Maybe in a few weeks. I have some needlepoint kits that I am finally sitting down to work on. I might buy some art supplies for kiddo right now. I think he'd be excited to have some new things to work with.

You have summed up my mood for today.

We got ours late last night/early this morning, and put it into savings. I kind of want to buy something frivolous now, but I have no idea what.

We will return to art class, but are unlikely to return to chess club. He likes chess, but the distance is way too far and it left me feeling drained. I may look for a different activity, but I will not push hard if he says "No thanks!" and wants to stick to just art.

I have had a few moments of enjoyment, but I can't seem to allow myself to lean into the good parts happening. There's a part of me that is afraid if I relax and say "Actually, I'm happy with the money we are saving and the decreased stress from running around", that somehow I'll jinx myself and end up with an even worse situation. Like god or fate will say "Oh, so this is good? Well, how do you like this?!" I wish I could figure out how to relax and go with it.

I have been using up odd bits of this and that to reduce food waste. Husband asked me what I was planning for dinner, and I said "I dunno, chicken and lightbulbs". As in "None of this really goes together, but I"m working with what I've got. Please don't give me a hard time about it". Now it's a running joke.

I really don't know. My in-laws are kind of in the area, but none of them are really capable of caring for a child. They all are considered at-risk people, too. This is part of my anxiety about covid and why I want to move closer to my family. My in-laws are not people I can count on in an emergency.

@cjzimmer1 I hear you, and I appreciate the advice! Beef jerky would probably just be a once in a while kind of thing. We make homemade ice cream all the time, and while it's really delicious, it definitely isn't cheaper than store bought. (It's way better, though!) I do have a source for cheap produce, even cheaper than HEB prices for some of it. I don't usually buy from the produce terminal because I have to buy in such large quantities. That's fine, if I have a way to store/preserve what I buy. Otherwise, I might as well wait for sales at HEB.

Point taken. We really only use canned tomatoes for chili or soups every now and then. Maybe 1 can every other week, so canning our own tomatoes is probably not a great use of time or fresh tomatoes. We would probably eat a lot more dried fruit than anything else, and my husband would probably be really excited if I could make beef jerky. I love dried fruits, but don't buy them often due to price at the grocery. We mostly either eat fresh or frozen veggies. Maybe I'm over thinking this, and what I really need to do is buy another freezer and also buy a dehydrator. We have a smaller chest freezer, but maybe it's time to get a bigger one.

Hmm, I don't know if I've ever heard of it. Off to do some googling...

Yes. Freeze drying takes all the water out of the food. You can then store the food in air tight containers on the shelf. A good freeze dryer is very expensive, though. If I had a large family, it would probably be worth it, but there's just 3 of us, so I'm trying to figure out cost vs effort of various methods, too.

I'm excited, too! Let us know what you find out! I'm hoping you are positive, which seems like a weird thing to say!

I'd like to increase our pantry food storage. Our local grocery stores have quite a bit of fresh produce at prices lower than what it would cost me to grow my own. I'm not really sure where to start with this. How do I sort out which foods are best preserved via each method? I admit I feel very intimidated by canning (botulism!). Plus, we don't eat very many canned foods (some canned tomatoes and beans in chili is about it). Any advice? Stories of "Here's how I do it..."?

Tonight is pizza. Kiddo is having leftover salmon because he doesn't like pizza. 🙄 Tomorrow is pot roast, rolls, whatever veggies look like they need to be used up first That's all I've got right now, lol.

I hope so. Do you know if having shingles right now would make one more susceptible to COVID-19? My uncle-in-law had been at Walmart and I was like "Augh, you need to stay hooooome, why are you going to Walmart of all places?!" We had a person in my town that was waiting for test results and went to Walmart anyway. The test was positive and there's some debate about whether or not they knew this before they went out.

So glad he can go home! That's terrific news!

Strongly do not recommend setting up facebook. The only reason I kept one going for as long as I did was to connect with local homeschool groups. Since my local group is now ground-zero for wacky conspiracy theories about 5G and Bill Gates wanting to enslave us all, I don't have a compelling reason to keep it up anymore.

Now that I think about it, my husband's uncle has shingles, too. We saw him (from a distance) 10 days ago, when he came by to pick up eggs. 🤨 Hmmm...

Huh. I also had an itchy, burning rash on my hands that I discounted as being allergic to the nitrile gloves. Now kiddo has the same thing, but he has not worn gloves at all. We've both had some vague respiratory stuff that we've discounted as allergies, but it's been worse than typical allergies. No fever here, either. I keep thinking back to this kid we saw at the library in late February. We had very minimal contact with this kid for maybe 10 minutes, and by minimal contact I mean that the kid walked into the room and I told my kiddo that we needed to pack it up and leave. Yet kiddo STILL came down with this respiratory crud. I was so shocked and annoyed. Like, the kid came into the room, coughed twice, we left and washed up and bang! Kiddo was sick 2 days later. I dunno. It's probably not CV-19, but it was weird. There's been a couple of minor health things over the last 6 weeks that I keep saying "That's weird". Not weird enough to make one seek a doctor, but weird enough that I noticed. 🤨

I logged out of my FB account. Since I don't remember the password, I won't be able to log back in without a reset, which seems like too much hassle right now. Winning!

I am so sorry! How frightening. I am hoping for a full and speedy recovery ❤️

Yes, they are. My husband has been working 10-12 hour days, every day since March 13, to help other businesses scale up to meet increased online demand. He had his first day off yesterday and slept until 3pm.

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We've spent more on groceries, but less on gas, lunches out, and activities. I have only used half a tank of gas in almost a month, and DH hasn't used any. I feel like I've spent so much money on groceries, but I think that might level off a bit now. The stores are better stocked, so I don't feel like I have to go out next week. DH got a raise right before the pandemic, so we've saved that extra income. Any income that my at-home business generates goes toward debt right now. If we are very careful and DH does not get laid off, we will end the pandemic in a better financial position than where we started. We've saved about $1500 so far.

In the San Antonio area, there was no social distancing until maybe 2 weeks ago. Even up until last week, people were still clogging up the parks and griping that restaurants were not open. My husband's employer found out that a worker in the UK office was positive for COVID-19 on Monday, March 9. Employer announced that they'd do a trial run of working from home for 70% of the staff that Thursday March 12, and then 100% of the staff the following Tuesday, "just in case" they needed to send everyone home. By the time they completed the Thursday trial run, they'd found out that 2 workers in the Austin office had been exposed to COVID-19 cases AND had been in the San Antonio office recently. Employer never even bothered doing the 100% trial run the following week. They sent everyone home on the 13th and said they were working from home for at least a month, and then extended that out to two months. I don't expect husband to be back in the office until July, truthfully. My husband's employer was one of the first to shut things down in the area, from what I can tell. I'm really relieved they did that instead of waffling around. About 10 days after husband had been working at home, his boss emailed everyone to say there had been 2 positive COVID-19 cases from San Antonio employees. If husband's employer had not acted quickly, it would have been much, much worse.