Distance learning

Being stuck at home is the perfect opportunity to put some polish on your hobbies. And what's my excuse? I haven't picked up a pencil in months.

The Great Courses catalog has a good sale going.  They are usually quite expensive, so I ordered the online drawing class. Maybe I'll be more inspired when we're stuck inside this winter. What an awful thought. These long, pleasant summer days at least give us the illusion of freedom.

Seattle Public Schools just announced they are distance learning only this fall. If things don't improve, children could be out of the classroom for a year or more.  My heart goes out to parents. As Amanda said, home-schooling is impossible when both parents have to work. And distance learning is pretty much a joke with the little kids.  Too many distractions on those Chromebooks.

In the meantime, wealthy and well-connected families are busy setting up social learning pods, hiring personal tutors, or sending their kids to small private schools. As a nation, we've neglected universal child care for years, and now this health crisis makes the social inequities even worse. Especially in rural areas, where families have even less options.

Another grey, cool morning, but we're headed into a pretty impressive warm up next week. Our neighbors are out of town, so I'll be busy watering both our yards.  They are fussy about keeping the grass green--we gave that up long ago.

The home projects continue.  The water heater man came tightened a loose screw, hoping that would fix the problem, but we're still getting an ever-so-faint whiff of gas in the closed laundry room.  He comes back today.  I still have the deck to stain, and John is patching peeling paint on the front of the house.  The new front porch railings get installed in August, and the wood steps should be sanded, primed and painted first.

The list of fun summer activities goes on and on...