Disappointments and Blessings

I woke up today to a reminder on my phone that Nancy's graduation was at 10am. The graduation that was cancelled weeks ago. I would have been there today to see her walk holding my little bean Thomas. It was a little bit of a downer to think about but I'm getting over it. No one could have foreseen this crazy life we are all living now. Talk is going about slowly opening things back up and Peter wants to drive down next month to see them. He's ready to see this baby too. I'm so amazed Nancy got her BA in statistics. What the heck? 

Worked on Saturday and then again yesterday. They finally started letting us wear masks a few weeks ago and now it is required. They have people at the front door screening people as they come in (mostly workers) with questions and forehead scans for temperature. There are no visitors still, unless you are having a major surgery, in which case you can have one person for 24 hours, but once they leave they can't come back. Definitely ready for this to end.

The masks are a little stifling as you can imagine, but not as bad as the cloth ones I wear to the store and such. Taking a phlebotomy class next month which I'm excited about because then I'll be able to start doing labs which will really help me start IV's successfully. Plus, it's just a skill I want to be able to do. I am soo glad I got this job. Not only do I love it-- like REALLY love it, but I'd not be able to step foot into a hospital until the fall. And even then who really knows if we'll be able to do that. I had a woman yesterday who kept telling me she really appreciated me and she wondered why I stayed in the room so much instead of going in and out quickly. Well, for one thing she has to be fed, but I told her we try to be with the patients as much as we can. It is really the most amazing thing to be with people in their most vulnerable moments and they can be so thankful. I always feel like I get more out of my job then they do by the end of the day. (Well, most days--lol.)

I leave the house by 5am and don't get back until 8pm at the earliest, so usually I am a lump on the couch after I've showered. Makes for some good sleep though. Got to see Sarah a few times yesterday and we had lunch together. All the hearts...💙💙

John turns 16

John turned 16 on Monday the 20th. Sarah came and we all sat on the front lawn while eating and waiting for people to come by with ice cold root beer.

 We invited people in the ward to do a "drive-by" social distancing visit to him. 

A few people came, which was really nice. The Hunters, the Cannons, and Brother Jason Davis. He knows all of them from young men and of course Bishop Cannon. They even brought gifts of candy and soda and some really cool t-shirts and a sweatshirt! 

 I asked him if he liked this sign. He said it was a "bit much," which I think means he liked it.

 My new Spanish dress went well for the occasion because John wanted enchiladas for dinner. He got some junk food that he likes, and Amazon gift card from my parents, a t-shirt and art supplies from Sarah, and a guitar, which should arrive by Friday...

Quarantine birthdays are a little weird, but considering how many things I had to do with my BYUI classes starting the same day and an exam in my mental health class I'd say it went pretty well.

Love

Know who I love? This guy. It was 25 years for us last year. We've had hard things and so many good things just like everyone else so I'd be false if I said it has always been smooth sailing. I'd say there was a few times I didn't know for sure if we'd make it. But I think over time you either grow closer together or further apart. Gratefully we found our way to the latter.

 We've come a long way together. Not nearly as far as some, but farther than others. Five kids, eleven moves, multiple business and jobs. We've made a lot of friends over the years, and a lot of those people are in marriages not unlike ours, may for a lot longer. So, I'm not saying this because I think we are special. I'm just saying it because it is. Love is a lot of things, isn't it? It is easy to take it for granted. I love him fiercely. I knew that before. It's just more prominent in our minds now.

This brings me to one of my favorite things is to take pictures of Peter just being Peter. Life is too short to not capture this stuff. And also it's funny. Soo funny.

And adorable. This is how I would picture him in 1930. He even has his newspaper.

Here's his heroic self cleaning out the fridge when the compressor died and I couldn't bring myself to do it. Fun fact: It does NOT take long for the fridge to start stinking when it's not cold.

I find him in around the house just doing random things. Like yoga. In the closet. Or on the side of the bed at midnight. But here I guess he was just stretching out on his ipad.

I came home from school one day and found him in his office like this. Aft first I thought he was naked. (He was wearing shorts). The second he saw me he knew I was going to lose it and he tried to wave me away as I laughed and took this picture and he tried to maintain his professional tone on the phone. I guess he got an important call as he was getting ready to shower. Of course I had to send the picture to the kids immediately.

He's been quite the biker the last couple of years. It's been so good for him. We have literally hundreds of biking photos in our google photos.

S ometimes he humors me when I go to take his picture, like here. Not often, but occasionally. This is how I find him a lot of days after I get home from a long day of school. He wears these thermal things to bed and when he gets up he just puts on shorts and a t-shirt over it. And the baseball hat. And then the flip flops. He rarely wears anything else because he has neuropathy in his feet. 

 I mean, it really isn't a joke. This happens all the time. I especially appreciate it when he hasn't even taken off his breathe right. I always know when he's had a client come to the house in the winter because he's not wearing those thermals. And occasionally, very occasionally, he's wearing a button-down shirt.

This is another good one. I believe he was stretching out his back.

Mini-melt down at the Costco

Online school in my bathrobe over my thermals, sweats, and t-shirt. I can guarantee that most of my classmates are doing the same thing when we have a class starting at 8am and going until noon. In fact many of the have said as much. I call it "layering for lecture." It's been surprisingly cold here.

In the meantime I've been sewing some masks for the kids. Sending a package tomorrow for Nathaniel, Nancy, Rebecca & Sam with their masks. 

These are four of the eight I'm sending. 2 a piece.

I actually had my first Covid meltdown today. I'm not even sure why. Could be so many things it's hard to choose. Not that I should complain. I know so many people have are dealing with so many things so much more difficult than I am. But today I just lost it out of the blue. I went to Costco to pick up a couple of prescriptions and did some shopping. I had to wait in a decent line outside, which is still very weird. I feel so much anxiety just going out to different places. I've heard lots of people say the same. About 75% of people were wearing masks this time compared to the about 50% I saw last week at HEB. Travis county has made it mandatory and I'm just waiting for it to become so everywhere else, including here in Williamson county. I honestly don't know why we didn't just do that in the first place.

The shelves were pretty well full. I think partly because there are only so many able to be in the store at once and because a lot of people are just not going out. But I was hoping for toilet paper and clorox wipes, neither of which they had, so that was disappointing. I noticed the clothes were stacked up pretty high. Apparently not a lot of people buying clothes. Signs were everywhere in the store like this:

 At the pharmacy and all the registers there is plexiglass now and I had to hold out my card to have them scan it. It feels weird to stand over six feet away and tell the person at the register my name, address and birthdate when picking up our medication through my mask. So much for privacy. I saw a woman from my ward there and asked her why she wasn't wearing one. She said she thinks this whole thing is totally overblown. I understand where she is coming from but it was abrasively said and unnerving to me because I could tell she was angry. I didn't linger.

Being April 15th Peter went to the post office. I don't like him to go places much. No need to put more than one of us at risk He sent me this picture of the plastic they have hanging in there. They've extended the tax deadline by 3 months until July 15 but there was a lot of people he had committed to getting done by today. I'm hoping getting past this is going to help him find a little relief in stress but I know from experience he's going to experience the after-stress wave that always comes. You know how that goes. He gets anxious after the tax season to go somewhere and he wants to see the baby and help Nathaniel and Nancy move into their new place at the beginning of the month but a) I don't know that I think that's a good idea and b) I can't go with him right now, at least by car where I'd be gone for days. I have too much schoolwork to do. 

Which brings me to the crux of the matter. I'm here all day with these two boys. Peter has to work and I need to give him time to do that. I'm also trying to have them do their schoolwork. And laundry, and dishes, and meals and yard work, and general cleaning and shopping. I spend most of my time doing one thing while feeling guilty I'm not doing something else. I should be studying and then when I'm studying I feel like I should be helping Will do his homework or taking him outside. This isn't new. I feel like this all the time during the semesters but not quite to this degree because when the kids are in school I can carve out time to actually just sit in the library at school or here in our public library. I must thrive on guilt because I spend a lot of time feeling it.

So back to Costco. As I'm standing in line to check out I got several picture texts from Nathaniel of the baby. I can't tell you how beautiful he is and how much I want to hold him and see these two new parents with their baby. I keep trying to stuff that away away but I think it crept out without me knowing. The next thing I know there is a Costco associate telling me there is something spilling from my cart. The weed & feed bag has sprung a hole and is now pouring in a pile on the floor. I have no idea how long this has been going on. They run to get a box and put it under the cart and out comes the broom. It was the dumbest thing but it was enough to throw me over the edge. After I walked out of the store after holding up my receipt to their new plexiglass stands I made it out to the parking lot before I cried. And honestly, even after writing all this, I still don't totally understand why. Courtney, my best friend here and my sanity who also happens to be our bishop's wife, said it was long overdue and she had already had several breakdowns lately. She's probably right. After I pulled into the driveway I realized it would have been smart for me to have Sarah go with me. I don't know why I didn't think of it. I'll be smarter next time.

Garden happiness 2020

 I've never been a fan of iris really because they only bloom once and take up a lot of space and their roots get all entangled, but these ones were planted before we moved here and I've enjoyed them more the last couple years. Really pretty color.

One thing about me that hasn't changed over the years is my love for my garden flowers. Texas has been a big learning curve for me that I'm only just beginning to get a hold of here as the climate is so different from anywhere else I've lived. 

It is simply too hot for many things to make it through the summer. Because my front yard is so shady I can't grow many sun-loving plants out there. I will eventually do some landscaping in the backyard where I will be able to plant those.

We bought these rosebushes at Home Depot on clearance because they were all kind of struggling. They've done great. Peter and I are overly proud of our bargin buy.

These aren't technically mine because they come over the fence from the neighbors, but I still enjoy them.

 Our first year in Texas of course I planted nothing as we were in a rental and I didn't have interest in anything about that yard. I mowed it and kept it neat and that was about it. Our first year in this house I planted nothing, but enjoyed what we had. It didn't feel permanent yet and we had moved around so much after I had put so much TLC into our yards I wasn't willing to put an emotional investment into the yard yet. The following summer we added a few plants, and then quite a few more the following. Last year I really went to town and threw in a bunch of stuff to see what thrived and what didn't. A lot of gardening for me is trial and error, and certainly so here where I've never tried things before.

This was the first gardenia I've ever grown in a garden. Never lived anywhere they thrived before.

 This was the spread I planted last year. I planted and planted to burn off the stress I was feeling at school at the time, especially clinicals. This was the hardest semester for me thus far in nursing school. My clinical instructor took a serious dislike to me and I came home almost every day feeling like I was going to fail out or I just wasn't cut out to be a nurse. I had to have my gardening. Some of my fellow students thought it was so funny I'd go home after a hard day and attack the yard and others understood because they were doing it too. I guess if you get it you get it.

Here is the bed this year. I planted more bulbs this year so I'm excited to see if those come up. The little gnome there is something my dad got me. 
As Sarah would say, these plants luh this rain.

This Chinaberry big tree hangs over the driveway and makes a huge mess all year but I don't care because I like it anyway.

My neighbor used to try to talk me into cutting it down. 

Fat chance. 

It smells so good when it blooms but the blooms don't last more than a couple weeks at most.

I sweep the driveway almost every day. The thing about Texas is there is no yardwork season. You do yard work all year, which I like most of the time. The leaves never end. Some of the trees drop leaves in the fall and the oaks push all theirs off to make way for the new ones in the spring. I do a lot of raking and my trick of mowing the leaves still works for me very well.

I mean, really. Who would want to cut down a tree in this yard when you can have sweet shade like this in Texas.

 Lately we've had some crazy thunderstorms and that leaves a mess all over the yard as well.

These are some pics from our storm on Friday. There was a bunch of fallen trees down at the park near out neighborhood. Then Saturday night we had tornado warnings all night and more rain, and then of course our lil' Nacho came:)

Perk of all the falling branches is that I was able to put this out.

The branches wilted in a couple days so I went out and harvested these. I haven't brought in roses from my yard yet because they aren't the picking kind, but this came out really nice for Easter. I think I'll plant some more that you can display for longer.

I never get tired of planting flowers or having plants in my house. 

In another life I'd be a botanical photographer.

Easter 2020 and New Life

Last night I got news that Nathaniel and Nancy were at the hospital because they were pretty sure she was in labor. Thanks to Covid 19 they are both having to wear masks.

It was a while before the made the call to keep her. I'm glad they did because about 12 hrs later they had themselves a beautiful baby boy with no aid of drugs or other interventions to help the labor along.

Meet Thomas Alejandro Mitchell born at 5:15 this morning. He was a big boy coming in at 9 lbs and 20 inches long. And look at how gorgeous he is!

Meanwhile, we celebrated Easter over here with Sage and Sarah. We had our at home Sacrament meeting, dyed eggs, did a hunt, ate some good food, and the boys played Settlers of Catan while Sarah and I talked baby Thomas and medical stuff. The men are all about as interested in our hospital discussions as we are about their game, so it always works out well. 

And here's the new grandparents! Can you believe it?

Snapshot of our Covid life

My dining table goes from looking like this...

to this as I sew masks and work on online schoolwork and Zoom meetings.

Kitchen table becomes art and craft/John schoolwork area

Social distancing 6-ft separation is lesson #1 for Will when we start homeschooling when the public schools all close.

Sidewalk chalk becomes our a hot commodity and everyone in the neighborhood is showing off their artistic skills. We see whole families every night walking together and playing together outside.

We make bread regularly to avoid the stores.

And cookies. Because cookies.

Because we got rid of all our food storage when we moved to Texas Peter goes out in the middle of all this on a Saturday and is able to score this. I was really impressed. He is the hunter/gatherer.

His budget was $500. He spent $499.97.

Lines to get into grocery stores

Empty shelves where toilet paper, pasta, oil, milk, peanut butter, butter, bread, and eggs used to be. 

But evidently a surplus of ice cream. 

Peter and I decided this must be because freezer space is precious right now.

Where once water was sold out Costco has filled the whole space where the toilet paper used to be with it.

Will and I play games. And he watches too much TV and spends too much time on the computer... but we try. 
We really try.

We buy random things off Amazon to keep Will entertained.

And Will and I spend a lot of time at the park as he rides his bike up and down the cement water collection area while I blast the Pokemon theme song and Old Town Road from Sonic on my phone. (As people walk by. Wondering what I am doing.)

And Will picks me lots of flowers.

The house gets really clean when my spring break gets extended by a week. 

Then messy again because we are all here 24/7 and my school started back up online.

 Which is a blessing in that I don't have to get showered up, drive to school, sit in 4 hour long classes, drive to clinicals at 5am, horn in on my neighbor with my crap on my desk, and take exams without my watch on. And the view is better. 
But I also have to do all of the regular work at home with kids. All. The. Time. Because Peter is really busy doing tax work and Sarah is not technically supposed to be babysitting Will because of social distancing. Even though I use her once in while anyway when I get desperate. 

 We find fun tutorials online to help us do artistic things...

which unfortunately Will tires of too quickly.

But we drive to Walmart anyway and spend $120 on art supplies. And maybe some chocolate. They were not thrilled to wear masks.

And the hospital I work out suddenly stops letting visitors in on April 29th, while I'm on my shift. 

I watch a Covid patient dying through the glass and have my first shift where a person I was caring for died after I left. I watch nurses gowning up to enter Covid rooms with a "doficer." or a person who is in charge of watching their every move in taking on and off their PPE with a 3 page long checklist every time they come in and out. I count 9 IV pumps outside of one patient's room, where they run the lines into the room in long tubing so they can change the multiple bags hanging over without having to enter it again and again. The whole hospital is in anticipation of a flood of patients, which so far, thanks the heavens hasn't happened yet, and so a lot of the prepared areas sit empty.

Peter and I debate a lot about whether or not all of this shutting down of businesses is worth it. I don't know if anyone can say right now. While I am seeing what I'm seeing at the hospital he is talking to clients all day who are losing their businesses, or having to lay off all their employees about how to navigate the application for federal funding. I feel a lot of concern for the people in my ward and wonder how many will be able to get through this time and still have their homes or businesses at the other end of this--and of course right now we don't have any idea where that end might be. We talk about what we can do to help. 

We think about our grandbaby that is due any day and wonder when we will be able to see him. Nathaniel is the only one allowed to see her in the hospital, and we are grateful they aren't in New York where they wouldn't even allow that. We wonder about what will happen with our other married children's jobs and if they have a place to fall if they need it. I spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook looking at Covid memes and funny home videos quarantined families are making when I should be studying and we spend too much time watching the news or reading it online. 

I wonder if I'll be able to return to clinicals next semester, or what will happen at all next semester really. I have to get ready for this test on Tuesday but I am struggling to muddle through all the things fighting for my attention to discipline myself. For now I need to go to bed. I have a clinical Zoom meeting at 9am. But I'm glad I found the time to do this. I've really wanted to record some of this for the future and my kids miss my blog.