Work from Home Perks

I am a seasoned work-from-home sort having done this for 7 years now. 

Working from home with other people in the house does sometimes have an added advantage when breakfast shows up magically during a conference call.  

Homeschool Fail

Good thing the schools have picked back up because while we seem to be good at gardening, we do not seem to be very good at spelling.

Homeschool Success

Collecting all of the devices before bed: phones, computers, games has begun again in an effort to bring us to some normal hours around here that even their dad and I are struggling with.

And then I ran into this: a teacher video conferencing through one computer, the assignment up on another computer, and going through the math on the white board together via video.  We can do this.

Home Chefs

We do get take-out from time to time. 

And take-out comes with clear spoons, which also turn into entertainment. 

Strawberries from the Farmers Market became fruit roll ups. 

It takes an immense amount of patient to let those suckers cook for as long as they must. 

Teaching Nick to make the good rolls from scratch. 

Alida expertly making deviled eggs. 

Home Gardening

We planted some radishes from seed. 

And then so much more. The radishes are on the right, about four weeks in.

Tomatoes

We have our first little tomato in there now. 

Some lettuce.

Became cabbage and lettuce and broccoli and purple cabbage and kale 

Hmm, going to have to figure out what harvesting is supposed to look like more quickly than we anticipated. 

Home Hair

Facial Hair

Even though this may be the one moment in the military that you can let it go, he couldn't stand it.  It lasted about a week. 

Ben laughs at me every time I ask if he's ready for a haircut yet.  

Home Theater

The ultimate stuck at home movie: Rear Window.

Homeschool Fail

And the morning following Easter, we were set to begin online school for real through the school system.  Everyone was up but mostly due to the storm that ripped through at 5:30 am and knocked out our power until after noon that day.  All morning school meetings were missed.  The lack of any power to any device left the children with little left to do. 

There was a "Draw Nick" art contest.

Simple

Aged?

And bulked up.

Home for Easter

The red blankets as curtains because we are adults but have not yet decided how to decorate this room were a nice Easter morning touch.

But we were able to stream Easter service together here. 

We did make it out to Target to do a little Easter basket shopping the day before, where things were a little weird. There were people there, but the quiet was way too quiet.

No social distancing within the house.

And when I read a local article about limiting Easter dinner gatherings to parents and 2-3 kids at most, I wondered who on earth would be left out.  So we just didn't. 

Homecation

And the inspection may not be quite complete on this yet, so I won't show them actually in the water.

More Homework

And, just as we were finishing the dirt haul for the gardens, four and half pallets of sod showed up!

The boys may never emerge from their rooms again. 

Homework

Patric, who doesn't always get to be here, has been feeling pretty blessed. 

The children, not so much. 

Because when the dump truck dumped that, we got to move it. 

Over into those.

But then came the planting part. 

And more planting. 

And transferring some seedlings. 

And we have gardens!

The children didn't quite get why we needed them to take this photo. 

Homemade

Now that I make school lunch every day, why not ham with provolone on Hawaiian rolls. 

Um, yes! A hit.

The Chicken Ramen I've been meaning to try?

Absolutely. 

Even if I made the eggs and forgot to add them. 

And it was good, kimchee and all.

Break out the waffle maker?  Yes, please. 

Make the creole pasta that my dad sent me and then wonder how it would go over? 

It was amazing and kids loved it!  

Make the blueberry coffee cake I've been meaning to try?

Yes!

Amazing but the kids all hated it. A miss.

Movie night and an attempt to re-create the menu from the theater where we often go for dinner and a movie?  Yum!

Nachos with homemade refried beans and guacamole?  Absolutely. 

Homeschooling

Arts and Crafts time. 

They are pretty amazing. 

Online Spanish class when no one actually takes Spanish yet but it is available and you are not doing anything else, why not?

Daily lunch-n-learns using YouTube to keep us fresh on the content they left behind: viruses (timely), the Great Depression (timely), math, budgeting, the music of Pixar films for choir class, life science.  All keeping us at least thinking from time to time.