Adelaide began feeling “icky” and stayed home from school the Friday before her 5th birthday. She missed school the entire following week except for Wednesday when she was feeling really good in the morning – but fell asleep by 4pm after a normal day. Emerson got a runny nose and cough somewhere in there too and stayed home from his school. That Thursday night, Karissa began complaining about being exhausted and feeling “yucky” too. She skipped volleyball – a tournament game – because of how bad she was feeling. It was a week of tiredness and being trapped inside.
Adelaide was mostly back to normal last week. Karissa is now mostly feeling good, but still has lingering tiredness. Possibly just from the crazy news.
A global pandemic in 2020? I think we all assumed these were things we read about in history books.
Regarding coronavirus, schools in Illinois have been cancelled for at least the next 2 weeks (through the end of March) and, realistically, much longer. Bars and restaurants are to be closed to diners for the same timeline. It’s truly unprecedented and unthinkable.
We began stocking up a week ago and have enough food to survive for a few weeks without leaving, if it gets to the point. I made another trip to the grocery store just to grab a few items on Friday night and this was the state of the place: empty shelves everywhere!
In the meantime, we’ve begun to experiment with baking bread. We’ve made a few batches now.
And have also discovered an amazing way to make PB&J: grilled! Make the PB&J as normal. Spread some mayo (we use vegan mayo) and griddle. It makes the peanut butter gooey, the jelly warm, and the bread crusty and chewy.
We’re doing fine otherwise. Ready to help stay home and weather this pandemic.
Finally, do you ever wish you’d taken your own advice to heart? I came across a chart and circulated it amongst a few friends. It basically said to get out of the stock market, if not short it outright, after the 50bps surprise rate cut from the Fed.
We’ve luckily been pretty under-invested compared to normal as I thought valuations were pretty extreme. But should have flipped and gone fully out.
So everybody: stay home. Enjoy learning something new – like bread making or whittling or something. Make the best of it. We’ll look back and be thankful it wasn’t as bad as modeled.