I continue doing things

[tiger_spot]

Things I am up to:

* Renovating the chicken coop. Current point: caulking all the tiny gaps in the interior of the coop. This is maddening and smells like cleaning pennies.

* Homeschooling Morgan. This has switched from homeschooling proper to mostly school-provided materials now that the school district has, like, realized it won't be reopening this year and taken actual steps. Unfortunately they are trying to do a lot of things via Zoom, which Morgan is more or less violently allergic to (as versus pre-recorded videos or email or any other possible method of transmitting information) so their steps are not really working as well as my steps were. But there are fewer of them, so M is a bit less stressed, maybe?

* Baking. The other day we made a beautiful braided loaf of challah from a recipe in a children's book. Both kids helped with the kneading. Morgan did the braiding part all herself and was very proud.

* Deciphering 19th-century handwriting. I've been transcribing anti-slavery correspondence for the Boston Public Library. This is more or less fun depending on the specific handwriting in question, but a nice useful thing to do from home. I found them via Zooniverse, which has many other citizen science type projects you can help with.

* Writing postcards. Do you want to be politically involved but hate making phone calls? Me too. So I signed up with Postcards to Voters. The kids helped me decorate the first six or so postcards, so those are adorable and the rest of them are rather staid. But informatively and encouragingly staid! I hope they tip the balance of someone's decision to bother filling out that ballot. Several someones, ideally.

Comments

[snippy]

Well done! That's a lot to get done.

[tiger_spot]

Thanks! It is not so much all at once, but I have just been gently cycling between things (today so far chicken coop, postcards, gardening, and scanning/recycling/filing this pile on my desk) and gradually stuff happens. I am looking forward to getting the chicken coop all the way done -- it is just about in sight, though still a couple of days' work off (which will be more than a couple of days to actually get done, especially if I need to order more caulk).

[firecat]

Love Zooniverse. Every once in a while I bang my head against one of those transcribing old handwriting projects.

[tiger_spot]

Sometimes it is reading handwriting, and sometimes it is aeu??r?g. I ran across one that was in French! I had to skip it because I don't know enough French to predict what the ambiguous letters were and it wasn't neat enough to have a lot of unambiguous letters.

[firecat]

sometimes it is aeu??r?g

Well put!

[cjsmith]

Sounds quite productive and rewarding! Does that feel good? Virtual hugs to Morgan (and to everyone) - this isn’t easy.

[tiger_spot]

Definitely feels better than the previous state of breakdown recovery, which was playing Spirit Island all the time. Not to knock Spirit Island; it is a fun game. But it is nice to be up to doing useful things again.

[cjsmith]

I know what you mean. It’s nice when a fun game is a break from doing other things, rather than the pinnacle of how much cope we have.

[tiger_spot]

Yes, that's it exactly.

[tshuma]

Good job! That's a lot getting done.

If you decide you like to postcard in solidarity with other people, we are doing a virtual postcarding party in a couple of weeks. There's a group (on Facebook) I could add you to if you liked. It's just people I know well enough to invite into my home, since normally we're doing these in my place or my co-conspirator's.

[tiger_spot]

I am not on Facebook, but I appreciate the thought! Perhaps in those halcyon future days in which we have people over to our homes again.

[tshuma]

The event itself isn’t on Facebook, and we are sending it around via email as well. Anyway, I think it’s fantastic you’re choosing to use some of your time this way.

[tiger_spot]

Oh, well in that case sure, sign me up. :)

[tshuma]

Will send it on to you!