"Social Distancing" weekend 1

I should have started this last weekend when we first started this "social distancing" thing due to COVID-19, aka Coronavirus. Due to the fact that this virus spreads so quickly, we Americans are asked not go "out and about" except for essentials, stand 6 feet from the next person and wash our hands A LOT! School in Virgina and much of the US is "off" for a couple of weeks. We were told on Friday, March 13th to bring anything home we would need to instruct. We wouldn't be back for awhile...a month! Teachers are expected back April 13th, which was an already planned workday. Students tentatively are due back on April 14th. So, what have we done. Fred and I went to our normal breakfast at the VFW. It was rather empty, but that was expected. Streets seemed to be filled with the usual amount of cars, but the VFW parking lot was not. Sheetz after seemed pretty much the same except the cashier was wearing gloves. Ok. Didn't do anything earth shattering on Saturday. Trying to figure out what I could do to occupy my time at home. Sunday, we didn't go to breakfast or church or anywhere really. By this time we knew there was a toilet paper shortage, for whatever reason. Why toilet paper? Who knows. We had enough for the 3 of us to get by for a couple more weeks. We weren't worried about running out, even though we would be home all day. This is the beginning. Should be interesting.

It's been awhile

This will be short. Trying this blog from my phone, a Motorola Droid Razr. I have Swype, so this shouldn't be too painful. I would like to start blogging about teaching Math and Math ideas, but will probably need to create another page, but would really rather not!
With the election officially happening tomorrow, life is a little crazy. Living in the DC Metro area is showing it's downside right now. :)
Ok. That's a rap. Hoping this will help me blog.

My Daughter's room

I'm currently redoing my 7 year-old's room. She first wanted a Tinkerbell room, but then changed her mind to an "Under the Sea" room. I'm not talking Finding Nemo or The Little Mermaid, but she wants sea creatures.

I painted her room 3 shades of blue and bought some decals from Amazon.com. I knew I could not paint fish. However, I did paint a scuba diver because I was not going to pay $26 for one scuba diver. My daughter thinks the diver looks great and that's all that matters.

All her furniture is wood. So we are installing wall shelves, buying a lighter desk and I'm painting her bed and dresser white. White goes more with a little girl. I had stripped the foot board and headboard to her bed YEARS ago when I thought I would just varnish them. Since then, I've thought everything would look better white. So I wasted countless hours taking off-white paint off the bed pieces just to paint them again! However, they are now white and look pretty darn good, IMHO.

Her dresser is my dresser from when I was 10. It's in decent shape and all wood. I'm still in the process of removing all the varnish to paint it white. This is tedious. I can't imagine 'wanting' to do something like this for fun. I've put a lot of time into this project, as well. I still have to do some minor repairs to the dresser, too, which required me taking the top off of it. I'm hoping gorilla glue for wood will help with the repair. My husband is doubtful.

So, when all is complete, I will post pictures. This is just a teaser, I suppose.

Florida trip(s)

For the past 3 years, I've been trekking from Virginia to Florida for at least 2 weeks during the summer breaks. I visit family and "tourist traps". The first year was due to our house being renovated. The next was due to family vacation at Disney. This year was a shorter visit for family visits. Anyway, driving here is nice because I can come and go as I please. Visit places I used to go. Visit where I want to go. Leave when I want to leave. I'm not dependent upon others to drive me somewhere because I flew down.

Driving down also has the benefit of playing it by ear when I'll leave. I am free to take the kids to the beach or some other destination, as I feel, such as Ft. Lauderdale Beach or Disney or Busch Gardens or Gatorama or Gatorland....the list is pretty endless.

On our way down this year, we stopped in St. Augustine, Florida, for the night for an extra day at the beach and wasting time until my sister would have more days off. It was nice. We went up in the St. Augustine Lighthouse. I would have liked to visit the Old Jail or the Castillo de San Marcos, but that may have been a bit boring to the kids. Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum may have been interesting, but alas, we didn't visit.

We first went to the beach at Anastasia State Park. The next day, we went to the public beach off of A1A near our hotel. Great place and has showers to rinse off. However, the restroom was not that great. The St. Augustine Lighthouse was great, even for a 7 and 10 year old. They climbed all 219 steps without complaint. We took some great pictures of the lighthouse and the grounds. Shopped at the gift shop and headed to Orlando.

First Day of School & A Missing Child

Yes. My daughter was 'missing' on the first day of school. She was fine and actually turned out to be in a safe place, but I didn't know this for about an hour and a half!!

I am a teacher at an elementary school, but my children go to a different elementary school. Their school has before and after school care right there at the school run by a daycare conglomerate in our county. I can drop them off in the cafetorium as early as 6 am and pick them up as late as 6:30 pm. Long time, but they are NEVER there that late.

My son participated in this program last year and LOVED it. They play on the playground, have parties, do homework, have barbies and hotwheels.

So I dropped the children off there in the morning and they get breakfast and go to school. After school, my daughter doesn't show up. The director of the after school program calls me on my cell, as does the principal. I literally run out of my school on the way to theirs, the longest 20-minute drive of my life. While driving back, the after school director is driving to my house, the house where we used to live (just 4 house away) and our neighbor's house. Our neighbor says my daughter was in the car rider line with them and her and her twin daughters waved good-bye to her as they left.

I get there and there are about 8 people in the office and they all look at me as I was in. The principal has me sit in her office after explaining what went on. They are calling the staff that was helping the children in the car rider line, since that's where my neighbor and her twin daughters saw my daughter. The staff doesn't recall seeing her.

Soon after, they say they've called 9-1-1 and I have to stay there until the police arrive. Sometime in the midst of all this they ask me for a picture of her. I had to run out to the car to get the camera, as I took pictures that morning of the children. When I return, there are about 20 people in the office. One of our neighbors walks in and asks if there's any word yet. She's still dressed in her airline uniform from work. I tell her no and she turns around and heads back out the door.

The principal starts downloading the pictures onto her computer and the bookkeeper was calling off-site daycare centers that had picked up children from the school. This was at the suggestion of one the ESOL staff members that was in the car rider line.

That's where she was....at a daycare center. Apparently, the line for the daycare vans is right next to the car rider and my neighbor actually saw her in the daycare van line. She wasn't even supposed to leave the school!!

We had a neighbor on a four-wheeler, our pastor and his daughter on bikes, two neighbors in cars, some neighbors on foot all looking for her. Wow! What a mess, but I think the entire school knows here now, as well as that she is supposed to STAY at school after school. :)