Hello there.  First of all, Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Date:  March 17, 2020

A week before today, I had gone through my kids' clothing to find them all something green to wear to school.  Then the school closed down for an early spring break.  I let my kids wear something green anyway.

There won't be any corned beef and cabbage this year.  (Again!)  I  have never made that for my family.  We have always had to look around at what we already had, and made do.  Something like corn and beef cabbage, where its all mixed together, or something or on the side, and I think one year I added teriyaki sauce.  "Not bad!"  With all the grocery stores being sold out of everything, we are just thankful that our fridge, freezer, and cabinets are full.  Though I am currently drinking a Sprite, as that is what we do when it's cold or flu season.  I guess that's St. Patrick's Day -ish.

For my own life, during this difficult time, things are still basically the same within the walls of my home, mostly.  I just get to keep the girls with me longer.  My spouse still has to work, and so do my in-laws.  I've got their girls with me now.  With a big screen TV, and unlimited youtube videos, everything is pretty calm and laid back.  They are very fond of watching slime videos I noticed, how to make them, and just different recipes to play with.

Trey man's life is REALLY unchanged!  As a stay at home student, he can pick up his studies as usual.  Only......I'm not.  The world is taking a break.  Therefore I am too.  I have stopped doing homework, and I am simply cleaning.  Duce bought us things I have been wanting for a long time now, like essential oils, a vacuum cleaner, (a wet one even!), and the usual things like cough drops and Vick's Vapor Rub.  I'm cleaning this house literally from head to toe, from ceiling to floor, room by room.  It just feels like the right thing to do.

So far everyone is healthy.  Tierri, my youngest got under the weather just a little bit.  We think she got something from little Jalen.  Jalen had a cough when she spent the night.  She left, I think feeling even better from staying here.  The young ones are always the most difficult in basic hygiene, so it's not surprising it was Tierri.  I suppose, with the way you see things on the news, the people reading this are going to assume that Tierri is dead now, or is soon to be dying.  The truth is, Tierri is fine.  She got herself a low grade fever and took a nap, and that's about it.

I'm not really thinking of the future right now.  I can't.  I just want to take this one day at a time.  And I dream that when everyone is ready to wake up and return to the outside world, we will all be more giving.  We will be less fearing.  We will remember how to just breathe.  It's turned into a dog eat dog world out there, with people "panic buying," taking things they don't really need, just so they have it and not somebody else. 

Toilet paper is in demand the most.  So much that between it and hand sanitizer, fights are breaking out in stores.  Most stores are limiting how much toilet paper that people can buy now, and customers are getting angry for it, taking it out on the cashiers'.  And yet, when they were asked, "Why do you need all that toilet paper?" the most popular answer was, "Everyone else was doing it."

I am ashamed of the world I am living in.  We have proven ourselves to be a bunch of sheeple instead of people, capable of humane thought, or able to think for ourselves.  In a world where social media is used a lot, I've seen plenty of messages that appear to reflect how I feel, even as I see more and more fake news being spread about it.  (I think the last one I saw said people that died from the Corona Virus were waking back up as zombies.)  The thing is, I believe that we are all going to be okay.  My family, the world, all of us.  If only we would stop the panicking and making decisions based on fear. 

My spouse and I, it was always our habit to stock up and allow it to last for once a month.  I'm hoping that after all this is over, he might be more giving on allowing me to teach the kids how to raise vegetables.  "There's not enough time!"  He might be more willing to make time for it after this.  For now, I am simply taking a breath, breathe in, breathe out.  I clear my head.  I allow thoughts of how I want my family and friends to feel like while they are in my home, and I concentrate on that, as I clean and dust "all the trauma away." 

It is my hopes, and my dreams, that the rest of the world will just calm down and relax while we all take this time out together, and get some rest.  That when we are all ready to return to the world, that we will remember to bring our manners and our common courtesy with us.  We will have with us, a healthy dose of minimalism, and think "I don't need this much.  I'll allow this for someone else."  That we would give that last bottle of hand sanitizer or whatever else, to the elderly individual that is living on a fixed budget, and can only shop at that certain time, instead of fighting like dogs over the last bone.  I dream of things that I once took for granted, like full shelves of basic things, and a world where the tension that everyone is feeling can just disappear.  I dream of a world, of friends, and family, and togetherness.  No more fear.  Love and health to all.  Those are my dreams for March 17, 2020, and all the rest of our days.  Happy St. Patrick's day!