Saturday, March 27

Today I am grateful for:

A beautiful sunny day. We've had good weather all week, but it's been so hard to enjoy it. It's been like everything isn't quite sinking in. Today I did feel it.

I ended up going to town for more supplies, mainly because I was completely out of dog food (remember, it was something I forgot last week?). I did have to get the mail, and I made a birthday card for my Mom last night and mailed it today. I have to say, I do like the much lighter traffic right now.

I was able to get goat mineral supplement at the farm store in town, though it was strange having to stand back from the employee behind the desk etc. The constant monitoring of space was something I was very aware of today, and it was really disconcerting.

When I picked up the mail, as I was approaching the entrance, a woman was standing in front of it, reading the notice. She thought the post office was closed, but the notice was more like "don't come in if you've had symptoms, or have been travelling, etc." She was startled by my approach, and apologized for blocking the entrance, and asked if I would take her letter in for her. She was trying to stand back from me the whole time. It felt so uncomfortable.

Same at the grocery store. They're limiting the number of people in the store, but I was upset at how many people were brushing past me in the aisles to get to what they wanted. Selfish.

Micheal's was open, and I was very surprised. I do think today is the last day for them, as a shut down of all non-essential stores was issued today. I wanted to try black water color paper and black drawing paper. Again, distances were maintained, and there was a constant awareness of space.

While I still cannot find toilet paper (I didn't have much on hand when this began a few weeks ago, and I've had to be careful with it), I was able to find other things just fine. This time there was frozen veggies, so I got some of those, and staples like flour, canned tomatoes, things I can cook with. Even if we end up not needing to worry about food security, these are all things we use and they won't go bad before we can use them. I did go shopping about a week ago, and I easily COULD go weeks without re-stocking, I decided to get more food because my sweetie is supposed to be coming home in a few days, and he really should isolate himself. I didn't really do an extreme shopping run today, but a little more than I used to. The last three trips have been building a good store.

Gratitudes: That shopping for art supplies helped me feel more normal. That we have the means to buy things in greater quantity than usual, to hopefully allow us to be at home. That I could get the things I needed for my animals. People have actually been really nice, very considerate, and I hope this means that we are all looking at each other as members of a team, not competitors. There are a lot of people doing a lot of good things right now, and I'm glad we're capable of this kindness.

I had a good phone call with Mom. I know she's not seeing anyone right now except my adult niece. In general, even before the virus stuff, I'd say I've been connecting a lot with family, probably because my sister's partner died, and we've all been looking out for each other a little more.

I'm grateful that our furnace guy was here again, and he's picking up where he left off. I haven't seen him for about a month, and I was starting to wonder if he wasn't coming due to Corona concerns. He's been working on our basement all winter, but because we have an interim heater, we're not a rush, so he's doing our work in between more urgent jobs.

For all the great art tutorials online. It's been a revelation and it's keeping me sane.

That I'm feeling a little better today. For almost a week I've been horribly on edge over everything, worried about my sweetie never coming home (now we have a day that he's done), worried about whether food was going to be an issue, or pet food, and just never knowing what else was going to be shut down. I'm trying to accept that basically almost everything is shut down now, but that I can't control this, and to try to relax into it. Does that make sense? To try and accept that for now, I'm almost entirely just going to be at home. In a way, it releases me from some of the expectations of always trying to "do" things with my day.

Sunday, March 28

Today I am grateful for:

More fairly nice weather. Sunshine.

I was able to ride River today, by appointment. There was one other rider, and we kept our distance in the barn. It was one of the younger riders, and it was nice to chat with a kid for awhile. River was good, though he felt like he was leaning on the reins a lot today in collection. He stretched really well in our warm up. A good canter. He's really shedding now, and I felt like I looked like one of those coconut covered cakes when we were done.

For a nice bath when I came home, and some quiet time reading.

Enjoying my kitties, who keep curling up together and looking adorable.