What to Call It?

Posted on 03/16/2020 by chick

I haven’t decided yet what to call our pandemic-induced time at home.

  • Quarantine
  • Self-isolation
  • Lockdown
  • Exile

I like “quarantine” and “lockdown” for their simplicity, but “self-isolation” is probably more accurate. It feels like “exile,” though, and that’s the term I noticed myself using in my thoughts today. But there are other possibilities, if we want to get a little more creative.

  • Extreme Telecommuting
  • Uninterrupted Family Time
  • Hermit Practice
  • The Great Hunkering Down
  • Mars Isolation Experiment: Family Edition

What else might we call it?

P.S. Gotta add “Sheltering in place” to the list now that some cities are ordering their citizens to do that.

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Day 3: Marshall Law

Posted on 03/16/2020 by chick

Since much of the Twitter talk today is in regards to “Marshall Law,” I will tell you about how Marshall Law works, because that’s something I know a lot about.

Under Marshall Law, there is/are…

  • No school and no homework
  • Unlimited television
  • All-day gaming
  • Plenty of pizza
  • No official bedtime (stay up as late as you want!)
  • No parental rules
  • Dessert after every meal (and in-between meals, too!)

P.S. Neither martial law nor Marshall Law has actually been declared. Too bad, Marshall!

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Day 2: Word of the Year

Posted on 03/15/2020 by chick

Today’s Thoughts

  • My husband said to me today that he thinks the Word of the Year will be “flatten the curve.” I thought this was very interesting, because I had already decided that it will be “social distancing.” I was curious what other people thought, so I published a poll on Twitter. It was purely for ha-has, because such things tend to fizzle, but as of now I’ve got three votes, which is already more than my last poll got (I feel seen!). FWIW, “social distancing” is in the lead. Shortly after creating the poll, I saw that Merriam-Webster’s trending term of the day is “hunker down.” That’s also a goodie.
  • I talked to my mom today. She and my father have decided to hunker down in Vermont, where there’s a lower population density and fewer Coronavirus cases. I think that’s a good idea, though it puts them twice as far away from me. I told her to call me if they have any problems and that I will drive up to help them, but I also told her not to make me have to do that. Luckily for me, they’re on board with the idea of staying home. I would not want to have to lecture them or remind them of the fact that they are old and therefore more susceptible to the virus. Not only is it not my place to tell my parents what to do, but I would probably get hysterical because I’m already stressed out and very worried about them.
  • The father-daughter dance was supposed to be on Friday, but it was cancelled for obvious reasons. We had already bought Livia a dress and accessories. It’s looking more and more like the dance will never be rescheduled. That’s sad for Livia, who was looking forward to it. We also don’t want her dress and accessories to go to waste. So we are thinking about having our own special formal dinner and dance at home. If self-isolation measures go on for many weeks, we will have to think of other special events and activities so that we don’t all go stir-crazy.
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Third Pattern

Posted on 03/15/2020 by chick

Yesterday was the first day since Rhode Island announced that all schools would be closed next week, and that made it feel like the first day of vacation. (It was really more like the first day of quarantine, but we take our happy feelings wherever we can find them). I celebrated by working on something just for fun: designing a cross-stitch pattern for another “calamity” and test-stitching it. Here’s how it turned out.

Freshly-Stitched Pterodactyl
The square of material that I stitched over is waste canvas. Without it, I could never have stitched such straight lines and even X’s.
The best thing about using waste canvas is pulling it out, thread by thread. It’s as satisfactory as picking a scab, but less bloody, making it a superior form of stress relief.
Here’s how the pterodactyl looks now. My husband and I agreed that the stitches hanging off the wings and head didn’t look right, so I added a few more stitches to even things out. I might change the design slightly to make the wings mirror each other better, but at least I now have a working design.

I had wondered when I started this project if it was totally crazy and a waste of time, but seeing the three designs together makes me feel like I’m making good progress and that it’s going to look awesome when it’s done. I still have a lot of work to do. Toward that end, here are three things that I’ve learned so far and that I should keep in mind for future patterns:

  1. The size is determined by the smallest/thinnest element of the design. For the zombie poodle, it was the legs and neck. For the cat it was the tail and the eyes (each eye had to be one stitch in size, and there had to be stitches all the way around to set them off, which meant modifying the head shape slightly). For the pterodactyl, it was the beak and legs.
  2. Sometimes the orientation of the image needs to be adjusted. In order for the pterodactyl’s beak to look right, it had to be on a straight line. The original image wasn’t oriented that way, so I had to rotate it. It wasn’t a hard thing to do, but I wish I’d realized it sooner and saved myself the effort of re-gridding it. I reoriented it so that the beak was on a diagonal. My pterodactyl appears to be soaring, not swooping, which makes it less menacing than the original. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it is worth noting.
  3. Those stitches hanging off the pterodactyl’s wings and head made sense when I was creating the design, but they didn’t look very good when they were stitched in. The zombie poodle has some hanging stitches, too, and I like them less now that I’ve focused on them. I might remove them from the design, and I will try to avoid them in future patterns.
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Day 1: King Lear

Posted on 03/14/2020 by chick

On Twitter today, people are pointing out the Shakespeare wrote “King Lear” while he was quarantined. Apparently we’re supposed to find inspiration in this and each pen our own masterpiece while we isolate ourselves. Does a blog post count? If it does, then I also wrote “King Lear” while in quarantine.

Other random thoughts and reportings:

  • Regarding my work deadline, I handed in my issue a little late, but not so late as to get myself in trouble. Plus, my boss is the one who physically hands in the materials when I’m done with them. She was unexpectedly late that day, which made my lateness irrelevant. Whew!
  • I often feel like screaming these days, but usually in the metaphorical sense only. Yesterday all the rage and frustration hit me so hard that I damn near yelled for real. A feeling of impending doom is bad enough, but having an inept and corrupt government just makes the whole thing worse. But then we got word that school would be cancelled for next week. We had already decided not to send the kids to school for a while, but it was a relief to get the news. It meant the local government, at least, was acting, and it meant we wouldn’t have to explain ourselves to the school. The governor has framed this action as moving April vacation up. It’s a smart move that will give them time to work out a plan without too much additional hardship on workers. People were going to have to arrange for care of their children during the vacation week anyway. I feel less like screaming now.
  • I made grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches for lunch today. Livia railed about the tomatoes, but she ate them. That’s progress.
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Bad Managers

Posted on 03/10/2020 by chick

Today I am trying not to worry too much over the government’s bad management of the coronavirus pandemic as I struggle with the near impossibility of meeting a work deadline due to my own poor time management.

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Nature Report

Posted on 03/09/2020 by chick

The crocuses have been blooming for several days, and the daffodils are budding. No sign of violets in the yard yet, but I found tiny telltale leaves of dandelions, chickweed, clover, cinquefoil, and ground ivy. And the peepers have started to sing!

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Absentminded Antiprocrastination

Posted on 03/05/2020 by chick

Being a mom has eroded my procrastinating tendencies. I still look at unpleasant chores, such as the dishes, and say to myself, “I can’t handle this right now.” But then ten minutes later, the work is done. I’ve gotten so used to the inevitability of chores that I do them absentmindedly, even after having given myself permission not to.

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Cross-Stitch Pattern #2

Posted on 03/02/2020 by chick
Pattern #2 Successfully Test-Stitched
(pattern based on a Calamityware design)
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Awkward and Weird

Posted on 02/29/2020 by chick

Heard around the house:

Awkward turtles make weird babies.

From “The Llama Song“
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