All week long this saying has been bouncing around my head. Credit to the original writer, S.M. Lockridge, for his vivid word picture in his message it’s Friday . . . but Sunday’s coming! A reminder that we have glorious hope in the midst of our troubles.
Not to be sacrilegious, but I am soooo looking forward to this Sunday, because the laundry baskets are overflowing, I vacuum without effect, dishes become dirty as soon as I wash them, but praise God, Sunday is coming and this Sunday finally brings back Amy, my housekeeper.
7 weeks of us at home 24/7 with no outside help, teenage boys that have a different definition of clean than I do, and I’m am holding on by my fingernails, waiting for Sunday to come. We’ve mopped, scrubbed, dusted and sorted, but she is a professional and we are professional mess makers apparently.
Is our quarantine lifted? Not quite, but with Ramadan here, restrictions are easing. We are now allowed to exercise in the area of our home, in groups of up to 3 people, as long as everyone is wearing masks and keeping distance. We still are home all day long, but we can make trips out of the house until 10pm instead of 8pm. Hey, every little bit counts! Malls are preparing to reopen in a limited capacity, with restricted numbers and restaurants at only 30% occupancy. But it’s Ramadan! So daytime restaurant opening is quite novel in itself.
Of all the hassles of this quarantine, the biggest burden on the household and the most conflict has been over cleaning and laundry. Amy takes our mess and puts everything in order, spotless, and where I can find it. She brings us peace.
We have another High School graduate. This week is Carter’s last week of classes and today we were required to film us handing him his diploma so they can edit the pieces together and show it at fake/virtual graduation. We’re hoping for an in-person ceremony in June (even a stripped down version would be more satisfying than CouchGraduation), but I’m putting the odds at 20% or less at the moment.
It appears that I am putting as much effort into my look as I am into housecleaning this week. The activity of today was venturing out, after dark, to go into a coffee place (rather than just drive up and order from the car) so Josh could buy special filters. Then we ordered a coffee to go and drove home. Living on the wild side these days!
Edited to show a live update: why I am longing for Sunday. I asked the boys to clean the kitchen before they went to bed last night. I walked into the kitchen this morning to this. They loaded the dishwasher and touched nothing else. Good enough, right?
Today begins our 10th Ramadan in the Middle East. Usually Ramadan brings sweeping restriction to our normal lives, such as not being allowed to eat or drink in public during daylight hours, no chewing gum or music, shortened school days, and closed restaurants and cafes. Basically life comes grinding to a halt for 30 days.
Today I woke up and thought, “Ramadan. Huh.” Not one thing about today was different from the 5 previous Fridays. We woke up, dragged ourselves to the couch for pre-church prayer meeting. Woke the kids up 10 minutes before the live stream and attended Cornerstone CouchChurch.
She’s not normally this tired for 10am church, but playing Fortnite until midnight every night adds up.
For our game time last night, Caleb and Camille tried to teach me how to play Fortnite. I’m terrible at it because I turn right when I’m trying to turn left and I can’t manage to move my body and my head at the same time while choosing weapons and shooting at a target. Camille was in hysterics over my ineptness. Their ability to multi-task at lightning speeds is pretty impressive.
So our Ramadan day . . . Carter went back to sleep after church since he’s become nocturnal over the past 3 days. He’s pulled a few all nighters for school and then has been sleeping during the day. He says he works better that way and since he’s 18 and going to be on his own in about 20 minutes, I’m happy to leave him be as long as he’s getting everything done. Pretty soon he’ll have plenty of people up in his business as the Navy dictates his every movement so I’m happy to give him a tiny taste of college life before he leaves home.
What else did I do today? A lot of watching Psych and knitting. Some lying on my bed and the couch while doing those activities — gotta change the scenery a bit. I went up to the 3rd floor and worked on my toes to bar skills for 10 minutes (as assigned by my coach). Deciding if I’m going to post the video here or not . . . eh, why not?
Almost 4 reps. Woo hoo. Not a big deal/yes it is.
(It’s annoying me that I can’t turn off the suggested videos at the end of my video — a feature that YouTube used to support, but now doesn’t. Supposedly you can link to another playlist on your channel instead, but after 40 minutes of attempts, I haven’t gotten that to work. Boo. Be forewarned that the suggestions are based on your viewing habits, so if you get inappropriate suggestions, it’s not coming from me!)
I’ve been working with a personal trainer for a few months (Since January, once or 2x a week) on things that I can’t quite get the hang of through coaching in a normal class. We started with pull-ups and have added hand stand pushups, toes to bar, and some barbell work. Since we’ve been on home quarantine she has been coming to our house twice a week to make me work out since she does a much better job keeping me moving than if I’m left to myself.
The way I would work out is to do something for a bit, feel mildly winded and then think, eh that’s good enough. When she comes for our sessions I’m in the middle of a workout thinking, “I’m going to die. Literally I’m going to pick up this weight and then crumple to the ground. There is no way I can keep going.” And then she says, “3, 2, 1 . . . let’s go. Enough rest. Keep going!” And somehow I do and then she leaves and I think it’s a miracle that I’m still alive.
Twice a week we’re dead.
Oh to be a cat! Ramadan Kareem in this time of RamaTine!
For the past 48 hours, my never-ending refrain has been, “Where’s the cat?” in an attempt to manage and halt his revenge peeing. Since our previous pee control attempts to banish him to the outside during the day and then crate him at night didn’t work (because our dog, Micah, kept letting him back in the house — seriously, our pets are so weird), my new approach was to give the cat tons of space, free reign of the house, and NO TOUCHING, but keep a close eye on him in case he was in a pissy mood, both literally and figuratively.
So far so good. We’ve been tiptoeing around the cat like he’s royalty and he has rewarded us by giving us bored yawns and keeping his pee to himself.
The king on his throne.
On cat watch patrol.
Yes we have a fancy, fussy cat. Zeki is an indoor/outdoor cat who comes inside to use his litter box (or Camille’s blanket, as the mood strikes) and he also takes a shower with Caleb almost every morning. Oh yes he does. He has loved water since he was a kitten and comes running when he hears the shower turn on. One of the ways that quarantine has disrupted his life is he’s not been getting his daily shower because Caleb has been rolling from bed to school and then showering later in the day when Zeki isn’t around.
wet rat cat
Yesterday morning I knew I had regained favor with the cat when I was taking a shower and he pushed his way in and sat on my feet. Of course then I had to step around his wet body as I was trying to wash my hair, but it’s a small inconvenience to endure in exchange for pee free belongings.
And I fell upon this timely quote that sums up my life these days regarding all the living creatures in this house:
I’ve had a few requests for a blog post this week and wow, it’s nice to be wanted! I specifically haven’t been writing because two weeks ago I started a draft that was just a big old whine of . . . well, here you go:
The weekend is exactly the same as any other day in these Times of Corona. If I were wise I would stay off all social media because I get annoyed when I see things like “day 11 of lockdown. Going crazy.” And then posting photos of themselves wandering in the woods or on an isolated beach. It’s completely unreasonable and based in envy and discontent. And I’m . . .
And then I stopped myself because none of that matters. And who am I to be complaining? So what if things started kicking off here at the end of February and we’re 6 or 7 weeks into the disruption while other people are only on week 3? Big fat deal. If we are playing the “who has it worse?” game, I would certainly lose. Boo hoo, I’m stuck in my big house with more than one computer per person, multiple TVs, plenty of food, exercise equipment, and a husband who is still employed and working from home.
So what does our lockdown/quarantine look like? For starters, we are all home, all the time. I think Josh went to the grocery store a week ago. Oh, and Caleb went to the grocery store to get whole wheat flour to bake bread. But maybe that was the week before. The days blur one into another. And Carter walks the dog up and down the street every now and then when I remind him. Other than that . . . we are inside Bayt Chartier 24/7
We are all up late every single night as our Chartier Plan for Success went out the window during week one of quarantine. Also gone are most limits on gaming/screentime. Basically if I ask them to help clean up an area of the house, they are supposed to do that without complaining, other than that they are staring at screens until their eyes bleed. I don’t really care because what else is there to do? Caleb even built a computer this past week so now all 3 of them are on and yelling at each other to “go here!” “No! over there!” in whatever game they are playing at the moment. Caleb and Camille are on Fortnight with their California cousins and Carter plays some sort of shooting game like Call of Duty with his friends.
Putting it together
it works!
With no set bedtime we end up going to bed whenever Josh and I decide that Camille has been up late enough. Usually by 11. Any earlier than that and she spends the next 2 hours texting us from her ipad:
Then we go to bed, watch something on the computer and hopefully I fall asleep by 1am? Usually Camille wanders in once or twice because we are out of Good Day Chocolates and can’t get them here so that’s 2 strikes against us. Josh is usually asleep before me, but he also has to get up for work phone calls and meetings most mornings. The boys get to stay up and play as long as they can get themselves up for school by 9am. So far I think Caleb has only slept through class once.
It might sound like I’m abdicating my parenting responsibility and I might be, but no one wants to be micromanaged when we have to be together 24/7. I’ve decided that school is their job and helping to keep the house clean is their other job and as long as they can accomplish those things and not irritate me by fighting over technology, then it can be a free for all.
In the Win Win Win category, gaming/computers without limits means that no one wants to talk to me all day long so I can craft to my heart’s content. A week ago I got a bag of scrap fabric from a friend and have been creating this quilt ever since. This project was brought to you by all 8 seasons of Monk, my strained lower back muscles, and my poor abused thumb and forefinger (from pushing and pulling the needle through layers of fabric). There’s a reason Josh used to joke about my sweatshop, because once I get on a roll, I don’t stop and time passes without me even noticing.
sorting scraps
all pieced by hand
next step — embroidery
As far as lockdown goes, it’s been my most contented week yet. I felt productive, creative, and inspired. It probably also helped that sewing and streaming TV kept me off of Facebook, Instagram, and Mumsnet (a British forum that I find endlessly entertaining). No chance to compare anyone else’s life with mine and no consuming other people’s complaints meant I was free to enjoy my own life in a vacuum.
Pandemic: The Cure — we haven’t found a cure yet
The one thing we’re doing that I’m proud of is Forced Family Fun every evening. We started this about 2 weeks ago when I became worried that we were going to go days at a time without speaking to the kids — other than when they show up in the kitchen for food. I told them that we were doing a mandatory hour of togetherness and they voted for games. I don’t do games. They got me.
I can confirm that the end of the world is near since I’m now playing board games every night: We did a 3 night run of Stranger Things Monopoly, then moved on to Carcassonne (Gold Rush and Winter), Pandemic: The Cure, 7 Wonders, Exploding Kittens and Sushi-Go. I won’t complain about Carcassonne and I might actually secretly enjoy it.
It’s now almost midnight and Camille is gaming away with her brother, cousin, and uncle with no sign of being ready to stop. We have church tomorrow at 10 and I had to wake them up for it last week . . . I better set my alarm for 9:15 so I can get vaguely camera ready. We meet for online church and then we “host” a fellowship group immediately after the livestream where we catch up with various people, talk about the sermon, and share prayer requests.
some of our Abu Dhabi family
All in all, the Chartiers are surviving and maybe even thriving in quarantine. The one outlier is Zeki, our cat, who is royally irritated that we are home all the time and invading his space. So he has taken to angry peeing on Camille’s comforter. Most likely because she loves him so much and wants to carry him around all the time, lock him in her room with her, and contain him like her prisoner. I was joking that she was like Kathy Bates in Misery and the poor cat was going to be loved to death, and I guess the cat felt the same and started retaliating. Bless, just what we need, to be trapped with an angry wizzing cat. Stay tuned to see how this saga unfolds.
