Hello, March!

Hello, March! 

Honestly, I’m glad you’re here. I’m going to need to recap February, just for documenting purposes and while hoping spring truly comes this month.

Cate came home early from school the first Monday of the month because she (and her class, and turns out probably her whole basketball team) was exposed to Covid. Ben came home early the next day because he didn’t feel good. He had strep throat. His Covid test was negative. 

My mother-in-law Peggy, who had quadruple bypass heart surgery on Jan. 4 and recovered at our house, had an issue with her incision the same day Ben was sick, so I actually was on the way to the surgeon’s office an hour away when Ben called. Her incision was fine, but I’m glad we got it looked at and brought some advice home. 

Rachel’s preschool teacher was exposed through a different student not in that class so Rachel didn’t go to school that week either. The irony of the Covid cases at school was the timing. We hadn’t had any students and only one teacher test positive while school was in session since August. Then the week multiple middle & high school students then teachers tested positive, several of us were able to get Covid vaccines. I’m thankful my part-time job at the school gave me the opportunity to get a vaccine.

On Thursday that first week of February, Cate started feeling tired and achy. She was up in the middle of the night with severe chills. I took her to get Covid tested on Friday morning. The rapid test said she had flu A, but we also did a send-off Covid test, which came back positive on Monday morning.

We all – including Peggy who was still with us – quarantined. Then on Monday, Ben’s teacher started with Covid symptoms so she and the students who had been at school were quarantined at this point too. Miraculously, nobody else at my house got Covid and a Cate was a champ quarantining in her little sister’s hot pink room while her Gran-Gran was living in her bedroom. (I shared some on Instagram here and here, if you want to read more about our Covid experience.)

Ice closed the school that second week of February – not that my kids were going at that point anyway. Then on Valentine’s Day, our last day of quarantine, we had a snowstorm. It snowed multiple inches multiple times that week. (Yes, of course, I posted some snow pictures here and here and here and here.)

On Monday, Feb. 22, all three kids returned to school after three weeks at home. The same day, the heart surgeon cleared Peggy to resume normal life, so she moved home that Tuesday after more than six weeks at our house. My sweet mother-in-law celebrated her 70th birthday on Saturday.

Last seemed incredibly busy because I was catching up on things with our vacation rentals, taxiing kids to and from school and basketball games, following up on emails and phone calls I’d put off, and sitting at the orthodontist’s parking lot for two hours while the dentist caught up on Cate’s mouth.

On Thursday, during one of those taxi services, I was rear-ended while stopped at a red light. At first I didn’t think much was wrong with my van, but I soon realized the trunk isn’t working properly. It’s dented right at the latch, so the vehicle thinks the trunk is open when it’s not and now it doesn’t actually open at all. We went to Walmart on Saturday morning, and I had to crawl into the back seat to get the things we put back there. A body shop is waiting on the green light from the insurance to repair my van, which, of course, really just seems like something else to deal with at this point.

We were on the way to church on Sunday morning when our road started flooding. We ended up not going to church. While watching church online, we heard what sounded like thunder and looked out our front window to see a mental culvert from our road not where it belonged. About an hour later, we heard the sound again. This time the second culvert from the same spot in our road was floating down the creek. Not long after, a third culvert, not belonging in our road, floated down from somewhere. We had almost four inches of rain in the morning hours Sunday. Once the water receded we saw just how destroyed our road is. It rained more that night. (See photos here!)

At this point, we are thankful for a house on higher ground, where we’ve been sheltered from so much this month. We’re thankful there’s another way out, and the school taxi commute is only about five minutes longer than usual. We’re thankful for health and each other and God’s goodness and provisions even when – perhaps especially when – we have no idea what’s around the next corner.

How was your February?