On March 17th the governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, and the President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced that we would begin a two week freeze in effort to stop the spread of the virus COVID 19. COVID 19 is a virus that Trump said came from China. Whether it was leaked from a lab in Wuhan, or came from a wet market in Wuhan we still are not sure, but because this virus is so contagious every business except those deemed “essential” like grocery stores shut down for two weeks. Kids didn’t go to school, sports and activities were cancelled, church was cancelled, and everyone stayed within the walls of their home and designated yards and neighborhoods for two straight weeks. Justin cancelled all of his patients, but continued to see emergency patients. People flocked to the grocery stores and raided the shelves for food and supplies to last a month! Justin stocked up on baking essentials from cash and carry and I stocked up on food from the grocery store. Shockingly toilet paper and cleaning supplies became hot commodity. The shelves were left completely empty! I placed a few Amazon orders for crafts and activities for the kids to do with all their newfound free time. I bought lego sets, art sets, and other various crafts to keep us busy. We binge watched Harry Potter every night for a week and then binge watched Cheer, a reality series about competitive cheerleading. During the day we crafted and played on our iPads and phones to entertain ourselves. I made my first Tik Tok video with Kate, and probably my last, hahaha. Justin taught himself how to make sour dough bread and other bread variations like focaccia, and made great use of his Treager and smoked all sorts of meat.
We watched the news consistently every morning to get updates and to get an idea of what we all needed to do next. Two weeks didn’t seem like a big deal but what next? Zoom, which was video messaging in real time, became the most popular website and form of communication, and all sorts of people and businesses were using this platform to communicate with each other. Preston’s sweet Pre school teacher Loretta provided pre school for 30 minutes a few times a week to try and keep the kids connected. The phrase “We are in this Together” became the nations slogan. We cut out some paper hearts and taped them to our window so people outside at the park could see and be reminded that we will get through these two weeks.
With so much unknown we all tried to do our part in staying home and remained relatively calm so we didn’t freak out the kids, but this type of freeze was something we have never been asked to do. We were told to stay indoors, disinfect all our surfaces, and even recommended to quarantine our groceries for 24 hours before bringing them into our home, for fear they had germs on them. Everyone and anything tangible were considered a potential for infection. I never wiped down my groceries by the way because I thought that was a little extreme. We didn’t interact with anyone except for those immediate in our family. We even stayed away from Grandma and Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles and cousins. It was crazy!
