Quarantine: Sun. 5/24 (NH)
Last day. Sob. There is actually no reason whatsoever for us to go back to NJ, but we're going back anyway. Maybe we'll set up the new pool if it's warm enough. In any case, we'll be back here in a few weeks, so I refuse to get too melancholy. A Gift of Quarantine is getting to spend more time up here. So there's that (she says, the spectre of today's NYT front page adding a ghoulish and wrenching shadow to every word of this blog).
As is typical with long, active vacations, by today we were all a little fried. The kids slept late and all they wanted to do was stay in their pj's and play with Legos inside, which was fine. Andrew and I went for a short hike in the woods with Farrah, who is just so cute and game for anything. She bounds over fallen logs and prances through the grass. She's getting so good at her recall. What a pleasant little pup she's been this trip. But she's also beyond exhausted from all the activity. Once we were back inside, she alternated sleeping under the kitchen table and in the stone fireplace, her preferred napping area.
After our walk, I read in my hammock. Eventually, the girls came out to their hammocks, and we all just hung there, reading, for a couple of silent, swaying hours. It was almost cult-like in its peace and serenity, just three people hanging from the trees in total silence. Andrew went for a run, which he said is his version of relaxation.
We had lunch, and then the kids just played more and I read more and Andrew chopped up some brush at the edge of the driveway and then chainsawed a log down by the pond and hauled the pieces back in a wheelbarrow. Later, we went out for ice cream, masking up and social distancing in our Toxic Covid Car from Out of State.
The day wound down with the kids swimming in the pond, steaks on the grill for dinner, and then a firepit behind the house.
And that's a wrap. It was a perfect week.
But I buried the lede! I went to a real live grocery store this morning, the first time since mid-March. I went at 7:30am. There were more people there than I would have liked, and not everyone was wearing a mask, but I think it was mostly okay. I wore a mask and socially distanced and doused my hands with sanitizer back in the car. I didn't want to make a spectacle of myself (see: Toxic Covid Car from Out of State), so I resisted the urge to Supermarket Sweep my way through the store and instead kept mostly to my reasonable list of meals for the next week (plus a ton of snacks, because the kids don't even bother pouring their snacks into bowls anymore; they just take the boxes).
What We're Reading:
Margo: A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight
Andrew: Exile Music by Jennifer Steil (this is the second novel he's read this trip on my recommendation!!)
Lucia: A Tale of Magic by Chris Colfer
Greta: School for Good and Evil #3
As is typical with long, active vacations, by today we were all a little fried. The kids slept late and all they wanted to do was stay in their pj's and play with Legos inside, which was fine. Andrew and I went for a short hike in the woods with Farrah, who is just so cute and game for anything. She bounds over fallen logs and prances through the grass. She's getting so good at her recall. What a pleasant little pup she's been this trip. But she's also beyond exhausted from all the activity. Once we were back inside, she alternated sleeping under the kitchen table and in the stone fireplace, her preferred napping area.
After our walk, I read in my hammock. Eventually, the girls came out to their hammocks, and we all just hung there, reading, for a couple of silent, swaying hours. It was almost cult-like in its peace and serenity, just three people hanging from the trees in total silence. Andrew went for a run, which he said is his version of relaxation.
We had lunch, and then the kids just played more and I read more and Andrew chopped up some brush at the edge of the driveway and then chainsawed a log down by the pond and hauled the pieces back in a wheelbarrow. Later, we went out for ice cream, masking up and social distancing in our Toxic Covid Car from Out of State.
The day wound down with the kids swimming in the pond, steaks on the grill for dinner, and then a firepit behind the house.
And that's a wrap. It was a perfect week.
But I buried the lede! I went to a real live grocery store this morning, the first time since mid-March. I went at 7:30am. There were more people there than I would have liked, and not everyone was wearing a mask, but I think it was mostly okay. I wore a mask and socially distanced and doused my hands with sanitizer back in the car. I didn't want to make a spectacle of myself (see: Toxic Covid Car from Out of State), so I resisted the urge to Supermarket Sweep my way through the store and instead kept mostly to my reasonable list of meals for the next week (plus a ton of snacks, because the kids don't even bother pouring their snacks into bowls anymore; they just take the boxes).
What We're Reading:
Margo: A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight
Andrew: Exile Music by Jennifer Steil (this is the second novel he's read this trip on my recommendation!!)
Lucia: A Tale of Magic by Chris Colfer
Greta: School for Good and Evil #3
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