I honestly had no idea I was living a quarantined life before the pandemic. I work from home, my husband Lynward is retired from Georgia Power but works with me at home. Our life routine is simple. I get up every morning at 5 am to have some quiet time, start working by 5:30 am and head upstairs to get Evan ready for school at 6:40, drop Evs off to school and pick her up in the afternoon, do homework, make dinner and call it a day. 

March 13th Evan’s school closed and the homeschooling began. I set up a foldable table in my office, put a lamp on it and called it Evan’s desk. She and I are now office buds. The first week of homeschooling my fourth grader it took five hours each day to complete her work, by week two the teachers cut it back and we were down to four hours of homework a day. So I am now getting up between 3:00-4:00 am to get my work done before Evan wakes up around 8 am so I can give her the attention she deserves. Fortunately week three was spring break.

Of course our spring break plans were canceled. I had a blogging conference scheduled in  April at Carolina Beach and we were planning on making it a family vacation/work trip.Having canceled our trip, I decided to order Evan a wet suit so she could ski, tube and play in the lake. We are lucky enough to live on a lake and have two boats.. It’s a good thing we do have two because they both broke down over the week. 

We really did have a great time over spring break. Evan was able to get up and ski some before the boats went down. Lynward was able to get the needed part to fix one of the two boats. Evan was creative and made her own slip and slide. Our elderly neighbor’s landscapers no showed on her so we decided as a family to give her yard a quick makeover by mowing, edging, cleaning up her shoreline and blowing off the deck for her. She’s the best neighbor and we all enjoyed helping her out. 

We do enjoy community service and hosting events so I decided to create a last minute community Easter Egg hunt. What could be better than building 26 Easter eggs that stand 2 feet tall? Lynward ordered the plywood from a local hardware store, paid online and picked up the wood and proceeded to cut out 26 Easter Eggs. Evs and I painted for two days and Madi created the graphics and sent out an email to our online community. Keeping within the CDC and WHO guidelines, the rules specified you had to find the eggs from the safety of your vehicle. We had planned on placing the eggs at 26 local businesses but then the Shelter In Place announcement came out. Apparently we did a great job of promoting the event because the sheriff told us to cancel our Easter Egg Hunt. At first we all were sorely disappointed but now have 26 beautifully decorated eggs all over our yard and the neighbor’s yards. 

By week three Evan announced to us, this shelter in place was like the longest car ride of her life. She explained that she felt trapped in the car with her parents and she just can’t wait for the trip to end so she can get OUT of the car. Such a great analogy. Until then I had been okay, life for us was normal other than getting up two hours earlier and dealing with the negativity on social media that was until I had to cancel Easter...that’s when it really hit home for me and I fell apart.

Having my family about me is what I love most in life. I love having all my children (I have 3 daughters and a son-in-law) with me during the holidays and summer weekends. The hardest part was having the conversation with Madi, it broke my heart to say the words that we were canceling our family‘s Easter brunch. I just can’t not see my family on Easter, so this crazy bunch is going to do an online scavenger hunt using Google Hangouts, so this should be interesting. 

I can live with the fact that our anniversary trip to Italy has been canceled but I am really praying that we can all be together again floating on the lake by Memorial Day. I am beginning to feel like Evan, trapped in the car. I am a firm believer in looking on the bright side and searching for solutions. I do love a challenge and always make the best of any situation.

Having said that, Kroger decided yesterday if we wanted to color Easter eggs we have to now come inside the store (and that is NOT happening), they removed the PAAS from my pick-up order. Not to worry, a quick search on Pinterest and we have DIY Easter eggs. Thankfully Lynward picked up a 5 pound bag of rice on his last Kroger run and we had food coloring in the pantry and now we have the best looking eggs ever!

So all that being said, on the bright side, Evan’s homework is taking her less than three hours a day and she/I now have Fridays off from school work. Our primary business is in a holding pattern allowing Madi and I the time to create Coffee Water Wine. Oh and Lynward and I have joined two new wine clubs because the four wine clubs we already belong to weren't enough. See silver linings everywhere.

Stay safe and healthy my friends.