I haven’t been blogging much lately.

Blogging was something I did “before.” It doesn’t feel like something I do “after” — at least, not yet. Not while the world is still on fire. I almost can’t bring myself to look at this 12+ year archive sometimes, written at different times in my life but all of those times are so, so different than what we’re dealing with now.

I haven’t been blogging or DIYing, but I am always, always writing. I have been focusing on my work (blessedly almost back to normal levels) as well as writing my novel (I’m up to 124,000+ words and getting so close). And sometimes I write random notes on my phone that eventually turn into blog posts. Like this.

Here is a note I wrote back in April. Let’s call it Part I …

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Dear kids,

I checked your toes and fingers today for purplish lesions. It’s the latest possible symptom of the virus that’s keeping us locked inside, away from school and activities and friends.

I know I should stop reading articles about symptoms and risk factors because they terrify me, but if I stopped I’d worry I might miss something — a warning sign that meant you were sick with “it,” with “the virus,” with the thing I try not to say out loud.

I wonder what you’re remembering about this time, this pandemic, if you read this post in the future.

I know you won’t remember what you didn’t see, like me creeping into your bedrooms at night to make sure you were breathing. To make sure the virus hadn’t somehow stolen you away from me, just because you had a bit of a cough. Silent tears rolling down into my hair, berating myself for not getting refills on the old puffers you’d bad for previous coughs, just in case they would help right now because something HAD to help, right?!

Will you remember how I went crazy buying different kinds of cough syrup, because that’s what they recommended we do in the beginning? And Tylenol — all the Tylenol — because Advil might kill us or something. That was in March, maybe early April.

Oh, and the food. When it became difficult to get things at the grocery store, I went a little nuts stockpiling some basics in a few bags in the basement — crackers, cereal, juice, applesauce, pasta, canned goods. You found it. Mom’s Basement Food, you called it. You thought it was weird and kind of funny. I told you it was because I couldn’t fit it all up in the kitchen, but really it was my secret, scared stash. The food I reasoned we might need if the shelves were bare, in a world where our poor little Superstore was full of smoke and looters and screams.

But wait, you might be asking, food shortages? The whole world shutdown? HOW many people died?! Let me go back to the beginning.