Mary Angel

(5/2020) These are unprecedented times! I have certainly grown to hate the word unprecedented, but boy is it true. Never before and hopefully never again in our lifetime will we experience anything like this, but here we are in the thick of it. So how do we cope and how do we take it a step further and actually make the best of it.

Let me start by saying I am no expert on how to make the best of things. I have crashed and burned quite a few ‘make the best of it’ situations. This is a little different in that we all have only two choices: make the best of it or go crazy in quarantine. From that perspective I hope everyone is making the best of it. We are now many weeks into our forced family time and I thought I would share with you how my family is faring.

We actually started off pretty good. My husband was working crazy long hours from home and the kids were enjoying their extended spring break. Everyone was in really good spirits. Then my husband got furloughed from his job and the kids had to go back to school. Suddenly my husband had too much time on his hands and the kids had too little. You would hear screams of joy coming from their rooms if they were playing video games and loud groans of complaint if they were struggling through school work.

My 15-year-old daughter has been impressively on top of her schoolwork and finding time to play with her little sister. We recently donated the last dollhouse we owned and suddenly they both want to wax nostalgic and play with the few remaining Barbie dolls. This actually turned out to be an amazing project as their brother suggested they take all of the empty boxes from the basement and make a doll house. For those of you who didn’t know there are copious amounts of online tutorials for making doll house furniture out of cardboard or foam board. They have also used what fabric is left, after I have made masks for all of our friends and family, to make bedding, pillows, and curtains. This has been almost a weeklong project. The girls have also broken out the bikes, tennis rackets, new net, and badminton on the sunny days.

The boys have mostly been doing their college work and video games along with still working, as they are both considered essential personnel. I do have to say there is extremely large amount of college work compared to high school. The college classes, for the most part, are expecting the same work to be done that was scheduled before the quarantine. The high school level has been completely derailed by the current events. Please don’t misunderstand; colleges are designed to have online classes while public schools are not. My oldest is actually faring quite well as he is a bit more introverted than the middle two. Besides missing out on lectures from his favorite history professor he is unaffected. My 18 year old is way more social and has definitely required some screen time with his friends. As the mom I have to say this quarantine has definitely helped the 18 year olds focus on school. As he has said, ‘I have nothing else to focus on’.

My husband was expecting the furlough, not that he is happy about it. He knows his company is doing the best they can for everyone. He has thrown himself into helping the members of our church. For those of you who don’t know he is also a pastor and a counselor besides working for a food distributor. He has started having online Zoom morale boosting group meetings. If there is one thing I can say about my husband it’s that he has a big heart for God’s hurting people. He doesn’t want anyone to feel like they are in this alone. While I immediately turned to ‘how are we going to pay the mortgage on unemployment’ he went straight to ‘how can I serve the community’. You got to love a man with a heart like that.

As a family we have played some games, including card, board, and verbal. One of our favorites at dinner is the ABC game and ‘I am going to a picnic’. As a family we love any board game that is Disney related, especially Disney Charades and our newest addiction is Disney Code Names. The only down fall of Disney Code Names is that my oldest son is a Disney know it all. The newest thing we have tried is a game you can download on almost any platform - Jackbox. I can’t speak highly enough about how this has saved our sanity and made us laugh. There is a game called Quiplash that is never played without someone belly laughing.

Another game entitled Murder Mystery Party is a little darker but extremely fun and hilarious. I attempted to purchase a trampoline (with a higher weight for all of the teenagers) before the furlough, but was shocked to see them sold out everywhere. My oldest has been saving for quite some time for a Nintendo Switch and those too are sold out across the board. Apparently we have great ides, just a little late. One other thing we did to pass the time was enter (for the first time ever) in the Peep Show at the Carroll County Arts Center. They are currently doing a virtual show to help boost everyone’s spirit (carrollcountyartscouncil.org). Luckily we planned ahead because we used over 1000 peeps in our Peep Disney World. Yes, that is a shameless plug for votes. Seriously though, go to the website and click on some of the pics and enjoy.

My hope is that all of you are doing well and making the best of your situation. I hope you are enjoying your family time and making out alright financially. Most of all I want to thank you for doing your part to put others safety at the forefront of your actions. God bless and hang in there, you are not a lone.

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