Mary Beth Yeary.

I have been sheltering-in-place around one month now, and while it still doesn’t feel like anything close to normal, it gets a little better day by day. It certainly hasn’t been easy but I find that the more that’s been taken away, the more interesting things I have found to replace them.  Here are somethings I’ve observed and tried out during the past few weeks:

My sister’s office is now a classroom

I’m sure a lot of parents feel a ton of pressure as education for their children was suddenly shifted from the school house to their own house. A lot of the curriculum has changed and we now have to make sure we are keeping our kids on schedules to not only do their homework, but try to do it well. In regards to this, my sister Allison really stepped up to the plate.

An elementary school teacher, Allison not only took on the task of home-schooling her own two children, but also three of my nieces and nephews, while also babysitting my great-niece, Grayce, from time to time. She even has old school desks and a giant white board in her office. The kids can sit at the desks to have a space to focus on the work and they do use them! The giant white board is filled with each one’s weekly schedule in a check-list style to make sure they stay on tasks. It really is neat and I’m glad Allison took the initiative to create this space for them.

Dancing, glow-in-the dark stick figures

One night at Allison’s house, I was able to do something very cool that might have been something I would have never thought of: becoming a glow-in-the dark stick figure.

Allison had bought a bunch of glow sticks, both long ones and short ones, after seeing a video where a family had placed glow sticks around their bodies until they resembled colorful stick figures when they turned off the lights. They then began to dance to a song, and Allison decided duplicating this would be tons of fun.

And she was right! She was able to tape the glow sticks on my niece Henley, my nephew Cash and me. We used just clear tape and centered the glow sticks on the middle of our arms, legs, chest and abdomen. To make the round head of the stick figure, we put on masks, courtesy of Cash’s costume collection, and formed one of the glow sticks into a circle, then taped it to the mask.

After that, we turned off the lights and began to dance. Looking back on the video, my dancing made me look so confused as I watched Henley and Cash’s moves as we danced. Overall though, I had a wonderful time, so I definitely recommend this as a fun family activity to switch things up and get silly.

Online daily devotions and worship music

One thing that has come out of having a less busy life is that I’ve had more time to listen to sermons and daily devotions. As I have said before, I usually try to have around an hour of quiet time with God each morning. I also still try to “attend” church by watching livestreams online on Sundays and Wednesdays. I’ve also added watching more daily devotions and worship music videos online into my routine.

I really like a Youtube channel called Branch Together, which is made by Branch Church in New Jersey. I love their daily devotional videos that are posted Monday through Friday. Right now they are going through passages in the Book of John in a series called “Looking for Light: Finding Hope in a Dark Times.” It really focuses in on how challenging it can be to be isolated and uses Scripture to teach us ways that not only can help us have hope during the pandemic, but also sharing that hope, which is found in Jesus, with others. It’s been really encouraging.

I’ve also been trying to listen to more worship music, since it helps me praise God more and some of the lyrics are really helpful to keep my joy up when I’m feeling sad or lonely. One thing I’ve been turning to is hymn writers Keith and Krystyn Getty and their live hymn sings. They include their little girls and it makes the videos adorable as they sing out hymns and praises to God. They come out on Tuesdays on their Youtube channel each week and I highly recommend giving them a listen.

Overall, though sheltering-in-place has had its challenges, I am enjoying the slowing down that the pandemic has brought. I truly enjoy feeling less busy and taking the time to enjoy doing more of the things I’ve wanted to do, but never could fit them into my schedule. Even though the state is opening back up, I plan to stay sheltered in place for as long as I can. I’m also looking forward to the next discoveries waiting for me along the way.