Ah, the End of Summer!
Tips for at-home learning, a tutorial for comfortable face masks, and more!
Hello, friends! Here we are at the end of August. It’s a bittersweet time made more so by the fact that we are in the midst of a pandemic.
Many of you have children and teens in your life: children, grandchildren, friends. Those children are headed back to school in one form or another — and it is likely they will have a very disrupted year this year. So I offer these words as a former teacher and now parent: it is ok that this year is different. To expect anything else just isn’t fair to anyone. It is different, and we must bend, adjust, and adapt accordingly. It isn’t going to be easy, but we can do it.
And to all of you teachers out there: I am thinking of you and praying for you. This isn’t the career you imagined, I know.
As for us: we will be doing school at home, online, for the foreseeable future. I’m comfortable with this and hope it will be a good experience for Bambino. With that in mind, I have created a range of resources for families doing school at home. Whether your children start out at home or transition to at-home learning, I hope these resources will be helpful for the children and families in your life.
And since kids of all ages, and adults, too, need comfortable face masks, here’s my face mask guide as well as a video tutorial on how to make any face mask more comfortable for all-day wear.
Be safe out there, friends! I hope you are well! Wear a mask, stay home, and take care of yourself!
Hugs!
Angela
Make Any Face Mask More Comfortable
Make any face mask more comfortable with this easy, no-sew hack! All you need is elastic!
Great for Kids at School | Keep Any Face Mask on All Day
Simple no-sew tutorial to convert face masks with ear loops into a mask that will stay on and is much more comfortable.
For anyone who is looking for a comfortable way to wear a face mask for a long time: here's a quick fix solution. In our family, we can’t stand ear loops, and personally I can't imagine a whole classroom of kids with ear loops constantly coming off! So here's an easy no-sew solution to convert the ear loops using elastic. We all wear masks like this, and they are quite comfortable!
I hope this is helpful for you and your family! It’s so important that we all wear face masks to slow the spread of COVID-19, and making them as comfortable as possible makes this even easier!
Be safe!
Angela
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Family Game Night
Recommendations for Family Game Night including all of our favorite games
Happy quarantine! I hope you all are well and are staying healthy.
I have lost track of the days and the weeks. I just know we have a few weeks of school left and then we will be entering a summer unlike any we have ever encountered. Yowza! But we will get through it together.
One of our new favorite parts of quarantine is Family Game Night — even on school nights! After dinner we all play a game, and I’ve collected a list of our favorite games together to share with you! I hope they give you some ideas for family fun together!
It’s almost time for gardening here in Colorado. In fact, this weekend I’m getting my annual dividend of compost from our compost service — fresh compost delivered! Hooray! I’m so ready to dig in the dirt — but I have some weeding to do before that comes. Phew! That’s my project for the next few days. And then I’m going to put in veggies and flowers in our raised beds. We also need to freshen up the Dinosaur Garden! I’m excited to get that cleaned up so Bambino can play there again.
I hope you are wearing a mask. Remember: my mask protects you; your mask protects me. If you need to make a mask, here are my recommendations. I finally got a few rolls of shop towels, and I’m happy to report that they make easy filters in these masks.
Be well! Stay safe! And stay home!
XOXO
Angela
Staying Home and Staying Cozy
How are you spending your Coronavirus confinement? I have a few ideas in case you are starting to lose your mind.
My dear friends, it has been a minute! Actually, more than a few minutes. I took some time away from writing to work on other projects, and then COVID-19 happened. One month ago today, in fact, we started to shelter in place. Aside from daily social-distancing walks with the dog and the child, we really haven’t left the house. And like so many of you, I’m juggling school lessons with a spouse working from home and my own work projects, too.
It is a lot.
And let me tell you: if you aren’t ok, that is totally ok. This is a remarkable, historic time. It is scary and insane and strange and monumental all at once. And it is ok not to be ok.
But now that we are a month into this with no real end in sight, I have gathered a few ideas and resources which might help you make your own confinement a little easier.
DIY Face Masks
First, I have put together tutorials for making face masks in three different styles. I have made more than 30 masks, and I tried several different ways to make them. Finally I decided on three different masks that seemed to work best — and are easy to make. If you need to make masks for your family, I hope you’ll try these out. Let me know how it goes!
Hygge Makes Everything Better
Early on I chose a word for this period knowing that a focus would make everything a little easier. My word is: hygge. What’s hygge? It is the Danish concept of coziness, happiness, and goodness — all rolled up together.
Focusing on hygge has allowed us to jump into our confinement with joy and love. My husband travels a lot for work, so having him home for an entire month has been amazing! We are cooking a lot, snuggling on the couch, reading even more, and I’ve taken up needlepoint which is a wonderful distraction.
I have updated my What I’m Reading Now list — lots of good book suggestions!
I am also journaling — sometimes angrily, sometimes creatively, sometimes with great sadness. And we have become Zoom experts — along with the rest of the world — from class meetings to get-togethers with friends.
But I’m also doing a lot of sleeping — or at least reading in bed. And I have some tips for sleeping Scandinavian-style which is all about bringing the hygge into your bedroom. We love it!
Small Home Projects
We aren’t tackling anything big right now. The Spring One Room Challenge was supposed to start on April 1, but it has been postponed to May at the earliest. But we have been doing small projects around the house. Our kitchen, for example: we were supposed to remodel it this spring, but those plans have been put on hold. So we have taken on a few small projects — temporary fixes for a truly dysfunctional kitchen. Small projects like this can ease the daily stress of living in a house that doesn’t work well — even if they are temporary fixes.
Celebrating
I’ll be honest: I didn’t feel much like celebrating Easter. But as the day approached, I realized just how much we needed a celebration in the middle of it all. We have also celebrated two big birthdays for family — one with a Zoom-call party and another with a silly drive-by parade. Life goes on, and we can still celebrate milestones, even if we can’t do it in person as we would like.
And when I did hang the Easter eggs from our branch chandelier and put out the Easter decorations, the change was welcome, and we had a wonderful family celebration.
In the next few weeks I will share some of our favorite recipes and projects. It is almost time to get out into the garden again — despite the fresh snow today! And one day soon we will be back to something that approximates “normal” again.
But until then, stay safe! Wash your hands. Wear a mask. And stay home as much as is humanly possible.
XOXO
Angela
