Deafening Silence

         The sound of silence was deafening. There was no laughter or students talking which added to the realization that nothing was normal in this situation.

         As I entered my room, I took notice of my name plate outside my room. I hadn’t seen that name plate for two months. My room was just how I left it on March 17^th with the chairs around the table as though I was going to sit down and teach a lesson to three students. The words “The author talks about folktales, myths, and legends,” were still written with black ink on the white board. I could still see the date of March 12^th at the top of the board.

         March 12^th, the day the world stopped at least for me as an educator. It was the 5-month anniversary of my mom’s death and the first time I had worked on the date of the 12^th since September. That week in March had a full moon and a Friday the 13^th. All teachers were dreading that week. I was just dreading the 12^th. You see I’m a dates person. Dates loom over me like a balloon following the one holding the string.

         Dismissal duty came and I was told, “Governor DeWine is closing the schools for 3 weeks.”

         “Cool, a 3-week Spring Break,” was my initial thought.

         Then the dreaded staff meeting after work caused my mind to switch from cool to worry because I didn’t know if I was going to be coming back to school for the remainder of the year.

         Now 2 months later, I had only stepped in the building twice since the shut-down. I was here to close up shop for the year. Luckily, I had sense to clean up and put away all of my belongings on my last day. So, my mission was to get my paperwork in order and to find my staff handbook. I was closing up the year once again in unusual circumstances for last year we had the tornadoes. Then I had to close up my room in the dark.

         The silence was deafening while I worked today because my room was missing one important detail that I couldn’t bring in. My room was missing my students who bring life to the room.

Quarantine Day 1

March 17, 2020

Note: I will not tell the times to all of these activities.

5:00 - I'm outside taking my personal stuff and groceries from Hubby's car. The Air Force Base is doing their 5 o'clock bugle music. Then they played the National Anthem.

The rest is just observations for the remainder of the day.

Texted back and forth with my aunt. - Started to get sleepy. My blood sugar was getting ready to tank. All of the stress from the last 4 days finally caught up with me.

Tried to nap. Didn't work but I couldn't get out of bed. Finally crashed for an hour. Blood sugar was still not good.

Warmed up my dinner which was one of the easy rices and left overs from the day before and some hot chocolate.  Felt better after dinner.

Boys had been hiding in their room, so I just messed around my phone. Then they came into the living room to tell me that they wanted to get a plague mask.

Cleaned up in the kitchen. My hands hurt so much from washing my hands, so I had to ask the Oldest help me with washing the few dishes that needed hand washed.

I had to teach the Youngest what it meant to pick up all of the floor.

Bedtime.

4:15 to 4:35 - At least think it was that time. I woke up with thoughts going through my brain. Finally I went back to bed.

Join me next time for day 2 of quarantine. AKA The one where I can't figure out technology.

God Bless,
Traci

Road to self-imposed quarantine

As of 5 pm on St. Patrick's Day, I am on a self-imposed quarantine. 

I work at a school that has been shut down. I'm working remotely.

Thursday afternoon - Governor DeWine announced that all schools were closed for 3 weeks. Meeting with the principal about what it was going to look like.

Go to the grocery store - What a mess! A lot of food items were gone, and it was busy. There were very few carts available to people.

I let someone know that my cart was available. Her dad thanked me for my kindness. Just because life is uncertain now doesn't mean that simple good deeds should go away.

Friday - Go to work to set up my Google Classroom. I mandatory meeting with my team to see how I would provide service to my students. 
More things were shut down. Life was changing minute by minute.

Saturday - Went to a conference and then home for the rest of the day.

Sunday - Didn't go anywhere. Watched 3 different church services while getting my Google classroom set up. 

Then I burned my hand pouring water for hot tea. Ouch, I couldn't sleep until midnight because my hand hurt like the dickens.

Monday - Cried before work because life right now is uncertain. I don't know if I will see my students again or when I'll see them. 

It was like Doomsday when the day began for the students because we only had about 40% of the students we typically have. The morning duty was quiet when it was usually bustling.

A few students came to my room to spend time with me. (AKA Let's leave Mrs. G. with a headache because I want to beg for stuff.)

Tuesday - Clean up/ out my room, set up Google Classroom, and social distancing at work. I threw away so many papers because I had nowhere to put them, which was frustrating. I had planned to recycle them but couldn't because of the suddenness of this whole Coronavirus pandemic.

Hubby drove me to and from work in case I had a lot of personal stuff to bring home.

We decided to go to the store and get some last-minute items. We found milk, butter, and bread. Got the allowed amount because, well, we use all 3 items.

Then I went to the rice area and found the easy rice aisle. Confused because it said to limit 2 items on sanitary and health items. Rice is neither of those 2 categories. Grabbed 4 just in case, but I might need to put 2 back if necessary. (I didn't have to put any away.)

Got some salad kits so I can have some veggies. I love veggies, so this was important.

Got home at about 5 till 5, and I was in quarantine!