aaaah
Handed in my last grades today until January, at least. I’m not teaching anything this fall. Events are nuts in Wisconsin and I feel like we’re all being overtaken by some huge snowball.
I had two goals for the month of September — to blog every day a little bit (even a paragraph) in hopes of regaining my writing mojo, and to take a twenty minute walk every day. I honestly don’t know how either of those things are going to work out. But I really want to be writing this fall.
I’ve made writing plans before and not been able to execute. But if I just say that I will write a little every day?
How are you all surviving?
Me + Richard Armitage 
I have finally found a job in the career I choose to go to school for. I am excited about finally getting to work in the field and I have a job. With that said I am basically work right where I was before, I am back at the school and will spend a morning each week in my old building. I am also going to be learning way more than we ever learned at school with COVID. I will have face to face therapy plus online. Our school at this time is having both models for as long as they can. With that said it has been nice to see so many people I already know.
Been crazy up here this summer. If I had a map I most likely could have checked off half the country in the license plates I have seen since May. That’s not counting our state either. Youngest son is back in college all online for him.
Still hardly go anywhere, work, the store and home. I can’t say the same for my aunt and uncle. I really worry about them but there is no use talking to them about it. My aunt is even cleaning cabins, she don’t need to.
Hope all is with you and your dad.
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HEY! That’s great news, and it is definitely a sign that they admired your work as a student, since they want to have you back on staff. Good for you!
I’ve been watching with worry — would the tourists mess up the COVID situation? We’ve been staying put but it seems like most people are not and our county is now second in the state for most cases after Brown. And school started Monday. I also have that experience: you can’t tell people anything. It’s really frustrating.
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Where we don’t have the numbers that you have, for a couple weeks per capita we had the second most cases in the state. It is scary to think that we where at 12 for along to well over a 150 in a couple weeks. We have dropped off but still getting new cases on a regular basics.
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yeah — you’re really not set up to handle the numbers you have (whereas we have a lot more hospital beds). I had really hoped visitors would be more considerate.
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As I was going though town today after work I saw it was filling up for the weekend with out of state people. Looking at staying home this weekend. We have Friday off as well as the weekend and Monday.
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yeah, we are definitely staying home, too. (Not all that different from normal these days). A few fewer people out there to get infected. A friend of mine was home with it after a positive test two days into the school year (she’s a teacher). It’s going to be a rough fall, we don’t need to get started on it early!
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My two oldest sons are coming home for the weekend. My husband took off Saturday and Sunday on vacation but will work Labor Day as he gets a day off for working and will take off a different time some other time. The boys will go home either later on Sunday or Monday. Not sure as they had not decided when I talked to them earlier this week.
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I hope you have a fun time!
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That sounds like quite the sigh of relief! Enjoy your time to relax and get back into the writing habit. A little bit every day sounds like the way to go. Regular exercise is a great idea too. I walked more on my holiday than I have in a long time. I’m sure it was good for me.
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It is — although it wasn’t the usual “end of term” relaxation because of course seven other things happened simultaneously. We’re getting into fall here shortly so it should be pleasant to walk for the next month or so (fingers crossed).
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Such is life, I guess. It never quite cooperates with our plans.
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I’m struggling to be honest. My workload has gone up hugely and the number of people available to help has gone down due to the number of people having to shield for health reasons. Everyone is exhausted. We have had to renovate our workspace to be Covid safe ( and work through the renovations) and we were renovating our garden at home when it all kicked off. I feel like I’ve got brickdust, mess and noise everywhere I go. Yesterday HR sent an email reminding all managers that September is staff performance review month and I felt like weeping. How can I get my team in and ask them one by one what they feel they have achieved this year and what are their goals for the next 12 months? Then I remind myself this is the new normal and we can’t just forget about doing things like annual reviews because this could go on a long time so better to adapt… Like Katie the only places I go are work and the grocery store. I have a couple of ( equally cautious) friends I meet for take away coffees on park benches. I FaceTime friends and we scream with laughter over silly stuff while clasping time appropriate drinks ( hint – if you are going to drink red wine at 11am at least put it in a coffee cup 🤣)
Good to hear you are going to try to carve out some time for yourself. I’ll watch with interest!
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Should item 1 on the “what have I achieved” list be: we are still alive and still here? But performance reviews aren’t pleasant even in “normal” times, are they? It sounds like you need a “room of your own” that’s clean and quiet. I can sympathize.
I came very close in April on one particularly awful day to drinking at 8 a.m., but luckily for me the gas station didn’t sell booze until 9.
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Congrats on getting all the grading done. Maybe the daily writing might be a bit of a relaxation/reward after all the hard graft.
Over here, we are doing so-so. Personally, things are well, fingers crossed. It’s just kinda boring, with all activities restricted to the home. The country, however, seems to be going into the second wave. While the number of deaths reported is small, there is a spike in new cases that I find worrying. Interestingly, the vast majority of them are in the below-45-years age group. I nearly choked this morning when they said on the news that we have 42 intensive care beds available… It sounds woefully little, even in a small country of only 4.5m inhabitants…
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That can’t be right. 42 for the whole country? Or is that 42 not currently in use? Wisconsin has 6M population, and about 2600 beds, of which 77% were in use yesterday (not all of those were Covid patients, though). But anything over 80% full is considered overloaded here.
It’s a shame to “miss” the summer anywhere in northern Europe, stuck at home. It’s so short and the winter so unforgivingly grey.
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It was a shame to “miss” the summer anywhere in northern Europe because workload has gone up hugely TOO.
Summer vacations were used to
– recover strength, working non-stop during containment was exhausting (and it starts again the same way today).
– to catch up with usual work that has not been done such as housekeeping and home maintenance.
And above all physical failures, weakness happen quickly when you think you are still 20 years old
My Covid diary was left to die, abandoned due to time constrainsts.
Yet it was a great support to me. I “cry for him”.
Uncertainties have destabilizing effects. ( including numerous Covid-idiots and Covid-paranos). Those effects appear as the inevitable and in fact “normal” counterpart to an unprecedented period of sanitary and economic crisis.
Generation Z keeps their head on straight on their shoulders. But will society give them chance to find a place, that is the question.
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it’s indeed a time of great uncertainty.
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42 currently not in use. The total number of ICU beds in Ireland is 411. Apparently we have 6.5 beds/100.000 population. Shockingly small number. (For comparison – I think the US has more than 30 beds/100.000!)
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wow, that is a shockingly low number.
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Yep, and the pandemic was seriously straining and testing that number – and it could easily go back to that, especially as the R number has gone up to over 1 again…
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Stressing about whether my daughter’s wedding in Ireland will actually happen. It’s planned for next June, because we all thought covid would surely be over by then. Unfortunately, here in Nebraska people are being told that they won’t even return to work (after working from home since March) until next year. So international travel seems highly unlikely. Anyone in Ireland have any info on your situation?
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it’s really upsetting to think we might still not be able to travel overseas a year from now. I hope your daughter’s situation clarifies soon.
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So sorry to hear that your daughter is one of the people so intensely affected in her private life by the pandemic. It really is so unfortunate that the virus has hit – and is making private celebrations untenable at the moment.
Right now Ireland is in phase 3 of reopening but facing a new resurgence of the virus. We have three-figure new infections every day, mainly in the younger age group. Restaurants and hotels are open, pubs are closed. The recommendation is for people to work from home if they can. They have had to delay the next phase of the reopening. A new roadmap for reopening is expected to be published on 13 September.
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Congratulations on finishing your markings.
Hope you find a way to get the writing flowing.
I’m returning to school, thankfully mostly online as I opted to have my daughter do school online as well and the twins are just two so they are home too. My husband just started in a new position as well.
I have family in Madison Wisconsin and I think I worry about them than those in other states. My brother says is aweful there right now. His two sons just returned to school kindergarten and grade two. I suggested he move to Prince Edward Island as he just started a business, Artemis Provisions which would thrive in the small knit farming community they have there.
Totally unrelated, but I’ve wanted to ask you for some time, what do you think of RA’s following decreasing? Also, I think he would be safer going back to England, thoughts?
Hopefully all the courses I did over the ‘break’ will bring new income and be a stress free experience. Finally hoping to kick myself to start exercising again as winter will be here soon. Still have our tickets for travel and have no idea when they will be used as I’m scared of traveling at this time and the future looks grim on that front.
I do need to stop listening to the news as I always end up cussing, especially with the governments of the different countries and the outcome of how the USA elections will affect my family there.
Hope everyone else on this thread will be well in mind and body. I really hope I wasn’t too pessimistic. Have fun, listen to music and dance. Life is really too short.
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That’s a lot of online school. Wow. OTOH the sister of a close friend of mine had been in the classroom for two days before she tested positive. So honestly staying out is better. I hope your and your husband’s year goes well.
Madison: big topic, but I can imagine it’s horrible just now (both on the disease and on the race relations front). I checked out your brother’s company. He’s about 100 mi from us or I would order, we occasionally order that sort of thing. The cheese looks awesome!
Your mood: it is what it is (to use the expression made famous by the US president). I’m not going to predict my mood will be any different, or pretend it is if it’s not.
Let’s discuss Armitage again in a bit if you don’t mind!
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Prayers for Wisconson and my fellow citizens there. I’m beginning to think we are all caught up in that snowball. We have no way of determining how huge it will become or what all it will take with it.
I am taking up writing again too, an adventure of the mind, always refreshing.
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Thanks for the comment, and welcome.
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Congrats on finishing the grading and fingers crossed for the return of your writing mojo.
I’m sorry it’s all so chaotic now with Corona and the shootings. Is Kenosha far from where you are (you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to)?
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It’s about 150 mi away. I drive past on my way to Chicago. Have never been there.
Culturally, it’s much further away than that.
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Writing even one word a day is writing! It’s a good goal and I hope you can keep to it.
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I probably should have qualified this somewhat as I do write quite a bit (e.g., today I am writing a letter to my father’s optemistrists) and I wrote lessons / directions for lessons for the last seven weeks. But the writing for here / me is a struggle at the moment.
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I get that. I’ve done a fair amount of blogging, marketing, and essay-writing in the last few years, but because I haven’t been able to start Book 3, I feel like I’m not writing anything.
I wish you luck getting back into the groove you want to be in.
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We’ve been okay. Hub being jobless for 6 months because of the quarantine may have been just what he needed. He’s working on hanging his own shingle now and is pretty energized by it. Sorry your world’s feeling tipped over, too. Here’s to your writing-pang getting reignited! Hope your dad’s doing well.
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I hope working for himself works out for him. There is a kind of creativity that one can get occupied with and I hope he and I are both tuning into that! (And we could always focus on eating vegetables, which seems to be very energizing for you!)
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