Day 60 of Sheltering In

Wednesday. An in-law has been told not to report to work because of answering their list of Coronavirus questions in a way that is cause for concern. In other words has symptoms. The in-law contacted health insurer and then went to a testing site to be tested.

That has me asking myself, is my throat sore? And all the other questions. I checked my temperature 3 times yesterday. Once so far today. It’s been fine. 

Today I stayed home. Laundry is still calling, but not feeling well, maybe tomorrow? Took the antibiotic my doctor prescribed on an empty stomach. The bottle said empty or after eating, either were ok. I must have a delicate system because my stomach hurt all afternoon. I’m going to take it after I eat going forward. I’ve never been on this antibiotic before, I hope it works in 1 round. (Historically it has taken several rounds of different antibiotics to get rid of my sinus infections.)

I got my face mask fabric unpackaged and put in a mesh bag with the dirty laundry. I’ve got about 14 fat quarters. I say “about” because I was interrupted twice and wasn’t going to pull them out of the mesh bag and start over. So it looks like I can get 4-6 (front or back pieces) from 1 fat quarter. If I combine that with scrap fabric I have, that will be a good number of masks. All fabric is 100% cotton and was hard to get. I ordered coffee ties (tin-ties) (they attach to the coffee bag, you roll it down and bend around the sides to close a bag of coffee.) We don’t buy coffee like that, so no bags to steal from. The ties are cut in 1/2 and make 2 nose pieces. Not happy they won’t be delivered until next week. The masks I got from a Facebook sewing group used twist ties, so after you wash the mask a few times the paper comes off and the wire starts to poke out. I have a scratch from the top of my nose to the tip and my son scratched his cheek. I think both happened while we were taking off our masks. The cat masks I bought don’t have a nose piece to pinch to get a good seal on your face so we’ve been wearing them upside down. (No, I didn’t buy masks for my cats! The fabrics are cute cat patterns.) As soon as I get the tin-ties I’m using a seam ripper to open the seams on the tops of all the masks that are already made, taking the wires out of the ones that have them, and putting in 1/2 of a tin-tie and sewing it in place with a fabric scrap and top stitching the masks closed. It will be a PITA, but it’s necessary. I also have to remove the ties and either do earpieces, or elastic or T-shirt strip over the head. I bought some hair bands (not Motley Crew) and sewed buttons on them so the earpieces don’t rest behind the ears and cause irritation. Who knew a simple face mask could get so complicated?

I asked my daughter if she had access to a tape measure. Nope. So I will have to porch drop one and show her on my model (my son) how to take the measurements. The measurements are needed to custom make masks for her to wear when she returns to work. I don’t have a lot of time to do this if the governor doesn’t extend the lockdown for group homes. I’m really praying he at least extends it for group homes and congregate living places. I can’t imagine that they have cleaned and set up the day programs to insure social distancing. I know if it’s not extended she will need us to provide transportation. I don’t see them being proactive and arranging this. At my house we will continue to shelter in, except if transportation is needed. Because of the way her leave of absence is worded we have to know tomorrow, get documentation, and fill out a LOA extension, if it’s extended. If it’s not, my daughter needs to notify her work to start scheduling her 05/30. 

NASCAR was supposed to start today and I got my son interested in watching (it’s part of my evil plot to find something for him to bond with my wife, my daughter watches WWE with my wife when she’s on home visits). 🌧 delay! They were drying the track with some blowers, but it was a slow process, so we had to watch old NASCAR clips. How fun! Not! After 45 minutes my wife told me to turn something else on cuz it started to 🌧 more.

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