I haven't heard anything about Walmart here, but someone just complained on our county FB page that Lowe's is crowded on Easter Sunday. Except... Lowe's is closed today. We've reached the quarantine anxiety level of "hallucinating crowds in empty spaces".

Tonight - Sheet Pan Roasted Chicken and Vegetables, Seasoned Rice Sunday - (Brunch) Pancakes, Bacon, Eggs, Breakfast Potatoes - (Dinner) Ham and Bean Soup, Homemade GF Soft Pretzels, Salad Monday - Brisket, Potatoes, Veggies (maybe some homemade GF thin mints for dessert) Tuesday - Taco Tuesday Wednesday - Apple Harvest Chicken Salad, Cornbread (or biscuits? will there be pretzels left?) That's as far out as I've planned. I'm trying to plan meals as we go based on produce freshness, milk availability (trying to go two weeks between grocery trips), stuff that needs to be used up from the freezer/pantry (like the ham for the soup), and my appetite levels (very, very low right now).

I can't see how they can allow wind instrument groups at all unless they come up with a vaccine. I was a trumpet player/college major and there is so much spit everywhere. Horn spit, trombone spit, woodwind spit, angry conductor spit. A band room is a disgusting germ cesspool in the best of times. ETA: Swapping spit happened plenty too. That's how I got a husband out of high school band, lol.

No Publix here, we do not have any national chains except Aldi.

Okay, I think I figured it out. It doesn't work when I go through the store's website first. Instead, I went to Instacart and logged in (they actually let me make an account, I don't want to use up the free trial on Shipt just to attempt an order I'm not actually placing right now), went to the stores drop-down menu at the top, picked the chain, searched by zip code, and found the location I wanted that does pickup. THEN I was able to browse and add items to my cart, but when I click on pickup times, it says "No Times Available." Which is what everyone's getting right now, from every store. Someone on our county FB page had to place an order a week in advance for pickup, and it was pushed back and then just flat out cancelled. They're completely overwhelmed. And this isn't even the location I normally shop at, the other one does not offer any delivery or pickup options. We do have a non-chain store about 3 minutes from my house, but they don't even have a phone number on their website, let alone pickup or delivery options! They'd do really well if they added delivery service, because none of us are served by the chain stores. I get the impression that they are "technologically stubborn" and just not willing to deal with it. Plus their main pull is their alcohol department, which I don't think can be delivered here except for wine. They might actually lose money by people skipping the booze in order to not have to go into the store.

It redirects you to Instacart or Shipt. The stores themselves do not handle any of the delivery/pickup. I live in a very working class area. Delivery/pickup was just. not. done. before now because there are no sale prices, no coupons, no markdown/clearance shelves, and added fees and tips. My budget (self-imposed, granted) lives and dies by the loss leaders and scratch-and-dent items. It’s considered odd here to hire out home repairs unless you are physically incapable, so grocery delivery during normal times would be, what’s the word the kids use, bougie? Not normal times now, though... I could try, but I wonder if the billing address for the credit card needs to match the “delivery” address.

Sheets day is every Tuesday. I pull them off after we get up and wash them immediately. Those of us with no sheet preference get spare sets put on while the laundry’s going. Those of us that are “allergic to anything without Minecraft plastered all over them” have to wait for theirs. Pillowcases are washed with everyone’s clothes 2x a week (allergies, so we do these more often). Blankets are washed every Thursday, but I alternate weeks between bed blankets and throw blankets. I have chronic nausea issues that flare up most evenings. Bedding has to be back to normal by 4:00pm at the latest. There’s no way I could stand on my head and change sheets right before bedtime, because I’d have my stomach contents coming out of my nose.

So here’s my problem. The stores are in different zip codes than where I live. The “shopping centers” are in Town A and Town C, and I live in Not-a-Town B, about halfway in between (~10 minute drive to both places). Typically, I shop in Town A, but my mom lives in C, and we do some activities there. In Town A, there are two stores that use Instacart (one with pickup) and one that uses Shipt for both delivery and pickup (plus Target, but I can do non-grocery pickup there - no cold/fresh food though). Town C just has the two Instacart stores (one with pickup). When I put in my zip code in Instacart, it defaults to searching Town C’s stores. Shipt is all, “I’m gonna stop you right there and say no.” Okay... However, when I put my actual address in Instacart, none of them will allow store pickup because I live outside of any delivery zone. Never mind that these are literally the stores I normally shop at. It’s a moot point right now, because even the people that live near these stores can’t get a delivery or pickup time because of how slammed they are. Still would like the option! I can’t figure out a way around that unless I borrow someone’s address. I don’t know anyone in Town A though, which is my preference. We do have a couple Walmart stores, but we have about 250,000 people in our county (and probably some out-of-county) who are all trying to use that. I figured since we are lower risk and non-essential workers with two parents and childcare, I should leave those slots to the people that truly need them.

I couldn’t figure out how to do Instacart pickup in a non-delivery area either. I think you still have to have an address in a delivery zone in order to use the pickup option. Same with Shipt. If someone figures it out without me committing identity theft, I’d be grateful.

Mine was doing all this on Monday (except the single direction aisle thing, which I’ve been trying to figure out how to do for years but there’s an odd number of aisles). Our store was allowing 22 in at a time. I waited about 10 minutes outside. People stood about 8ft apart, most in masks. It was nice weather then, but I do wonder how stores are going to handle this during severe storms.

Food and toiletries/household stuff are about the same - we can’t get delivery or pick-up in my area (pick-up goes through Shipt or Instacart, which I can’t use due to my address), so no fees or tip, but I’m also not sale shopping. We never go out to eat because of allergies and being completely grossed out by others preparing our food, so that’s the same as usual - $0. Much less on gas and activities. $3.58 in gas in the past four weeks, and that was for the lawn mower. We were refunded for the cancelled soccer season, not being charged for April swimming, and not being charged for our April YMCA membership. If the baseball season is cancelled, we’ll probably be donating those fees to the association for field improvements. And I haven’t signed the kids up for summer golf league or any camps because who knows if they will even happen. I did buy several new release books that we would normally wait for at the library. My 6yo took off in reading, to the point where he’d be blowing through a library stack per week, and I’m running out of school-related library checkouts, so I may be spending more on books if our personal shelves and the Kindle Unlimited selection don’t hold us over.

We’ve lived here for ten years, and a family with five kids (four of them boys) moved in down the street 6-7 years ago. For six long years, I have encouraged my kids to ride their bikes down there, say hello, ask to play catch or shoot hoops (all of the kids play sports, I know that much). And for six years, they have said no, that they aren’t interested in neighborhood friends. But in the past week, each of them separately (even the extreme introvert) has asked me, “Can we go play with the kids down the street?” Now, child? Now!? You wait for six long years until my answer is “absolutely freaking not”, and then ask to go make new friends?!? The answer is no, they cannot play with the neighborhood kids right now. Although when the pandemic is over I might drop them off on their front porch, ring the bell, and run.

St. Louis, about 1:00pm today: Costco - Could not find any cleaning wipes or raw chicken (they had rotisserie chickens and frozen chicken breasts though). They did have pallets of toilet paper and paper towels (Limit 1), and a few types of rice, plenty of eggs and milk and bread and flour/sugar. I didn’t notice anything else missing, in fact I had to cross stuff off my list because there was no room in the cart (don’t even ask what my total was). They had a queue set up, but there was no wait to get in. I’d say about 40% were in masks. Ours did not have the in-stock/out-of-stock board at the front like I’ve seen in pictures. Aldi - Waited about 10 minutes in line, as they were only letting in 22 at a time. Still no cleaning products and didn’t see any TP or PT, but I found chicken there. The sweet/yellow onions looked AWFUL, but red were fine. Everything else fully stocked. Mask usage up to about 60% there. I didn’t look for yeast at either place. I bought a brick of it in January before things got crazy. However, I did find out why masks are so awesome. No one knows you are singing along to the radio in the car.

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We played Bingo with my mom over Skype yesterday. We both printed out free bingo cards online, and DH downloaded a bingo caller app on his phone so we could read off the numbers. We’re going to try Scattergories next week, then Trivial Pursuit Family Edition. She doesn’t need to read the cards if we play teams. I have to drop off some Costco stuff at her house this week, so I might leave half of our Guess Who? game to play with the kids.

Phase 10 is our go-to game when we have a group of 5-6. It can get long, but it’s easy change up the rules a bit to make the game shorter with a time crunch. We also started playing “Pass the Trash” (uses a normal deck of cards, can probably Google the rules) a few weeks ago with the kids, although it’s more fun with all teens/adults, IMO.

I miss baseball. I don't miss trying to find an excuse to get out of family functions.

“Boss makes a dollar, while I make a dime, so that’s why I #%!& on company time.” Side note, I should tell my kids that homeschoolers are salaried, not hourly, and all they are doing by math-pooping is prolonging their school day.

Just the one, unless I'm planning on staying in lounge pants all day (no shaving!) or shorts (all the shaving!).

I've been debating ordering jeans, because my last good pair now has a giant hole in the kneecap. And I'm getting tired of shaving my visible kneecap every morning.

Ours does too, although the county north of here with a much larger outbreak has closed tennis courts and is probably moving toward shutting golf courses completely (already banned carts, but it’s crowded and people tend to mingle). But there are a few that are insinuating that we need dense, urban restrictions in our outer-suburb, unincorporated subdivisions with near-acre plots. No, because our infrastructure is different (less shared spaces, etc.) and if we do, then we have a much shorter time frame before people stop listening. Someone asked this morning on the health department FB page if fishing at a private, not-crowded lake was still permitted. Sure... but by the end of the day we’ll probably have that person who complains fishing isn’t a necessary task so it shouldn’t be allowed... and then someone sees that exchange next time they consider fishing and mentions to someone else that fishing is banned (a close relative only correctly interprets about 68% of what she reads, so I could totally see this happening here), and so forth. I did see a couple complaints about kids biking, but I’m not sure if it’s because they were not technically “at-home” or because they were in the street or because they were noisy (mine have bells on their bikes, sorry neighbors!). Or because the risk of injury meant they could be exposed to the ER and then continue spreading the virus. The injury/accident risk is an argument I saw against people going for a quick drive to get out of the house, despite staying in their cars (health dept. OK’d that too, others disagreed).

Us too! DH is working from home and his “commute time” is now a couple long walks a day. If only our allergies were okay with all this, lol. Our health department has been great with information, but so many people are distrustful of TPTB (and, as much as I love my area, not always that bright) and will latch on to anyone saying something different, no matter how inane the information is. Even a small minority with a ridiculous opinion is going to have an audience. It’s going to make things worse.

I’m getting a little concerned with people (online) pushing extra, unnecessary rules, and how that might lead to people ignoring effective, necessary restrictions. I have already seen people complaining about siblings playing together in yards (low-density area with large yards), kids playing in yard sprinklers on the one actual hot day we had (maybe thinking they’d contaminate the water supply?), people on walks in the neighborhood as couples or families with not a single other person in sight. Someone on our county information page mentioned to get outside in your yard and get some fresh air, and people jumped all over her “for encouraging breaking the stay-at-home order”. Because home = inside behind locked doors. WTF???? It’s a pandemic, not the Deprivation Olympics, people. Save the outrage fetish for real problems (and there are many to choose from). I do think there are a lot of people who normally are at home all day and are tired of their neighbors also being home, and their peaceful days are being “ruined” by children being both seen and heard. And I also think there’s so many other legitimate complaints (store/park crowding, misinformation, etc.) that the loud ones are trying to “make themselves heard” by making crap up to stand out.

LOL, so many St. Louisans are simultaneously proud of Imo’s and repulsed by it.

I went on Thursday, my mom went this morning (she LOVES “senior hours” and hopes they never leave). Still no paper products (didn’t look hard though, don’t need them), but we were both able to find everything else. Some item limits at Aldi. Almost NO ONE in the stores. You could keep 6 yards away from the nearest person. My mom had her choice of front-row spots at Walmart, which is unheard of. Apparently the weekend was more crowded. I don’t do crowds during non-pandemics, so I have no idea what that looks like. I haven’t attempted Costco yet. Going to try to go there sometime between now and the stimulus checks.