Thoughts during a pandemic 2

Wow, has it been almost a month since I last updated? I don’t know if it’s because I’m on maternity leave or because we’re on lockdown mode or both, but the days just really meld into one another and I feel like we’re just living in an extra long day/month/year.

I mean, it’s already the beginning of May…but it also feels like 2020 hasn’t really begun.

April was supposed to bring some new activities to our daily mix. A bit more regimen now that Ellie was pretty settled with being at daycare while I went to the gym, and a bunch of new community centre courses for her, and even one for both of them to do together. It’s all come to a screeching halt, and I look at the calendar daily with all my carefully marked activities that are now all cancelled. What a year this is turning out to be.

The weather has thankfully been pretty delightful, so that we’ve been able to do afternoon walks in the trail everyday after lunch. We’ve all gotten stronger as a result: I can now push them through the trail easily with the new dual jogging stroller, and Ellie can walk about half of the trail (just shy of 800m) happily by herself without complaint. We look for whimsically painted rocks which keeps everyone intrigued.

This is the same trail that I’ve walked since…*drumroll*…September 1997. It’s where I befriended one of my good friends who’s still a friend today (I asked her to tie my shoelaces on my Pippen shoes because they were the rounded type that’s super slippery and I couldn’t get them to stay. I wish my story were more nuanced than this…? Or not.)

I’ve foraged on this trail this year too – thought I spotted elderflowers and it turns out I have, although I’m still unsure if they’re “common” elderflowers or a slightly different variety. Anyway, I’ve made elderflower syrup and it’s pretty neat. If we weren’t in lockdown mode I might be tempted to track down citric acid to add to it to make it more authentic.

I’ve made a few new recipes, some successes, so I’ll be documenting that at some point. Highlight would be a raspberry ice cream I had been thinking and dreaming of since February when I first had some raspberry ice cream at Earnest Ice Cream in Vancouver. Ellie was pretty thrilled about the replica until the second time she had it, a seed got stuck in her tooth and since then she’s eyed it suspiciously. We have two pints.

I thought I might finish some of my crafty projects in April – I dug up a bunch of unfinished stuff from years ago during the month – but nothing has been completed so far. I’ve got a quilt and a cross stitch that began around this time in 2017 (before kids!) that I’d love to finish before I begin something new. I’ve also found my fabrics and patterns for a couple of kids clothing items that I could make. I’ve really missed my sewing machine. When I made masks this month with my machine, it made me happy. I didn’t think I would miss sewing but there I was, admiring the little machine that could.

Part of me is anxious to know what will really happen this year. Will I get a job? Will we move to our own house? Or will it be December all of a sudden and we’re all still here, in some sort of social distancing mode still?

I had gotten pretty far with a job and I think it was probably going to be bordering on offer and negotiation phase when everything shut down. I met the team the day before they all began working from home, and shortly thereafter I got the email to say their hiring is now on hold. Their business is dealing with a lot of small businesses who are going to be hardest hit, so I don’t know if it’ll pick back up again in the short term.

Does anyone know when 2020 will resume?