This is more of a random tidbits post. Nothing real earth-shattering in it. More mundane details of life in April 2020.

I think we’ve reached the point in our house where we are all a little pissy with each other. Last week did not help. Damp, dreary, cool. We were stuck inside all last week due to the chilly, wet weather. My mind kept reaching for something that would get us out of the house: a practice or game, a birthday party, a sleepover, a dinner with friends.

I’ve certainly been a little shorter with the girls the past few days. Their moods seem darker, too.

Fortunately the sun is back out this week. Tuesday was unseasonably cool despite the sun, but Monday was warm and nice. C and L asked me to put our tent up in the backyard and they actually spent a good chunk of the day outside. If we can just keep the temperatures in the 60s and have a few dry hours each day, that will go a long way toward improving everyone’s moods.

I put off calling our pool company a week too long. I finally called yesterday in hopes of opening the pool up in 10–14 days. The best they could do was May 13. Which isn’t terrible, especially given how we are going to have cool nights for awhile and opening the pool now means the heater would be running constantly.

My big accomplishment of the week was doing some work in our bedroom closet. It began with some normal, seasonal movements. Taking most of my cold-weather clothes to the basement, tossing some items I don’t wear anymore into the Goodwill pile, putting the warm-weather clothes in a more convenient spot. Standard April stuff.

I really got nutty, though, and completely changed how I deal with my everyday shorts. For years I’ve been hanging them up. I did this with the idea that this keeps them from getting wrinkled plus you can see each pair rather than having to dig through a pile to find the ones you’re looking for. But I tossed them over a standard hanger, which means they would get kind of bunched up and hang awkwardly. I was not interested in buying a bunch of expense hangers with clips to let them fall off rather than over the hanger.

So I texted a couple college friends and asked how they store their shorts. Neither of them hang theirs. One stacked his on a shelf, the other in a drawer. I did some moving of items around to create space on a closet shelf and now my summer shorts are all stacked in two neat piles.

One of my friends suggested this was the most important issue the three of us had ever texted about. I’m inclined to agree.

Some academic changes. M will have no finals and now finishes classes a week earlier than planned, May 15. St. P’s will adjust their grading scale for Q4 and have a 3–1 scale, three being highest, one being lowest. They will not have GPAs or an honor roll this quarter, and for the year the grades from Q’s 1–3 and four will be separated. What a nightmare to be a school administrator right now, between trying to figure out how to handle e-learning and grading while also making contingencies for how to begin the 2020–21 academic year. I do not envy those folks at all and keep reminding our girls, when they get frustrated, how hard that job is at the moment.

S does telemedicine visits each morning. She had a call last week that made us both laugh. A lot of times her patients get on the phone with their parents, especially older kids that can explain exactly what they’re experiencing. The younger kids just like to get on and talk to Dr. S. After one of those visits with a three-year-old, the kid asked if he could have a sucker like when he visits her office. We thought that was great.

L has taken over the house office for her school work. S does most of her calls and computer work from the living room couch. Me? I spend most of my days in our sunroom. I have all my electronics in here. Several books, magazines, and my Kindle stacked on the coffee table. There’s a deck of Uno cards that L and I have used a few times. My old Strat-o-matic baseball game that I keep meaning to actually open up and play. A couple golf clubs leaning against a chair. It’s pretty random, it is (hopefully) relatively temporary, but still feels pretty comfortable. Especially on the days I can open the windows.