When I was about my kids’ age, one of the songs school music teachers always made us sing was The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel.  I realize, looking back, that was not exactly appropriate, but the song has been going through my head today.  Things are just quiet around here.  Not in my house, of course.  Silence is not something that we ever have here, but outside–fewer cars out on the roads, fewer kids out playing, and when people come across each other’s paths while walking their dogs (or, in my case, walking my kids), they step away from each other and nod in greeting instead of saying much.  I can’t begin to describe how eerie it is.

One place that was not quiet was the grocery store–at 6:30 am.  I’m afraid that we’ll have a shelter in place order soon and I wanted to get some frozen vegetables just in case.  I also wanted to get what I needed to make “Mom’s spaghetti sauce,” but I’ll have to swap out sweet Italian sausage, which was out of stock, for mild Italian sausage.  It won’t taste the same, but it will be fine.  Over Christmas break, I stocked the freezer with sauce, but we used it during basketball season, which ended just as this mess began.  So, I’m hoping to get at least a few containers saved.

I also tried to pick up some meat to freeze–I did get a bit, but no chicken.  In fact, this was the entire stock of chicken in the store…

I texted this to the hubs and he replied, begging me not to buy any.  There was no chance of that–I’ve never had gizzards and I don’t even know what to do with them!

Today was a more challenging home schooling day.  I think that I need to figure out a schedule that works for my kids, especially my son.  It took us almost until 4:30 for him to get done what needed to be done and there were definitely some frustrating moments.  I know this is all new for him (for all of us, really) and we will get there-eventually!

We did end up going for a neighborhood walk–it really was a beautiful day, even if the blooms kicked up the allergies.  My daughter suggested going up to a nearby nature park tomorrow, which we may do tomorrow.  I do worry that it will be too crowded there, but we can always come home if the parking lot is full.

And, if you remember from my first “Dispatch,” our washer broke.  Well, the hubs is hard at work trying to fix it as I type–which is a good thing as both he and I are getting dangerously low on clean clothes!