covid diary: day 58

Here's how today went.

5 a.m. Alarm begins to go off. I hit snooze so many times that I can't even count them.

6:40 a.m. I get up and take a shower at the last possible minute to still have time to get downstairs for work.

7 a.m. I sign in to work. There are no jobs waiting, so I go and clean the kitchen and start the dishwasher because the boys failed to do either last night after dinner.

7 to 11 a.m. Work is so slow that it's painful. I work on a couple of side projects, and I'm done with my "official" workday at 11 a.m. The way my job works now is that if there's more work, they ask us to stay on. Today there was no work, so there was no reason to keep me on. It's a very stressful way to be an employee, not knowing from day to day how many hours you can expect to have or what comes next.

11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. I finish today's work on my side projects, so I'm done with all computer work for the day. I go into the kitchen to find that Liam and Henry have individually made themselves food, so the kitchen is a mess again and there are dirty pans on the stove. It's exhausting. I clean the kitchen again, then fold all the laundry. Max is still asleep.

1:30 to 3 p.m. I clean the house, fold more laundry, vacuum, etc. Liam and Henry must be down in the basement because I haven't heard from them. Max wanders through around 2:30, sees that I'm cleaning, and decides he would rather hide in the basement than stay on the main level to eat and risk being asked to help out.

3 p.m. I call the boys up to the kitchen and explain to them that since I've done their jobs repeatedly today, they are going to help me out with a couple of other chores (cleaning their bathroom, taking out the trash, stuff like that). There is much complaining because every task is assigned unfairly, or so one of them claims. I move on to mopping.

4:15 p.m. Mike comes home. He and Liam concoct a plan to drive into town because Mike needs a new battery in his car, and we're all sick of eating oven sandwiches for dinner, so they will go get gyros.

5 p.m. Mike and Liam leave. I decide to take a bath and try to read a book (which has been an ongoing struggle for me).

5:45 p.m. Mike texts from town that the line for the gyros drive-thru is prohibitively long, so they're coming back home. Guess it's oven sandwiches again.

6:30 p.m. It turns out to be hot pockets for Liam and Henry, frozen pizza for Max, nachos (well, chips with melted cheese and salsa) for me, and an omelette for Mike.

7:30 p.m. The boys go outside to have a nerf war. There is much shouting and running around.

8 p.m. Mike and I decide to go out for a walk on the trails. Thus far we've been unsuccessful at getting the boys to come out with us, so we ask without much hope if they want to join us. Surprisingly, they accept, but only on the condition that the dogs come too.

8 to 9 p.m. There is much running and chaos all over the trails. But it's happy chaos. The boys take turns with the dogs, and the dogs even go off-leash for a while. In the end, everyone is happy and tired.

After that, it's showers and TV news and more video games and more kitchen cleaning. A bad workday, a hard home day, but in the end, a good day, because we're together and healthy and have a lot to be thankful for.

Nationwide cases: 1,256,972. Deaths: 75,670.