Leaf by Elizabeth

I'm not feeling cheerful. (There, I said it.) I've been feeling sad and weighed down recently. It's the combination of having to stay home, not knowing when this will end, and so many people getting sick and dying. So I'm making space for the sadness and grief, as much as I can. And at the same time, finding joy in little things. Like the little hippo (name tbd- any suggestions?) I made for Matt. He's very soft and much loved by all of us. I'm making a smaller one for Lucy now. And painting. These bright colors are magically wonderful.  And this little elephant Clara made of legos over the weekend. Also, we went geocaching for the first time this weekend, and had a few fun adventures. People hide little tupperware with treasures and a log-book inside, and then note the GPS coordinates. You then try to find the cache, and can exchange treasures and sign the log book. We found one inside a hollow log (pic

The end of week 3 of staying at home. 3 down, at least 4 more to go. Probably better to just focus on day by day, as that sounds pretty daunting. My big takeaway this week is....this is hard. Not because of anything I'm doing or not doing, but just because it is. All the positive coping strategies we use can make it a little better, but they can't make it not hard. Life is just hard sometimes. That may not sound encouraging, but for me it lessens the burden of feeling like I need to make it all better. Joys * We have been baking SO much! I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and a delicious pear pecan bread, Clara made amazingly delicious chocolate chip cookies, (pictured on the left), and Lucy made chocolate cupcakes with an incredible cream cheese icing. words * French braiding hair. I did Lucy's and she did mine. * We've started working on the puzzle of the grandkids in Vermont that Papa Jack gave us a few years ago. The girls love puttin