No take out here. We are rural and hadn't done much take out in months, anyway because the local restaurants had sketchy sanitation. We got food poisoning 4 or 5 times from different restaurants in the area prior to the pandemic. I won't go back to any of them.

It depends on the store and town. I stocked up the week before this $hitshow started in the US, so I have not had to do any big shopping trips. My local HEB was sparse about a week ago: no chicken, but there was plenty of the expensive cuts of meat. No flour, no yeast, no paper products. My town is lower-economic bracket, so cheap stuff goes first and fast. A friend that works there says it is getting better, though. People aren't rampaging through the store quite as much. The next town over, the HEB had a fully stocked meat and fish department late in the afternoon on Saturday. Full stock of fresh veggies, some pasta and rice, some canned goods. No problems getting milk or bread. Pet supplies were fully stocked. Eggs were out, no paper products (but Walgreens had some tp and Kleenex, limit one of each per person). This town is more affluent. I have not ventured into a Walmart. They are usually a disaster on a good day.

My town has it's first positive case. The town still hasn't closed the parks and golf course, and last weekend the park was jammed full of people. People have been coming down from Houston to camp and float around on the local rivers and lakes, and jam up the already packed grocery stores (we have all of *two* grocery stores). We have 28,000 people that live in this town and our local hospital has a total of 125 beds, (not ICU beds...that is ALL the beds). But hey, we should focus on the positive, right? 😠

Surprise, surprise. I'm sure no one saw that coming. 🙄

I would eat the rice and pass on all the other things.

I am so sorry. I deeply hope that all of your family stay healthy.

I've been having the post office pick up my packages.

Yes, we received dog food and some sort of computer part. Amazon was supposed to suspend acceptance of non-essential items from their suppliers until April 5 or so, to try to meet the demand for essential supplies. They said they'd still ship any non-essential stuff still in their warehouses, (books, cds, toys, etc), but they were temporarily suspending receipt of any more of those items into warehouses. The plan was to re-evaluate on April 5.

Our expenses have stayed about the same. We stopped attending extra curricular classes, so that saves money. DH is working from home, so no money spent on lunches out or gas. But, his computer is about to die and he uses it for work, so he had to order parts to build a new computer. He has a work-issued laptop, but he's able to work more effectively with a desktop AND the laptop. We had stopped eating in restaurants months ago, so there's no change there. His job seems stable; he's a linux engineer for a server company, so he's been pretty busy lately. I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but his job is probably pretty secure during this time. If he keeps his job, we'll actually end up saving money, which feels...just really weird. Like some sort of survivor-guilt kind of feeling. If our art teacher is able to offer some on-line classes, we will loosen the budget a little and sign kiddo up for them.

People in my area aren't asking for homeschool help. They are expecting that school will reopen on Easter Monday, so whatever work the school sent home is viewed as "busy work" to keep the kids partially occupied until then.

I felt safe going out before COVID-19 because I am fully vaccinated against the things that are most likely to kill me, thus dramatically reducing the odds of serious illness or death. I also did not have to worry about whether or not the hospital system would have enough doctors and nurses to treat me if somehow I did contract a life-threatening illness.

Real Estate agents around here are saying they are "essential" and call to schedule a showing today! Just....no.

I will feel safe when a vaccine is available. It's going to be a long, long time before I get on a plane again. I would consider driving my own vehicle to visit relatives maybe in the fall. I still have no idea what I will do about playdates or activities in the future. I am the only family I know that vaccinates here, and several families have already declared they will refuse a COVID-19 vax when one is developed. Even worse, some of them are actively protesting the development of a vaccine and are writing state representatives to tell them how a vaccine isn't needed and is a waste of tax dollars. Before the pandemic hit, husband and I had talked about moving out of state in a year or two. The way I feel right now, I'd like to move to a state with really strict homeschool regs that require vaccines, because I am 100% over the casual attitude toward learning, science, and health care that is all around me. There are many nice, likable people here, but I'm not willing to risk our health any more.

Maybe they'll soon expand FDA approval to other labs. My sister said something about some of the labs in Illinois being willing to run tests, but lacking approval due to certification, (I admit that a lot of what she was explaining went waaaay over my head). So maybe the FDA will expand approval to other labs to ramp up testing there. Until then, testing is slow going in Illinois.

Maybe they have a different sort of test? I don't know. I can ask her if she knows anything about the difference between Illinois' testing process and NYC. Maybe since NYC has more people, they have more certified labs and techs?

So, I had an interesting conversation with my sister about COVID-19 tests. She is an assistant dean at a medical school, and works closely with the hospitals in her state. She previously did research on HIV. There is currently a 6-7 day turn-around time for tests because there are not enough facilities that are capable of running the test. The tests are run with live virus samples and the process of running them is similar to HIV testing. There are only so many labs available that have that level of certification to run samples and only so many lab techs with the right qualifications to do it. It's not like running a strep test or an influenza test; there are a lot of safety standards that must be followed for highly contagious pathogens. Illinois sent out the call on Monday to all the medical schools and labs for anyone with the correct certifications that can help run tests to clear out the backlog. My sister has the certification, but she is in isolation because she was potentially exposed to COVID-19 through a co-worker. So, my sister is going to be reading results and interpreting data at home while she completes her isolation. Right after I got off the phone with her, my cousin messaged all of us to say he was being deployed on that ship heading to NYC. *deep breath*

Oh cool, I actually have that stuff laying around in the garage. Maybe I'll give gardening another shot.

They don't even send a letter to the students in the classroom here. No one is sent home for lice, no one is notified. You only find out if your kid happens to spill the beans on a classmate or you find lice in their hair.

This is one of my current struggles. I am the only person in my friend group that seems concerned. Everyone else is mostly annoyed and complaining about how inconvenient this whole "pandemic thingy" is. The local districts have plans to re-open schools on April 13 and everyone is like "The president says we need to re-open, so we need to re-open and when can I go sit in a restaurant again because I want a beer and a taco and I'm boooooooored and tired of my kids being home". I've also started to hear some crappy comments that NYC and Seattle are "getting what they deserved", and that this is punishment from God because they are cities of sin and drug use. I don't know if any of my friendships will be intact at the end of this.

So far the hives just seem to be on the tops of my hands. I think it's probably a combo of washing my hands so frequently and whatever accelerators they use to make nitrile. I have a couple of weird, contact dermatitis allergies, so I guess I'll add this to the list. 😕

I'm so sorry. 😞

I'm in Texas, between San Antonio and Austin. It's wet and just starting to get a bit hot right now. The growing season is pretty long, but it gets so HOT in the summer. My entire front and back yard seems to get blasted by sun.

Oh man, I'm really upset about people buying up all the chicks. Those poor birds will end up getting dumped in a few months. 😞 I have no idea why people think there will be no produce. The stores near me have been FULL of produce (tomatoes for 25 cents a lb!), and everyone is zooming past it to get tp, water, and pasta. I'd love to get a little garden going, but it's always seemed like a huge amount of work for just the 3 of us. 😕

No watering can here, either. We do have a hand held shower thing, so if things get desperate, lol...

I"m very aware of how lucky I am to be able to stay home, trust me on that. I am definitely not bragging about how easy this is or how well supplied I am. Quite honestly, I'm a wreck over the whole thing and have lost 7 lbs in the last 10 days because I'm so upset, (hmm, and it looks like I'm also breaking out in hives on my hands. That's new. I wonder if I'm allergic to the nitrile gloves I wore?) Much of my family is in NYC and Long Island and are elderly. I don't know if I'll ever see some of them again. My great aunt and uncle are in their 90s. If they catch this, they are going to die. I am viewing all this through the lens of "People I care about are probably going to die", so I have zero chill towards people who are farting around in public doing non-essential things because they are bored or their neighbors are too noisy. I'm not without empathy for people that are in some real crap situations, like people that will be forced to shelter in place with their abuser. I don't know how to fix that, though. I don't know how to keep public places open so poor people with fewer options have some place to exist away from poverty, while also eliminating the risk to health to other vulnerable populations. Walk through the park by yourself if your apartment sucks and you've got to get away, but hanging out at the gas station buying lottery tickets? No.