quarantine camera roll.

So it turns out even opening my laptop and randomly typing is hard when isolating.

Here is how my quarantine is going according to my iPhone:

April 2: Caught a glimpse of some blossoms in Riverside Park and felt a tiny spark of happiness.

April 5: Went for a walk and decided to wear a bandana face mask. Only had my our lady of guadeloupe bandana with me in my isolation cabin. 

Made some whipped coffee. Here's my endorsement for Elmhurst walnut milk. 

Got bored, curled my hair and did an eye mask. Gotta be zoom fresh. 

April 6: Chilling with all my beverages and zoom. 

April 7: Iced Latte & baked rutabaga and apple with crispy eggs for breakfast.

Declared this my errand day and peeped some pear blossoms blowing in the breeze. 

Started making myself a birthday cake and actually set up my mise en place. 

Did you know this yogurt costs $10.99/8 oz? I didn't until I checked my receipt. Cool, cool, cool. 

April 8: Morning beverages.

My quarantine clothing set up. I had to take a picture because I couldn't stop laughing about the fact that my pajama stack is the highest. On brand. 

FaceTiming with my fave kiddos. 

Felt great about my run. 

Remembered that last year for my birthday I ran the cherry blossom 10 miler and then posed for a post run selfie to send to my dad. Decided to do the same this year. Traditions. 

Some avocado toast and plantain chips. Balance. 

Beautiful delivery courtesy of the one and only Leth Booney! Now I have alcohol for quarantine! 

Made myself a Boston Cream Pie birthday cake. It's yummy. Every few days I take another slice out of the freezer. 

Pineapple water. For when you get bored with regular water. 

Was FaceTiming Rylee and Tim and Ry asked to see my cake. And the sprinkle aftermath struck me as funny. Idk. 

April 9: Decided to put my cake in the freezer so I didn't eat the whole thing in a day. 

More whipped coffee. 

Post run selfie. 

April 11: Making another cake. More mise en place. Carrot cake for Easter.

April 12: Dressed like an Easter egg for my Easter run. Thought it would motivate me. Spoiler alert: it didn't.

Completed carrot cake. 

April 13: Decided to have another slice to celebrate Ines' birthday remotely. Then froze it to escape danger. 

Also, have had like a 5 day omelette streak. Once I ran out of avocados to make toast with, I guess I decided I was really into omelettes. And its a great way to use a lot of greens that you fear are wilting. 

April 14: Beverage pics were exchanged. 

April 15: And today started the same. Just call me I. 

And here's the happy face I had for brunch. 

And that's been the past two weeks in isolation in New York City. 

caution over fear.

After 7 hours on Zoom today, I decided to round out the evening with another 30 minutes on screen reading to my favorite small humans. I've spent the last few days assisting at a virtual learning workshop and have been so inspired by all of the work people are putting in to making sure that kids are still growing as readers during this time and wanted to try some of the tech out myself. Plus, I just missed my favorite former roomies and their parents were kind enough to appease me. 

Being obsessed with both cognitive development and phonological awareness, and living away from my children's book collection. I found Silly Tilly on kindle unlimited and decided it would be perfect for screen sharing, rhyme awareness, and tracking change in characters feelings. Wanting to do justice to all I learned this week, I planned the read aloud with sticky notes as I would normally do, but got so caught up interacting with G&E that I abandoned them two pages in. It was super fun and they were super cute. It's also just hilarious to ever attempt to be in teacher mode with kiddos you're friends with. So lol to that. 

After my planned read aloud, there was a request (a ploy to delay lights out I'm sure) for another story for the one and only G-Unit. Rylee said go ahead and I scrambled to find another book, but luckily had some tucked away from an author study I had done in the fall. I provided two Dan Santat choices and G picked After the Fall.

In summary, the story is about Humpty Dumpty, and how after his famous fall, the kings men were in fact able to put him back together again, but he was now afraid of heights and his favorite spot to watch the birds from atop the wall. The overall message of the story is that life begins when you get back up again. 

This random book selected in the middle of a bright spot of another quarantined day left me thinking about fear. It is a really hard time to not be afraid. Each day, as I read about more cases and more deaths and more risks, it can be hard to not make decisions based on fear. I started self-isolating on March 13 and have tried to go outside each day for a walk or a run, but sometimes I find myself too crippled with fear to leave the apartment. Here I am in the epicenter of the pandemic, is it really smart to do the Central Park loop? Especially when so many people had the same idea? Or how about the elderly when I switched to Riverside Park? They're out there with face masks, and do they need this space more than I do right now? Should I stay home so they can be out? 

It's hard to know and hard to make the right call. But I do know that the message of After the Fall rang loud and clear to me today: proceed with caution, but not with fear. I can be cautious and go to the park at off times for my outdoor time, but I shouldn't avoid outside altogether because I am afraid. I can go to the grocery store with my Clorox wipes, but I shouldn't buy a three weeks supply of yeast because I'm afraid I'll never be able to shop again. I can refrain from hitting check out on every sale that pops into my inbox to be smart with my student income, but I shouldn't stop supporting businesses I love and because I'm afraid of an economic collapse. 

In a world in crisis, I am so grateful for children's literature and it's capability to pull people of all ages in and ground them. I needed the joy and the reminder today. And tomorrow, I'll go outside. 

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Psalm 23:4. 

tales from quarantine.

Hey 2020, fancy seeing you here.

Times are absolutely crazy. Since I last captioned a photo in this space a lot has happened. I spent 3 years living with my best friend and her growing family. I started to crave a new city and a new way to engage in the work of education. I lost some friends. I made some new ones. I ran a couple of marathons for "fun." I decided to go to grad school full time. I said goodbye to DC and moved to New York. I experimented with being vegan but settled on being a flexitarian (as Beth lovingly mocked, it means you can eat whatever you want). And now we are in the middle of a global health crisis and ordered to quarantine for at least the next month.

Amidst the chaos, there has been a plea from historians for more personal writing during this unprecedented time; a request for first hand accounts of living through COVID-19. Perhaps I am only hearing this because I live in my little literacy specialist corner and authentic writing is an ever present conversation here. But collecting something more than just TikTok videos and
Instagram captions seems important.

After a week or so of pondering if writing daily will do me any good, I have decided to just go for it. It pulls me away from my school work, my anxieties, and -- lets be honest -- tv.
Next came the how: in a journal, notebook, google docs? Then today I remembered that this space existed. I honestly thought I had deleted it in an effort to try to erase my past self from the internet. I thought scrolling through who I was before would cause me to cringe in shame. Instead, I smiled and giggled through the layers of memories that exist here. I read the about me I had crafted where I claimed this was basically a group text to friends without the pressure to respond. It feels relevant four years later and for the task at hand. I like the private publicness of this space. Those who I want to find it will, otherwise it will just be another quarantine brain dump in the abyss of the internet.

To start off this new writing venture, here's a little photo dump of my first 17 days of self isolation in the epicenter of the pandemic.

^Friday, March 13: Empty subway platform at rush hour. 

Tuesday, March 17: Caught BJ Novak commenting on Current Mood.

Friday, March 20: Me and my beverages getting ready for a day of Zoom. 

Monday, March 23: Made some bread.

Tuesday, March 24: Coffee like Antoni and Deb taught me. 

Wednesday, March 25: Vegan Tahini Chocolate Chunk Cookies and viral whipped coffee drink. 

Thursday, March 26: Hour long, block spanning, Trader Joe's line

And bring your own disinfectant wipes. 

Friday, March 27: More Zoom

Saturday, March 28: Made banana bread from the Flour cookbook. 

Monday, March 30: Coffee, water, banana bread and melty peanut butter. 

 Accidental stair shot. 

Camo and leopard print greet each other.

And my dad sent me a coffee package. 

Tuesday, March 31: Bought this sweater and pictured wearing it on summertime (New England) beach night. Settled for indoor wear. 

scandanavian design.

and american food. 

i forgot to take a picture of him sipping jaeger bombs.

but this tiny party hat is from Bi's birthday. 

gotta start adding letters back in!

i tried to break my snooze habit by placing my alarm all the way across my apartment.

but i just walk to the counter, turn it off, and get back in bed. uber for dayz. 

when the flowers are taller than you.