CDL day 4

Ava has been working so hard this week. Wednesdays the school decided would be basically independent work days. Ava’s teacher sent me a list of her assignments, and when I went to enter them into her planner, she already had two of them written there. I wasn’t expecting that, but I was very pleased. She got started right away after her morning meeting and kept at it until everything was crossed off. Consequently, she was able to play the rest of the afternoon.

Today, she was able to log into all of her zoom classes on her own, and got set up for her tutor. When she is on, she does very well. I hope this carries on, but I anticipate that at some point it will overwhelm her. Until then, I intend to praise her well!

Wes continued to struggle, but did get into a Bingo game and scavenger hunt during one of his classes.

Taylor and Liv had a good day. Tay was eager to share what he learned in Marine biology. Liv was feeling better about math, but likes their Tuesday Friday schedule better.

Fall Harvest

I’ve been feeling a lot like a pioneer woman lately. I have been making jams, butters, apple pie filling, and canning pears. I tried to start slow to save stamina for the end of the fall fruit harvest, and well, now that is here. More and more pears are falling from the tree, which tells me that they are extra ready to come off. So today I enlisted some help. That is a huge Tupperware bin full of pears and a few apples that were hanging on!

My bold and fearless helper trying to learn the knack of picking the fruit that is really high up. Last year the pear tree got so tall that we decided to cut it back, but it still feels pretty tall! The fruit at the top is usually the best quality, although the squirrels have left their mark on a few.

Picking the fruit at the top is annoying because you can only get one fruit at a time, and unless you have multiple poles (which we don’t) only one person can pick at a time. It is helpful to have a helper that can stand a bit away to grab the fruit off the picker.

This tree is absolutely beautiful and filled with fruit. We have already been eating fresh pears for about a month, and canned 6 jars, with 5 jars of pear butter. I also made 2 batches of apple pie filling and a half gallon of applesauce from the apples on our sad recovering apple tree.

There I am! Grabbing the pear from the picker! And doing the photography! Don’t worry, I did some picking too. It takes more muscle that it looks, to aim and lift the pole in just the right place to snap the pear off and drop it into the picker. My abs and shoulder feel like they got a workout!

There is the sad apple tree. It had a major injury a few years ago, and last year literally broke in half. I cried as we sawed off the effected bits and cleaned up the half grown apples. This year I tried to thin it out early. It worked a little. My goal for next year is to try to get the pests under control. The apples that did grow well, grew big and crisp. they had delicious flavor, but they didn’t look very good.

This is our Cherry tree. Jon bought it for me for mother’s day last year. We drove it home in the back of our mini van and planted it here… obviously it enjoyed some growth. I can’t wait for it to have cherries! I really thought we were going to get some this year, but we didn’t. It is supposed to have five varieties of cherries when it does make fruit. It also had beautiful blossoms this spring. All the trees blossom at slightly different times, but is ok because we get to enjoy them in different stages. Though it would be gorgeous to see them all in bloom at once!

The gods of comprehensive distance learning gave us the gift of Wednesdays. On Wednesdays all the kids have one zoom period and the rest of the day is “work”. Today it was a gift, but it might be more of a curse later as they have more complex work to do. Anyway, I will take it. Chasing around all the kids to make sure they are in the correct zoom at the correct time is a full time job, and I don’t really appreciate it. I hope as they get more used to it, it gets easier.

CDL- Day 2

Today was a little more challenging with school. Wes’ school decided to cram everything that they normally put into two days in one instead. It was chaotic for him, and he had a huge meltdown right after school finished. He literally just held it together long enough. I don’t care for stressing out the kids this way.

I have never been so thankful for Wes’ PSW. She sat through all of his online craziness today. Wes cannot navigate through a regular day on his own, so how they can expect him to navigate this crazy virtual stuff is laughable. As fully grown, smart, tech savvy adults, we are struggling. Alas, this paragraph is about being grateful for Keaton, without whom I would be in another layer of hell right now. Thank you Keaton!!! May each day get a little bit easier!

Taylor and Liv seemed to have a good day. They seem happy to have had outside communications with other teens (and teachers). They are excited about their classes and sharing things they are learning about.

Ava had a good day too. I got a little stressed out when a teacher that missed us yesterday lead me to believe he had office hours at 3:15 today. It turned out that his email was sent yesterday and those hours referred to yesterday only. So Ava and I have spent more than an hour in his virtual waiting room, ugh.

1st Day of School... Finally

What a crazy start to this school year! After two weeks of cancelations and delays due to nearby wildfire threats, we finally had a day of school!

This is what happens when I want a “nice” photo for my first day of school memories. These are fitting photos though. I especially love the sock situation. My kids do need new shoes, and I usually buy them for the start of school. But given that they are attending from home, I decided to wait this year. Not that they bothered to put on shoes anyway. Impressively, Ava is actually wearing a matching pair, while Wes dug a whole in his slippers that literally came out of the box an hour before this photo.

Comprehensive Distance Learning for us means that sometimes all six of us will be on zoom meetings at the same time. Jon works from home regardless and I start my own classes on Monday. I also participate in zoom style work meetings. Most of our issues today dealt with slow internet. We use CentryLink and have an Orbi system to broadcast our wifi about the house. We also have one school issued hot spot that allows for 20G a month and works through cellular signals. Finally we have a Verizon cellular plan that allows us to tether through our phones. Even with all of these options, we had issues with websites not loading at all and glitchy zooms. It looks like we will burn through the hot spot, with one child using it, in 10 days.

I set up all the kids on a large table that I usually use for crafts or puzzles. I picked up four colored trifold poster boards. The kids decorated them and we clipped important resources around them. Some have multiplication tables, some daily schedules, all have a dry erase folder and their weekly schedules. They each have their school issued Chrome book and a caddie with any implements they might need. I envisioned them needed to move to private spaces throughout the house, and this is a totally portable system (at lease with a couple of trips).

With headsets on everyone, it was eerily quiet for most of the day. Jon and I were able to deep clean the refrigerator and experiment making savory pies for lunch with hot water crust pastry. (Which turned out to be really easy, although a bit time consuming since we used individual ramekins). It felt a little neglectful, but most of school today was about making sure people could find their Zoom links and log in, understand the “rules”, and get to know each other a bit. So there wasn’t much heaviness about the “work”. The kids seemed pretty comfortable in this set up, for now. Which left a lot of house for Jon and I to be in.

Inferno

Labor Day weekend Oregon saw a wind storm that brought winds gusts greater than 50mph. Monday evening these winds knocked out power, but only for a moment. I thought in that moment, “Of course, on the eve of the much anticipated return to distance learning, we would loose power and there would be no school!” As I cursed the unlucky fate upon us, our power was restored and I figured we tempted fate and won.

The next morning I was relieved that our power was intact. I got up early to get my workout in before school chaos ensued. My plan was foiled however mid workout when I received a robo call informing me that school was cancelled. It sighted multiple power outage related to the wind. Fine so one more day.

Tuesday morning also brought news of a wildfire that started near an abandoned warehouse just 3-5 miles from our home and spread rapidly with the dry, hot, windy weather. Late that night there was reports of another fire on a small island about 3 miles in the other direction. Neither of these fires ended up being much to talk about. Wednesday morning was met with another robo call. Much of the district was without power still, and wildfire was growing dangerously close to many in our school district. We watched anxiously as the plume slowly crept in.

By Wednesday afternoon things were escalating fast. Several of my friends and coworkers began to worry for their own safety and that of their homes. Our entire county was placed under evacuation notices. 2/3rds under “Go NOW”, level 3. We were under level 1, “Ready”. We all packed some clothes, toiletries. I put our important papers file box in the car. But we live in a fairly populated urban part of the county, surrounded by businesses and industry. I couldn’t fathom the kind of devastation that would have to precede an order for us to evacuate.

Yet the news got worse and the color all around became more and more ominous. Thursday morning the robo call cancelled school for Thursday and Friday. My friends had to evacuate some Go NOW, some “get set”. By mid morning the news on the fire front was just bad. Firefighters were pulled from evasive action to help save lives and evacuate. Two enormous fires were expected to merge and the weather was still unfavorable. Two small towns, Estacada and Molalla, were totally threatened. The fire it seemed was going to win. Our county case worker for the boy’s disability services called me. She wanted to discuss our evacuation plan and offer resources. She warned me that the interactive evacuation map available online was not well maintained and sometimes hours behind. It chilled me to the bone.

We were feverishly trying to get updates and information. We signed up for every notification we could find. In hindsight, it’s not surprising that we received a chilling alert Thursday afternoon. I was reaching out to coworkers and friends about an emergency safe spot when all the devices in out home start blaring alerts. A lot like an Amber alert noise, it stated that we were upgraded to level 2, “get Set”. What!?! I’m not going to lie, all my calming nature, you got this girl relaxation style was gone. Inside, I was full on panic mode.

The fire had moved within a mile of the other fire and 2 miles of Estacada. My friends in Sandy, were our first house here is, were evacuating and seriously threatened. This was all happening fast and too close for me! The alert turned out to be for Canby, a small town nearby, but not us. Still that level 2 border was now just 3 miles away. Our kids go to the Oregon city schools, and Oregon City was all evacuated under levels 2 and 3. We nearly left Thursday night. We packed everything in the van. Dog crates and food, all our clothing bags, all the nonperishable food in the house. I started making videos of the inside and outside of my home, inventorying everything and trying to place a value as to is this replaceable, irreplaceable, or priceless. What was the most priceless and is there room in the van for it with six people, two dogs, and the necessities? I never ever want to look at my home that way again.

Friday brought some good news, the winds had changed and humidity had increased. The fires had only grown a little, but were now within 1/2 mile of Estacada. We relaxed a bit, and later that day the level 2 zone border was retracted some. Feeling better about staying home, we turned our attention to the grim reality that our air quality was rated the worst in the world. We were feeling it too. Headaches, scratchy irritated throats, runny noses, more difficulty breathing, tiredness, we had it all… well have it all. Nothing has changed. School is off “until further notice”.

Visibility on Sunday was down to “sort of” across the street. In this view you can’t see past the trees on my property (which is small). The color changed from yellow, to orange, to gloomy grey. We haven’t seen the sun in days.

I felt like this improved today, but the AQI was still near 500ppm (bad)! Our dogs want a walk and the kids want to play outside. We want to run outside. But the smoke fills your lungs the minute the door is opened. Our air purifier hasn’t stopped running. I have gotten used to the campfire smell everywhere. We went to the grocery store on Saturday and there was a layer of smoke sitting above the shelves throughput the entire store.

Look, twice the sunlight today as yesterday!!! They predicted rain today… that was no rain today.

Surviving summer 2020

Side note, Happy 22nd Birthday Evan! Wish we could be there celebrating!

So COVID-19 rages on. For the most part, we have maintained a strict social distance and relative isolation. Last Tuesday we took a family trip to the coast. We chose a less popular beach and a weekday hoping to have more distance and few human interactions. We were pretty successful in that pursuit. We did get too much sun.

All of us have a pretty significant sunburn. Taylor’s is probably the worst as he chose to sit out in the sun most of the day and only applied sunblock once. I tried to tell him, but teenagers.

A few weeks ago Jon, Liv, and I went on a long hike. We meant to travel to the coast, but we misread the length of that journey and did not go prepared for a hike that long. So we did a shorter loop and had a lot of fun and exercise doing it.

Tay and Liv participated in a virtual summer camp through our local community college. Here Tay explains one of his projects. Wes loved that his program caused a light to blink and change colors. They both had a lot of fun.

Ava created this my little pony puppet out of construction paper and toilet paper tubes. She ran out of pink paper right in the middle but creatively solved her problem.

Anyway, a few ways that we are passing the time. Our schools will start 100% virtual in a couple of weeks. They will stay that way until at least Nov, then the district will re-evaluate. Wish us luck!

Busy Life

I often feel really bad about not connecting better with people. This has been especially evident since the quarantine began mid March. Westli mostly, but all my kids in general, function best when there is a rigid routine. Consequently, I have worked hard to establish a routine since immediately following the announcement that schools were being closed here in Oregon. As the schools began making distance learning activities on their own, I have adjusted our routines as needed, but to keep track of each child’s specific things (zoom meetings, assignments, social engagements, and IEP meetings) I would be lost if not for my Google calendar. I was looking at this yesterday and realized that it was a profound act of juggling that I do everyday to get us through each week. This is the best way to demonstrate it.

In just 24 hours, today has morphed a lot as our school district announced, and teachers embraced, the reintroduction of whole class “meetings”. Today, it so happens, that all four of my kids have a “meeting” at 10am. I have heard a lot about what other families are doing to survive this time, and I don’t think any one solution can work for everyone. I wanted to share a glimpse of what this quarantine has meant for us and excuse away my own guilt for letting some of my social obligations fail.

In the Stanis house, we await the June 12th official close of school and their disruptions to our routines. I look forward to letting the kids sleep until 10 if they want and not keeping track of all their meetings and assignments!

Fudgy

Checking in

Hello from the Stanis Family quarantine, ehem social distancing… whatever. It feels like a quarantine, so let’s just call it what it is. Quarantines have been used for many hundreds of years to keep from mixing the sick with the healthy. Essentially this is what we are trying to do. Enough of that though, I thought it was time for an update about how the Stanis’ are coping with life in the face of SARS CoV 2 (the virus that leads to COVID 19, a disease). No one here has any symptoms of disease. Liv had cold symptoms a few days prior to the schools shutting down, but recovered her runny nose without incident or intervention. Therefore, we are not living in the face of COVID 19, just SARS CoV 2.

Having disclosed that we are all healthy, I will say that this season has been our worst season in a while. The kids one or more of them, have been sick (runny noses, coughs, fevers, ear infections, etc) since November! So this kinda feels good from a health perspective.

So Oregon schools cancelled as of March 16th (a Monday) Tay and Liv had a scheduled day off on March 13, so really they had an extra 3 days. Ava and Wes did have school that day, so our quarantine really started on March 14th.

Having kids with special needs, we knew that this shutdown meant that I had to figure out a routine. My kids all thrive on some sense of routine. I started with a “Covid 19 schedule” that quickly spread around social media pages. This was a great place to start. I learned during the first week that we couldn’t really have an academic period in the afternoon. My kid’s attention, especially Wes’, was so spent that it was impossible to try to learn anything. I also learned that while it was a great idea to put away electronics during the morning, I was pretty dependent upon electronics for most of my academic ideas, thus we needed electronics during academic time. So after our previously scheduled spring break, we embarked upon a new schedule that looks like this:

We have been following this one since yesterday, and so far, its working better for our lives. Tay and Liv go to a school that practices project based learning. So in the morning I try to come up with some kind of lesson (yesterday we made a sour dough starter) that we work on as a group. I try to incorporate math, reading, and writing skills into these “lessons”. In the afternoon, they can use creative time and project time to explore topics that they are interested in. Liv, Tay, and Ava then present what they learned during this time while we are having dinner. We expect that they will have a more formal presentation of everything they learned on Friday. Hopefully I can post them here later.

The schedules are met with a little resistance here and there, but for the most part, it creates an understanding of what is expected to happen. Wes has the hardest time with this. While it helps him to know what is coming, sometimes he doesn’t prefer that activity = resistance. This is not surprising and I try to keep reinventing things to keep it fresh, light, and interesting. Today he spent nearly his entire second table time learning typing lessons with an app on his iPad. It was mostly independent and easy. Which is an A in my book!

As for me and Jon, we are carving out time to keep exercising. This really is the only time we have for ourselves. Last week I went for a jog and an older gentleman on the trail (the trails were packed) pointed out that we had a similar pace. He asked if I minded if he walked along with me. I’m a really accommodating kind of person, so I said I didn’t mind. We had a nice casual conversation and stayed more like 3-4ft apart. In truth, I minded a little. As I said, exercising is the only time we have to ourselves. Every other minute is filled with kids or dogs needing something from us. I miss the hours of the kids at school when I could clear my head and get things I needed to get done taken care of. I felt good though, when it was time for me to turn back, because I think giving the man my “time” was a big thing to him. And right now we all need a few “big things” once in a while.

Our seclusion has marked the end of “winter” and the beginning of “spring”, quite truly here in Portland. Near the beginning the kids enjoyed our first, and only snow fall this year. Wes was dying for snow, he and Ava even scrambled outside to erect a “snowdon” before everything melted in the afternoon. Of all of us, he is the only one who really misses snow. I think that is because he never had to deal with any of the mess of it. Maybe I would like it too if I only got to enjoy the fun of snow.

We kept meaning to get up to the mountain to play in snow, but it just hasn’t really worked out this year. And with the virus shutting everything down, I’m not sure we will get there this season. Our governor has closed state parks, trails, and beaches. It saddens me because the state of things really is so dire. I hope in the end that we all will understand how very necessary our sacrifices were. The kids and I have talked about this a lot to them understand. The idea of not having school has been distressing to most of my kids.

“Snowdog”

As you have been reading along, I included some photos I took while on walks of spring’s blooming. I hope they can provide some brightness to those of you who are not yet blooming.

Welcome Spring