Happy Halloween

I'm not sure what tonight it going to bring. No matter what happens, we're prepared. My husband and the kids built a socially-distanced-candy-delivery-system for passing out treats; and  I made socially-distant-treat-collecting-bags so they kids can get candy safely.

I'm having visions of next year's Halloween special on TV - How The Corona Virus Stole Halloween.  Maybe the virus's heart will grow three sizes and decide to stop infecting people. It could happen; it would be a Halloween miracle...

Just Plain Weird

 

The last couple of weeks have been odd. Like, really odd. For the past two weeks I've been teaching from home. OK, I know, lots of teachers are teaching from home right now; there's nothing strange about that. But, the kids I've been teaching have been at school.

You read that right, I have been teaching lessons at my dining room table to kids who are present in the school building. Oddly enough, it has worked out well. I'm not sick - just quarantined due to being exposed to Covid-19 - so I'm physically able to work. The school hasn't needed to hire a sub due to my providing daily Zoom lessons and assignments through Google Classroom. (Don't worry - my students have been supervised by an in-person-adult.) Despite how well it's worked, it's by no means a perfect solution and I've been counting the days until I can return to my classroom. (Not that being home has been awful, by any means. You should see my basement, it hasn't been this organized in years.)

The Health Department has given my husband, my daughter and I clearance to return to work and school tomorrow. It's perfect timing. I get to go back to school for the Halloween party! Seeing town is going to be strange, too. I haven't left the house since Friday, October 9th. 

Seems like a long time, doesn't it. The Health Department quarantined my son for two weeks from the onset of his symptoms. The rest of us had to remain at home for two weeks after his last possible infectious day. (Which for us ended up being 21 days.) I'm glad they've been cautious. I would have hated to be the cause of any of my students getting sick. Healthy kids are 100% worth having to teach from home!

Sick

I'm so glad my husband, the kids and I got outside last week. We took a long walk through the woods on one of those perfect sweater-weather fall days. The ground was damp enough to have that earthy-leafy fall smell and there were enough leaves on the ground to crunch beneath our feet as we walked. It was glorious.

I'm glad we got out, because as of Friday, we are in quarantine.

My son has tested positive for Covid-19. Today, he's OK.  He's clearly sick: sore throat, snotty nose, exhausted, not hungry (no fever though.) But he's not in a hospital on a ventilator and for that I am thankful. Now I just need to breathe. Breathe and try to stop worrying about whether or not my husband or daughter are going to get sick.

 

The outpouring of support we've received has been amazing. Every single person I've spoken to in the last three days has offered to help us. I feel so  incredibly lucky to be surrounded by so much love and support!

Reading

Much to my husband's dismay, I have always enjoyed Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga. This summer the newest book in the series came out, so of course, I had to get it. It was quite interesting. It's the same story told in Twilight except this version is told from Edward's perspective rather than Bella's. 

Sigh

A staff member at school has tested positive for Covid-19, so I'm back to teaching from my dining room table. (Right now that person is asymptomatic, and doing alright.)

 

 I cannot tell you how impressed I am with my students.

They show up on Zoom, every morning at 8:30 on the dot, ready to work on the day's math; they work without me for a while, and then Zoom again later in the day. They've been bright and cherry and have diligently worked on every assignment I've given them. No teacher could ask for better kids - or parents!

 

As of right now, it looks like we'll be Zooming until Wednesday the 14th. Then, hopefully, it's back to school. And just in case you're curious, I always get parent permission before I use student photos on my blog.

** 10/18: Edited to add: Due to staffing issues the administration decided to keep us virtual all this week. As of today, the plan is to return to face-to-face instruction tomorrow. (10/19/20)

Happiness is

 

 

...fall flowers...

Special Delivery

UPS travels to the Island on the freight boat in the standard brown UPS truck. Once on the dock, the packages are taken out of the truck and loaded onto a dray to be delivered around the Island. In the winter the packages come to the island via airplane.

A couple days ago I was walking down Main Street and a box on the UPS dray caught my eye. Do you see it? Nestled between goodies from Amazon and Target is a box labeled "extreme caution! LIVE SCORPIONS." 

Here, take a closer look:

At first I was a little surprised, I mean who on Mackinac would be ordering live scorpions? Other than the Butterfly House, but my son works there and I think he would have told me if they were adding new scorpions to their display. I did a double take and saw the box was actually a box of Michigan Chillers  books, by Jonathan Rand, headed to the Island Bookstore. I certainly appreciated Mr. Rand's sense of humor; he had me giggling all the way home.

Finally

We finally got the last of our returnables back to the store. It took us two trips with the car since the 14 kitchen-sized trash bags full of bottles and cans wouldn't all fit in the car at the same time. Thank goodness we have plenty of storage space in the basement.

When all was said and done, we had almost $90. If you're not from Michigan, we have a bottle return law here. Each time you buy a carbonated beverage, you pay a ten cent deposit on the container. You get your ten cents back when you return the container to the store. During the spring, all stores in Michigan stopped accepting returnables due to Covid. They're taking them back now, but at both Wal-Mart and Meijer only half the machines are open to keep customers socially distanced. Plus, both have a $25 per person, per day limit. Luckily, there were four of us.

Hunting

During our last week of summer the kids and I spent a lovely day on Nine Mile Point. (Nine Mile Point is located between Petoskey and Charlevoix on Michigan's lower peninsula.) No day on Lake Michigan would be complete without hunting for Michigan's state stone, the Petoskey stone.

Petoskey stones are actually pieces of  fossilized coral (Hexagonaria percarinata if you're curious.) When the stones are dry the don't look very interesting, but when they're wet or polished, the shape of the coral is easy to see.

In just a half an hour or so, we found quite a few. Our next step is to get some different grits of sandpaper so we can work on polishing the stones (following these directions.)  Hopefully, once they are polished, they'll look something like this one.

Not my picture (this one is for sale on Etsy for $65.00,) but it gives you an idea of what they look like polished.

First Day 2020

The first day of school is here any my wonderful coworkers talked my teenagers into taking a first day picture with me.

My daughter is 14, my son is almost 16, and I am the shortest one in the family...