what on earth should this blog title be?

1.  3 Down, 3 To Go

2.  Haters Gonna Hate

3.  We Deserved This

4.  True Lockdown

5.  Phone Calls From the Health Department

6.  Why Didn't I Buy More Chocolate Last Week?

7.  Kids, Don't Waste The Milk!

8.  My Soul Aches...

9.  One Year Anniversary of Covid Lockdown in CNY Celebrated in Quarantine For Local Family

10. At  Least You're Tan. (someone said that to me once, when I was eight and a half months pregnant with my eleventh child...no lie!)

So here's the shameful story...shameful, because when a person gets COVID-19, they are BAD, right?

Sorry.  I'll take a breath and start again, without the sarcasm.  As referenced in choice #8, my soul aches.  Paul is sick in bed.  He tested negative yesterday, but feels awful.  He is 58 years old.  He is my rock, my faithful strong guy, who takes care of everything.  He's fine, that's his standard response.  He has driven himself to urgent care with cellulitis, had knee surgery on Christmas Eve, then insisted we stop at Lowe's on the way home, to get oil to shine up the guitar he was giving to one of Sonja's friends.  Nothing much stops him.  To have him sick, especially because I'm 99% certain it's the dreaded virus, hurts my heart.   

Another one of the kids is positive, the rest of us negative. She feels yucky, but if you want to say she deserves it, please just say it to your dog, or to your therapist, don't say it to me.  Because right now?  I feel like I'm going to cry.  We've navigated through this year trying to balance between being crazy careful, and living our lives.  We've worn our masks, disinfected, wiped things down, and continued to wear the masks.  Yes, I've gone to Florida, yes, we've gotten together, and yes, we HAVE lived our lives.  We've done all of it within the guidelines.  In the beginning of all of this, I got these kids out of the house a few times a week, even if it was to Target, with masks on when they were starting to be required.   We went on drives, and to parks, and made the most of our time here at home.  They played The Settlers of Catan, and we watched some Netflix shows together, we discovered Butter Chicken, and homemade Naan bread.   

We didn't get together with most of our family for months, and when we first did, it was outside, all social distanced. We didn't see our nurse daughters for MONTHS.   We started gathering more when I realized that there were huge daycare centers open, and hey, if those workers could be with all those kids, I could be with my grandkids.  

But it wasn't all systems go!  We followed the news, and when things started getting bad around here, in central NY state,  we kept our distance again.  When we finally went back to church meetings, we wore masks and distanced, sat far apart.  

The numbers here in our area are really low again, and here we are.  Neither Paul nor I have gotten the vaccine because in NY, the way it has been distributed has been, in my humble opinion, rather questionable.  The lowest age now is 60, so we aren't eligible yet.  It's offered to health care, teachers, hotel workers, ect., but not regular people who are 55 and 58, without a dr. note.  I am not certain how I feel about the vaccine yet anyway, but even so, don't shame us for not doing what we haven't been able to do!  

Covid shaming.  As if when someone is sick, they deserve to have insult added to injury.  Our own King Cuomo stated recently that the numbers in NYC are higher because of "bad behavior".  Excuse me?  These people are riding the subway to work, not because they don't feel like driving their nice cars, but because they don't have cars!  They have to work for a living, they have to get out and live, they don't have a choice, and he's shaming them!  It's horrible!

I didn't want to write about having the virus in the house, because I knew I would get the you deserve it comments.  To me, having the health department calling me, all up in our business, is uncomfortable, and I just don't like government overstep at all, so this whole situation is no fun.   

Here's a few pics of some girls doing school work...responsible, sweet, honest, caring, hard-working girls...(and the lazy girls, the Labs, ha...) 

(I love how the Christmas pillow is still out, and it says Calm and Bright ha)

One of these girls goes to public school, twice a week, social distances, small classroom numbers, with a mask on.  She plays her clarinet in band, all alone in a room, she doesn't have the luxury to play WITH the other band members, which has always been her dream, and is the very reason she went back to Real School.  She does all of her schoolwork, at home or at school, and is teaching herself to play the violin.  She has practiced through the first book, ordered and gone through the second level, and the third book came in the mail today.  She is writing another story (she is always writing something!), Sonja printed like 60 pages of it for her, because she likes to edit it on real paper.  She also draws, and paints. 

The other girl in this picture is a college student, waiting each day with anticipation to see if she is accepted into the nursing program, it's a highly accredited one, hard to get into.  She works part time, and is the absolute sunshine of our home.  She laughs at herself, she makes things fun. 

And as I've mentioned, Paul is sick in bed.  I hope and pray he gets a mild case, and that he is able to fight this off. 

So yes, I decided to jump right in, and be honest, and let my friends out here in Bloggy-Land know exactly what is going on...   

The whole world is in the throes of figuring this thing out, I know we aren't the only ones, nor the first ones, to struggle through...

But still, these people here are my people, I love them with all of my heart, and to see them suffer, is suffering to me, and bye for now, I'm going to have myself a good cry.