months at the end of 2019 and so I was just getting my working groove back when this hit. Now my job has been unexpectedly taken away again and I don't like it. We're safe, we're healthy, the kids are doing great with all this, and my husband has a good job so this is totally a "me" thing. In our family, I'm probably the one struggling the most in this time of quarantine so I'm trying not to let my attitude drag the whole family down.

What I'm excited about... Every single day that is somewhat warm and sunny. We've had a lot of wet, cold days this Spring so on the nice days, we're outside A LOT. I think the kids and I spent six hours outside on Monday.

I'm also excited that, inspired by an Instagram friend, we started a family newspaper. I love seeing the kids' interpretations of our days, or what stood out for them. If you want to read about what's been happening during our quarantine, we each try to write a contribution every day. The KC Post is published every Monday, except for this week :) You can read our latest edition here. Also, KC is our family's last initials, thus we are "The KC Post" of the KC Unified Territories (KCUT, for short).

What I'm watching/reading... Sportsnet has been airing something they call Blue Jays Rewind on the weekends. Every Saturday and Sunday they show an entire Blue Jays game from 2015 and 2016 (the years when the Jays were pretty good.) It's been fun to watch our old favourites (Kevin Pillar, Russell Martin, Marcus Stroman, etc) play together again. Also, we started watching Star Wars with the kids. We've watched the first two (original) movies. That's been fun!

This is from Opening Day 2019, but this is my view almost 

every Saturday and Sunday at 4pm during quarantine.

I'm so happy to say that my quarantine reading has finally evened out. I read all the time and normally I'm devouring everything I can get my hands on. Well for the first five or six weeks, I couldn't focus on the types of books I normally love so I was devouring a lot of regency romances and JD Robb's In Death series. I'm currently on my fourth (or fifth?) re-read of the In Death series. However, these past few weeks, I've been able to add a little more of my regular types of books (fiction, mysteries, non-fiction) into my reading and I'm so happy about this.

What I'm listening to... My family. All. The. Time. Does anyone else just want their family to go away for a few hours? Yeah, me too :) Also, when the weather is nice, we hear a lot of birds outside which is so lovely!

What I'm wearing... I'm so excited that it's warmed up enough that I can wear one of my favourite Spring outfits -- my yoga capris, shoes without socks, and a sweatshirt. It's so lovely. We can sometimes leave the house without jackets. Did I mention we're excited about the warmer weather!?!

We're wearing a mix of stuff, but I'm sporting one of my favourite Spring outfits in the picture on the left. Sam pulled out the shorts the other day, but I think he was a little premature!

What I'm doing this weekend... It's my birthday on Saturday so I'll be having a low-key day with some reading, some baseball watching, and a physically/socially distant visit with my best friend and her family who I haven't seen in person since this all started. I'm so excited!!!

What I'm looking forward to next month... Honestly, I already know that we'll still be in quarantine for at least another month, so it's hard to find things to look forward to. However, I'm definitely looking forward to being able to spend more time outside as the weather gets even better around here. And maybe by next What's Up Wednesday, we'll have some hope about how/when this will all end... Maybe.

What else is new... My husband and I started this blog in June 2007 as we were preparing to move across the country for my husband to attend grad school. Eventually it turned into a family blog and today is my 2000th post! What the what?!?!? Never did I imagine that this blog would be going strong thirteen years later. It's almost died a few times (end of 2016, end of 2017) but it keeps coming back.

I have had the chance to form some really great blogging friendships through the years and have been able to meet some of my blog friends in person, which has been amazing! And during this time of quarantine, a couple of blog friends and I have had a Zoom happy hour, with another one in the works. Hey -- if we're having virtual happy hours with out IRL friends, why not with our blog friends as well!

So anyway, thanks for reading one (or all!) of my 2,000 posts and being a part of my blogging life. I'm so thankful for my blogging community.