Well, after 6 months working from home full time, I'm back in the office 2 days a week. It's totally optional to go in, but honestly, I kind of like it. Hardly anyone is there, so I feel like the risk is low. And I'm so much more productive at my real desk with the big monitors and super fast server connection. Plus, now that I work 5 days a week again like a normal person, it helps break things up a bit. If I had to commute by train downtown, I might not be so enthused, but a 30-min drive to an almost empty building in the suburbs is not exactly a hardship.
Right around the time I started going back to the office, we found out that Molly's school will be completely remote until November 16th. After that, they're starting with just 10-12 kids per grade in person. Molly isn't even on the list for the first wave, so it's looking like she'll be learning from home until some time in 2021. Crazy!
But Molly IS back in the pool, swimming 3 times a week with a small group of kids for Team Blue Fish with the YWCA. After a 6-month slow-down, I think she needs this. She's also started meeting up with a couple of friends and a tutor on Mondays (outside) to work on grammar, reading comprehension, writing, and some other stuff that seems to be playing more of a role now that she's a big 5th grader. Who knows, maybe she'll end up exactly where she should be after all is said and done.
Molly is also slowly but surely working her way through OIT. She's up to the equivalent of 2 hazelnuts and 1 walnut every morning. Kind of hard to believe, given that just a small taste sent her to the emergency room just a couple of years ago! Right around Thanksgiving, she should officially be in the maintenance phase and able to eat whatever she wants without checking labels. Nutella, here we come!
As for Jason, he's got a few prints up for sale at our favorite coffee shop (Coffee Lab) and people are buying! It was the boost of energy he needed to start printing again. That, and the new washout sink he has set up in our laundry room that allows him to clean screens through the winter.
Speaking of our laundry room, and basement, we're in the middle of a little re-do. We had some flooding back in May, so ended up ripping up the carpet and switching to an epoxy floor. We cleared out some of the bulky furniture and are making room for a Peloton bike! (I know, I know, the commercial.) But if we're going to be home all winter, I need something more than a yoga mat and hand weights!
Last, but not least, we were able to get up to Wisconsin for a nice little getaway before the numbers spiked and the state was added back to the quarantine list. It was a lovely and relaxing weekend, made even better because Joe was in town for work and able to join us!
It's looking like things are pretty good from this post. On one hand, they are. We're healthy and doing what we can to stay happy. On the other hand, there's still A LOT happening in the world. Fires are burning through the West coast. The election is looking like its going to be dramatic. Tensions are way up. There's so much plastic that can't be recycled ... It's hard to know what to focus on, but I'm thinking maybe I'll focus on using less plastic for a start. Look at that picture up there, with 3 single-use plastic bottles on the table! We can do better!
I found a coworker who crochets mats for disaster relief in Haiti out of plastic grocery bags, so I'm trying to gather those up for her. I'd rather they get stitched up into something useful than left to be buried in a landfill. Once I work my way through the half-filled bottles of shampoo in my bathroom, I'm going to try making the switch to bar shampoo (I hear good things ...). And I've found a company called Dropps that ships their laundry and dishwasher pods in cardboard to reduce waste. Might as well give it a try! If you have any other zero-waste ideas, let me know.
