April

April and full blown quarantine. This month definitely wasn't as strange as March but it's a close second because of not being able to see anyone, go anywhere, or do anything really. Everything is basically cancelled. The stores are STILL out of so many things like flour, toilet paper, beans, noodles, rice, etc. Lysol wipes (or any kind of all purpose cleaner) are like sand in a sieve. 

Crystal and I continued to zoom all our High Fitness classes. It's really hard to do this in the basement, on carpet, with carpet pad that is like memory foam. Plus that small room would get so sweaty and stinky, even with the window open, haha!

   

Brynlee has kept herself mostly busy. She gets up in the morning, does school, which only takes her a couple hours at most. Then it's off to do something like cut up boxes, guck up my hot glue gun, chop papers into the tiniest pieces that are hard to clean up and then make salt dough with all the flour that you can't really buy at the store because people are hoarding it just like toilet paper and noodles. People got into the trend of painting rocks and putting them along the pathways so we would find them all over on our walks. We were literally bored enough that we separated all of her legos by color.... BY COLOR! Who does that? But it helped Brynlee so she could redo all her lego sets and keep her busy for a good long while. Some days she just goes out and sits on the disc swing we got her. We're trying to find a tramp but good luck finding anything like that too. Bikes, tramps, and all things outdoorsy are basically sold out, everywhere! Ugh. Luckily her club team has caught on to the idea of doing Zoom practices and that's so good for her to have motivation to practice, exercise and see her team mates. Plus, watching her do sit-ups was hilarious. She kept complaining her stomach hurt. Haha. Those are your abs kid. One day, Brynlee and Kam decided they were each going to try to stay outside all day, each one at their own house. So Brynlee packed up a bunch of stuff and took it outside to spend the day on the deck and in the back yard. I was impressed. She stayed out there most of the day and basically entertained herself all day long. 

        

   

 

We worked in the garden prepping and planting. More face masks with the kiddo and a healthy game of croquet where we showed no mercy to the kid and she lost. Well both me and Brynlee lost every time. It's like a game of golf and Ty is just that good at it. Ty has been working from home still. He is technically what people are calling an essential worker since his company makes the machines that clean and purify water. The world has to have clean water, who would've thought.... It's kind of fun to sit and watch him work and listen to him take charge of meetings and interact with his coworkers. He hates the office chair. Pretty sure I got it at a yard sale years ago when he went back to school at UOP. It's creaky and apparently not very comfortable. 

     

I've also tried to stay busy and most of my time was taken up by painting cabinets which is a whole other ball of wax I'll chat about later. Loved having bright(er) pink hair for a smidge of a second. I decided to document having to give Toby all his meds and how often I had to do it. Also, my nails haven't been this long in over 10 years. A whole decade and they got annoying really fast actually because they are harder to keep clean but so pretty. For a YW's activity we all made felt flowers from materials that were given to everyone. I love them. They bring me a bit of color and they're cute. Zoom High classes are fairly convenient but not really ideal. Better than nothing though so I'll consider that a win. I collaborated with a few ladies in my neighborhood and sewed quite a few masks that were being given to the health care workers here in Salt Lake. Yeah, there's a shortage of masks too, not just flour, toilet paper, beans, rice, noodles, cleaning supplies, etc. PPE (personal protective equipment) is in short supply as well. Collectively there were over a million masks made which is cool to be a part of. I made Brynlee and Tyler help me with one batch and Brynlee thought she was going to die cause it took all of 20 minutes, which seemed like forever to her I guess. Once elastic was available (cause that was sold out too) they changed the mask pattern and it was so much easier than the ties we had to sew on. Plus I learned how to do chain sewing which made sewing 100 masks at a time a cinch. I had a few moments where I was so grateful my mom gifted me a sewing machine so I could participate and engage in this cool cause. This puzzle was sooo hard. Makinzie let me borrow it and I loved every minute of it. It helped keep my mind occupied when I wasn't painting cabinets (lol) so I could destress and relax. 

      

  

 

*~*Happy Easter*~*

It looked different this year. Nothing I ever thought would happen but we stayed home for a major holiday and just hung out together. We did church and the sacrament. Come Follow Me is amazing and I feel so blessed to know the church is led by God. He knew we would need a program that was simple and spiritual for individuals and families so we could continue to learn the gospel even when church was shut down. 

We still decorated eggs, enjoyed Brynlee finding her Easter basket and I thoroughly enjoyed eating my milk chocolate caramel egg. Yum.

This year, since the magic of Santa and Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy, etc is acknowledged to be what it really is, we asked Brynlee if she wanted eggs with candy or just one with money in it. She opted for money but we told her it wouldn't be easy to find. It took her a week to find the golden egg with $10 in it. It was hidden in her coat pocket in her closet. 

  

 

  

   

Whatever power it was that convinced me to attack painting my cabinets was divine because it literally kept me busy for an entire month. I did a bunch of research and decided I was going to use a liquid sandpaper, putty, sand, prime and then paint my cabinets. We also decided partway through to add bead board to the smaller cabinet doors above the microwave and fridge as well as around the island/bar thing. New hardware and voila, lots of materials, parking in the driveway, back aches, and pure kitchen chaos and it was finally finished. Except for the part where Ty was like, we should paint the back splash. Oh man.. ok. So we did that too. Just painted it white but I had to pull off my magnetic spice rack from the wall and scrape the construction grade adhesive tape off the tile. That was fun (not)! Then, like a crazy person, I decided the railings just didn't match or look good at all so those had to be painted. The month of April was fairly all a blur. By the time I had primed all the railing I was ready to quit and just couldn't do another stroke with a paint brush. Man it was time consuming, mind numbing and so much work. When we were all done and looking at all the before pictures, Brynlee said, "It used to look like a cabin!" Haha. It definitely looks a million times better and I like it a lot. The downside to doing your own projects in your house is you see every single flaw in it. The upside is you save lots of money and usually it turns out how you want it to instead of someone else's version of your vision. So I spent $200 and basically have a new kitchen. I love it. And I love that I'm never doing this ever again. It's too much. Next time I'll just pay some one to do it or not do it at all and just deal with it. 

April 6th - Before

  

 

During

  

              

After

  

 

And then I decided to do the railings. Completed photos will be forthcoming. 

I probably laughed a little too hard at this and I'm not sure why my mind was blown but it was. There is the word 'turd' in Saturday. How did I not ever notice this!?!? And then there's this. My rendition of quarantine. Napping. Sometimes you just have to sleep through things. 

  

Saw this and loved it immediately and completely. My Savior. He lives and loves me. Someday I'll have this picture hung on my wall or displayed somewhere in my home. It brings a sense of calm, peace and tranquility not to mention love, surrendering and connectedness.