2020

It's hard to really put into just a few words a description for this year so far. It started off good, normal, and cold. And then just when we were getting excited about the weather to turn warmer, for us to be able to get outside again and enjoy the sunshine, play, explore, and warm up, everything changed. On March 27, we could no longer go to playgrounds, libraries, restaurants, and SCHOOLS amongst other public places. The kids last day of physically being at school was on March 13, 2020. They were supposed to end school on May 21 of this year. But because of a WORLD pandemic, the state of Illinois, along with other states and countries, went into a stay at home order. An infection called Covid-19 also called Coronavirus had started and spread through Wuhan, China in December of 2019 with one person being infected. That person went out into the city and spread the virus. Some people left there and flew all over the world, went on cruise ships, and lo and behold, it spread like wild-fire. To this day there are 8 million people infected across the world with 437,000 deaths. In the united states alone there are over 2 million cases and 118,000 deaths. Illinois is in the top 3 states of our country with infections. And of course with all scary and bad situations there are always people helping, and there are heroes. And today, our heroes are the front line workers, the ones putting themselves at risk of catching the virus to help other people. It's a scary time, and we are so thankful for the bravery and strength of these heroes. Being that this is a new virus, we still aren't sure how it started, whether in a lab or naturally, there is obviously no vaccine. So they don't know the exact nature of the beast. At first they said it could only be spread by bodily fluids, then it could be spread by touching the surface of an infected surface, then it was said that asystamatic people can pass it by just talking. This caused a panic, and caused for companies to be closed, except for essential businesses. Restaurants could only offer take out or delivery service and our economy went into a recession and downward spiral. When the stay at home order started, we distanced ourselves from everyone. The kids had to be home schooled by yours truly. They didn't really love that. We had to get creative with tasks, play, and set new rules. When word spread that we would have to be on said "quarantine" people panicked, stocked up on food, water, and shockingly TOILET PAPER. You couldn't get toilet paper at any place you wanted to anymore. Some stores were out, limiting how much you could buy. Out of all things, I never would have thought to ever worry that we wouldn't have enough toilet paper. Lol. We stocked up on food, meat, ordered what we could from AMAZON. Of course our worry was that maybe the grocery stores would close, but thankfully they never did. The brave checkout people stayed working. And we tried to get as many groceries as possible via grocery drive-up & pickup. We limited our trips to the store, got creative with meals at home, as well as communication with the outside world. I had never heard of ZOOM before this, and we found ourselves communicating via ZOOM or messenger more than I thought possible. Lol. We zoomed with lots of friends, there were classroom zooms twice a week, girl scout zooms, college friend zooms, old friends, etc. It was in a way an excuse to connect with old friends that we hadn't spoken to in a while. Which was very nice. Zach normally commutes to work via the train to ROGERS PARK for 3 hours a day. But they forced their employees to work from home, which has been a blessing for all of us, and he has really enjoyed it. He has had to start going in a couple days a week (driving this time; no public transport), working from home for 3 as to stagger their employees presence. School finally ended on May 21st, and since then we have eased the distancing in our life a little bit. Picking up groceries once again, with of course a MASK and gloves. The mask is necessary and mandatory in public places and in outdoor places where social distancing is hard to uphold. "Social Distancing" is also a new phrase we have had to learn. We have been told we should stand 6 feet apart from other people. Finally after 2 months of only offering take out or delivery on May 27,2020 restaurants finally opened up for outdoor seating. I have not been yet, but the fact that I can makes me smile. 2 little things that changed during this time, which ended up being BIG things for us. 1 was that we couldn't hug our loved ones. We saw grandparents from a distance, cousins from a distance and no one could hug you. We miss our HUGS. And # 2 the playgrounds have been closed. I have always thought of playgrounds as one of the best forms of entertainment for kids. The city of Downers Grove announced last week that playgrounds are open, but play at your own risk and of course "social distance". The interesting thing is that the GOVERNOR hasn't announced yet that playgrounds our open. We decided to go out on a limb, hit the parks early, social distance of course, and PLAY! And it sure has been refreshing.