Monday again and for the first time in many, many days the alarm clock woke me up today. I’ve been waking up at 4 or 5 or 6am without reason or prompting for a while so to have slept all the way to Jim’s 6:15 subtle jungle emanating from the bathroom where he keeps his phone overnight was glorious!

We’ve done the breakfast thing and I’m even ahead of the curve with lunch done and In the refrigerator already. I’m currently getting steps on my favorite treadmill and thinking about everything going on this week. I’m going to have to remind myself to go with the flow and maintain balance.

That means not overdoing it on the work stuff and putting more focus on the other passions in my life. I’ve got some goals this week to help me out. Meetings for the new lit mag startup, poems due for a contest at UNO, and by the way it’s going to be in the 70s tomorrow so, yeah, taking advantage of that!!

Part of me wants to carve out like 2.5 hours to just go walk Walnut Creek which is my old stomping grounds. I’ve been wanting to for a while now but it’s now like a 25 minute drive to get there and somehow each time I plan to, it just falls through.

I’ve also really wanted to visit my friend Michelle who just moved to town (like a hot minute before the pandemic took over our social lives). That hasn’t happened either and I’m hopeful this week it might. It depends on both of our schedules and also the level of lockdown. Rumor on the street is that Nebraska is about to issue more of an official stay at home order than it has in place right now.

As of Saturday Nebraska was one of only Nine states left to not have a statewide “shelter in place” order from its governor. Nine hold out states where people are still gathering in small groups, getting take-out, and in some cases physically going to work. Iowa is another, which includes my parents and one of my siblings.

Even if that happens here, Jim will still be going to work because he works in a medical office. The “word on the street” news I get is from him reporting back from the office and conversations and information from that circle of people. They say that the virus will peak at different times in different states because of the population distribution and the social-distance orders that have been in place. The current model has nebraska peaking about 2 weeks from now.

The definition of “peak” means the expected maximization of hospital resources and beds for people affected. New York is expected to peak on April 9. They will likely run out of resources. I’m sheltering myself from the news a little bit because I can’t handle it. I’m safe in my Nebraska bubble. My kids are safe. I have to try and focus on that.

The kids are acting as if there already off for summer and in a way they are. The assignments they are working on are not being recorded in the grade-book online. I know. I checked this morning. I received an email yesterday that prom has officially been cancelled and will not be rescheduled. Wonder if I can still get my money back for that dress.

The same email had info about a virtual graduation ceremony that will take place on the original date and another that is being tentatively planned for July 10. That makes me think they are hopeful that by July it will be ok to gather in public in mass again. We’ll see.

On the agenda today is about 4 hours of work and some other lit mag stuff. I also received more feedback from my mentor on my poems and should probably look at that, but I’m not excited about it (re: yesterday’s rant).

The big question will be if I’m able to stay on track or if it will all get derailed.

Time to Roll,
~Miss SugarCookie