Monday 30 August 2021
A few days on, an announcement due later today, but those of us living in our biggest city, Auckland, have already been told to expect to be in lockdown a couple more weeks.. As for the rest of NZ, it’s a lottery, based on where you live. All cases in this current Delta Outbreak, have been in Auckland, and a few in Wellington. So far, no-one has tested positive in other centres. So while the country remains in Level 4 for now, we do expect changes for outside of Auckland soon.
Yesterday, NZ had 53 new cases, bringing our total in this outbreak to 562. Only 15 of those are in Wellington, the remaining 547 are in Auckland. I am fortunate that Holly and I are two of the just over 1 million who have had 2 doses. Phil and Mitch are waiting for their 2nd dose, as their 2nd appointment date was 18 August – Day 1 of this lockdown, and all vaccs were cancelled that day.
I find lockdown really, really hard at times. Today we talked how the novelty of the first Lockdown got us through, but it’s different when its on repeat. A bit like caring for a child with a chronic illness, you are up and down the rollercoaster of emotions. One minute I am feeling optimistic and trying to find the positives, the next I am a total negative nellie. This past week I was able to slowly recover from my shingles without worrying about going to work, but now I am just mooching around the house looking for space to be alone. This is the hardest part of a full house. Lockdowns have highlighted to me my need for space for myself. The best way currently for me to achieve that is to leave the house for a walk, but as I was so tired last week, it was difficult to get my bum out the door. Now the weather is not playing ball and we have rain making it less appealing to leave the house.
We had a bit of a hell of a day yesterday. A home family day without a carer, and Mitch in a foul mood, and wanting to go out. This filled the house with tension, a lot of shouting and a few unsavoury incidents to do with toileting. I will not elaborate here, as it’s not so fair to discuss behaviours publicly in detail. But suffice to say that we were all worn out by the end of the day. Trying to find ways to keep the peace, when we can’t follow routines because of changes in lockdown status and no school is both tough and complicated.
Tuesday 31 August 2021
I never got to finish yesterday, as always something disrupted my FLOW. Now, I am back and once again attempting to finish a post. Yesterday was better than Sunday, John worked from 11 am to 7 pm, and Mitchell seems to be getting on well with him. The morning, pre John, was also okay, with a couple of drives and a walk before the rain set in.
Today, right now, Phil is working in the craft room which is slowly being converted to an all purpose family room. Apart from looking like a nuclear bomb has hit at the moment during transition. We have moved my big bookshelf downstairs with my completed albums. It looks better in a bigger space, but I haven’t finished ‘styling’ it yet. Styling here, sometimes means cramming as much as possible in the space. But, it is nice to see my scrapbook albums out in the family space. I don’t know how many layouts are in there – but there is a lot and there are more that haven’t found there way into albums yet. Plus there are many different sized albums and minis I have left in the family room.
During last years lockdown I started photographing layouts – just in case the albums were ever damaged, and maybe that is another job to continue with should time and energy strike at the same time.
Wanderlust 2021 – Week 34
I completed one more spread for the Wanderlust 2021 class. The topic this time was rainbow, and the class tutor was Tania Ahmed. Her creation was a double page using gloss sprays, hidden journaling and gel medium with embossing. I used all these techniques, but as always it looks nothing like her original. But that is what I like about Wanderlust, it is a class that gives you freedom to pick what you want to do.
Tomorrow is 1 September and spring is beckoning. Some say 1 September, some say spring starts on 22 September. Let’s hope spring weather comes on the earlier date.
Take care out there.
Cherie xxx
Yellow Azalea 