Happy Monday everyone! I hope it’s been great. Over the next 4 weeks I think I’m going to try moving my blogging time to the morning.
♥♥The Weather♥♥
Sunny and quite breezy and cool but it’s only supposed to get better and then it’s gonna tank on Saturday. BUT it’s NY so it could change a lot by the time Saturday rolls around
♥♥How I am feeling this morning♥♥
Ahem- this evening NOT as stuffed up no sinus headache. My face doesn’t hurt and the cough isn’t that bad. NO I don’t have the current virus causing a stir but the common cold is prevalent in our area right now
♥♥On my mind♥♥
HMMMM Pretty sure you can guess!!! I’m not worried but we are constantly adapting to changes. No biggie and kinda fun.
♥♥On the breakfast plate♥♥
didn’t eat breakfast this morning
♥♥On my reading pile♥♥
All of my books.
♥♥On my tv♥♥
Today was Star Wars Episode 6 Return of the Jedi . Now we will start the next set of three since the last once was just released to VuDU today (secret about me- I hate cliff hangers I would rather wait for the whole series to be out so I can know what happens next)
♥♥On the menu this week♥♥
The black blob for today was a local restaurant. Want to read more about the lesson I learned about menu planning in the midst of a crisis…You can read all about it HERE
♥♥From the camera♥♥
Have you read this book yet? You should!
♥♥Looking around the house♥♥
I’ve been sick so there is some general cleanup. And I have the spring cleaning list printed off and ready to go as soon as I take care of a few problem areas.
♥♥Chore I’m not looking forward to today, or this week♥♥
EVERYTHING- no literally. I am looking forward to this change of pace
♥♥To relax this week, I will♥♥
do something fun with the kids every day of the week BECAUSE we can
A lesson I learned a long time ago was no matter what you are going through there are lessons to be learned. And that is kids how I have lived my life since late high school.
God really does want us to learn and grow even from the smallest things he brings into our lives. It’s called having a teachable spirit (And there is a blog post on that coming soon) but for now let’s check out some of the quirky lesson’s I have leaned I the last 4 days.
Lesson #1: Can You Guess It?
Let’s just get this lesson out of they first, because let’s be honest as soon as you saw the title this is what you thought. Lesson #1 is that we have reached a whole new level of CRAZY!
You know it and I know it. I live in NY and we get some decent snow amounts but even in the worst sense of the imagination, I have never expected to experience the mass amount of “preparedness” that has seemed to reach epic proportions, not just here in New York but across the entire country.
Lesson #2: A New way to Menu Plan
Let me just start off by saying that this is NOT my preferred method. This lesson kinda hot me yesterday (Sunday) as I sat down to prepare my menu and shopping List for the week. And I unsnapped my two month menu plan I use to make my weekly menus and I began to assess what I had in the pantry and what I needed fro the upcoming week. And as I began to plan I realized something.
For the first time I didn’t have confidence that the store might not have what I was going to need to basic meals.
In our family of 6 we have some dietary needs as well. AND as the afternoon went on I learned that we were going to be embarking on a “homeschooling adventure of sorts. Good thing we have experience in that. BUT it meant that two kids who usually eat 2 meals a day at school would now be eating them here at home.
HMMMM…..I usually start stocking the kitchen with kid food weeks prior to summer break and yet now I had zero planning time.
So I wrote out my list and told Hubby that the list was bigger than normal to deal with extra breakfasts and lunches AND there was stuff that in case you couldn’t find………You can get this instead. There were a bunch of things he couldn’t find
Pasta
Flour
Sugar
Tissues
Frozen Veggies
Have no fear we have plenty of food. we know we have a couple of cases of chicken we ordered a few weeks ago so no meat wasn’t really on the list and we have plenty in our freezers as well. I keep a pretty well stocked pantry but there were somethings that we were out of.
So this week for the first time ever I have made my menu based on what hubby COULD buy. (FYI I do NOT like or recommend this method)
Lesson #3 Speaking of Tissues……
So we are sick- 4 out of the 6 of us to be exact. I know I know Go ahead let the COVID -19 comments fly…..Are ya done ? Ok good Glad you got it out of your system :).
SO I have a 1/2 a box of tissues. So naturally that goes on the list. Well I put it there and NO luck. ANYWHERE. normally no big deal right? Just grab the roll of toilet paper….Except for that new level of crazy we talked about in Lesson 1 had lftf us in a TP shortage.. Never in my whole life have I had to second guess the usage of TP. It struck me as humorous.
Here we are living in a first world country and enough panic has been created that we have created a shortage on something EVERY single person in the=is country has probably taken for granted at one point or another.
And I thought about the question that has been circulating for a number of years “What if you only woke up with the things you thanked God for Yesterday?” HMMMMMM!!! Maybe we should be thanking God for the simple things we seemingly take for grated.
I must confess that I have learned many lessons in menu planning but this one has been the most difficult to wrap my brain around.
Lesson #4 Local Businesses
Today in our area restaurants were told to move to a take out only model. . Earlier in the day I had spoken with a friend of ours who drives our kids bus. She is not working because the schools are closed. Her hubby owns a local restaurant (one we love) and how they might be forced to close and the government was asking them to still pay their employees. THAT’s difficult if you aren’t making any money.
By lunch time we knew that they had to switch to take out only model. They rely heavily on college students until summer but the colleges have all closed as well. So today we supported our friends and even though we chose not to dine in because of the sickness we got take-out.
Out of all of these lessons, this one is probably the most serious.
Lesson #5 A New Use For My Planner
Ok this one got me a little today. Hubby and I were talking about how we keep taking things off our schedule because of COVID-19 and as two Introverts this is not a big deal. I told hubby I was really glad that I use erasable Pens (PILOT FRIXON PENS to be exact) in my planner.
Hubby told me not to erase everything but to just draw a line through it so we have an accurate depiction as to just how much our lives have changed. So that’s what I’ve done and you will see that in a later post.
That’s the monthly part but what about the weekly part. Each week I sit down and write the weeks appointments in. well I haven’t done that this week because there isn’t anything to really move over. So instead I have decided to use it as a daily journaling space to keep track of what’s going on.
Different for sure and I am sure t is going to take some getting used to.
So there you have it, 5 lessons I have learned so far in this new season of blank canvas. Tomorrow I hope to blog about some of the fun things we plan to do in the midst of this new season.
I am a firm believer that you only get out what you put into something so if you put in a bunch of negativity into life’s lessons that is what you are gonna reap more negativity So let’s keep a positive outlook.
Let’s talk about it : What lessons have you learned?
This is a positive space so comments in a negative complaining light will be deleted.. Thank you and Blessings
CoVID-19 (or the Coronovirus ) is here, whether we like it or not. I hear the echos of many people saying JUST WASH YOUR HANDS, NO BIG DEAL…… but for our family it kinda is. We hear it all the time “You guys are sick a lot……” Yep we know it. We clean and disinfect and clean some more. But our reality is we have someone within our home who has a compromised immune system and with that comes a lot of issues….
COVID-19 and our family.
Hello My Name is Mary and I have a son with ASD- Autism Spectrum Disorder. And like most families with kids on the spectrum we live with A LOT of sickness. (And some families deal with weak bones)
That’s because our son with ASD picks up EVERYTHING. We wash hands, we disinfect, we use essential oils, we do vitamins, and supplements and we have a dishwasher. . And for the most part we as a family don’t catch the majority of what he gets. So when there is a major issue with something with the word contagious attached to it my ears perk up and I pay attention. COVID-19 is no different. Do we panic? NO but I now need to be aware and on guard.
When our not so little guy was first diagnosed 6 years ago he had some pretty interesting things that cued us into the fact that he might have ASD.
#1 HE LICKED E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G and E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E…No joke.
#2 He Had PICA- that means he would eat things that shouldn’t be eaten…Absolutely horrifying…and this took every mom trick I could think of…..(That clip from Mom’s Night Out- Sorry Mrs ________ you have called poison control too many times……Yep That was me!!) You can ave PICA without having ASD. it’s a form of anemia, but kids with autism can have it. Oh the stories I could tell! He hasn’t had PICA or licked anything weird in a LONG time, but in those moments I had no idea what was coming down the line. He was so much healthier that is until he got into school.
(There are a boat load of other symptoms but that is for another post entirely)
I Wish it was that easy.
I wish it was as easy as washing hands and disinfecting everything. Most people didn’t know the but we had to be super careful even clipping his nails. He was in Kindergarten and we clipped his nails. No breaks in the skin, not too close. To the normal parent it looked like a beautiful nail job but within a days time his finger was infected. it even baffled the Doctor.
He has had everything from strange viral infections, to skin infections,, psoriasis, and a very awful bout of athlete’s foot. He has become allergic to meds used to treat illnesses and had to be put on higher dosages or stronger meds. And even one time stripped his stomach lining to where he couldn’t eat anything an we had to start from a liquid diet, probiotics and then he grew stuff in his tummy that didn’t belong and that was a whole new set of OTC (over the counter) meds.
Today in New York State
Today here in New York State there are a bunch of really unhappy people and I get it it is a huge disruption to a lot of people’s lives. Our governor today shut down colleges as of Next week and they have become online school until this fall. I know this seems like an early reactionary move and it may be. But let’s be mindful of people who are on those campuses. Colleges are ready to head out on Spring break the end of this week. And there are big plans in the works for many students. Now I am not a promoter of these activities but in reality it’s a lot of people crammed into small areas and things spread like wildfire.
Now you may say Mary why do you care none of your kids are in college…..and for that you are right. My kids are not old enough to be at college however, everyweek my husband takes our youngest son to a college campus for therapy he doesn’t qualify for at his school.
Now that son could get germs and bring them home. He may not get a bad case of the COVD-19 but he has now shared this germs with the rest of our family including his older brother with the compromised immune system. He doesn’t seem to need to be around sneezing or coughing. He managed to pick up pneumonia this past summer while we were at camp. No one else was sick. He was around ZERO sick people….and then he shared it with me and I am super careful because as a person with Asthma getting the flu or pneumonia is dangerous.
(Let’s not get into the fact that my hubby is a pastor and visits and talks to people who are elderly, in the hospital and the like and I can cm into contact with pregnant women and babies where I volunteer). And of course we don’t go any of those places if we know we are sick.
So I gave you my take on our family but I have another question….
What should our response be as Christians?
Because you know the whole point of this blog is centered around our daily walk with Christ!!!
Response to the government officials? GRACE! They have to take am lot into consideration…..more than just how much it’s gonna be uncomfortable. They have to think ahead into scenarios that you and I might not even consider.
Here’s what the Bible has to say about this,
Romans 13:1-7 English Standard Version (ESV)
13 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
God’s in control.
And then how about our response to families in these situations? How about caring, instead of passing judgement. My circle of friends have all experienced their fait share of illnesses this year and after talking with the various school nurses we can all rest in the fact that it’s hasn’t been as bad as some of the things floating around. At one point in one of our son’s schools there were five different BUGS traveling from kid to kid.
How about a little bit of understanding and love. How about a fist bump and a “Keep it up mama” instead of the “sick again?” comment.
We don’t know the circumstances behind sick kids. I can tell you that we don’t go around broadcasting our son has a compromised immune system, just like I don’t tell every person we meet that he has autism. It’s not easy having kids with Special needs We already feel like the world is judging us (and some of them are). AND we don’t really need a lesson in hand-washing , disinfecting and so on. We need people to see beyond all that and know we are fighting something beyond illness.
So just in closing here are a few other things we don’t do- Just in case you think that we are oblivious……
we don’t use drinking fountains
we don’t use hand dryers
we don’t do large family trips to grocery stores or any store for that matter
we disinfect shopping carts
we don’t use shopping carts unless necessary
So as a person who is a caregiver I get it and I am appreciative. I am sure it wasn’t an easy decision and even though I may not understand everything that goes into that decision I can rest in the verse up above. And I CAN have a good attitude about it because I CHOOSE to have a god attitude about it.
And yes I am aware this could happen at a school age level and yes I can choose to have a good attitude then.
I want to challenge you that with 1 in 8 kids having ASD what can you do in your sphere of influence to encourage a mama who is doing everything in her power to keep her family healthy? Let me know how you plan to encourage her in the comments below AND THEN DO IT!
