March 20, 2020
One week and one day ago I was getting excited and ready to take a mini vacay with Michael Joe to Sonoma. He had a seminar and I had a great sounding massage all planned at the hotel where we were going to stay AND we planned on going to the Charles Schulz museum together. I had finally gotten my haircut the morning before. (A thing that had been at the top of my to-do least for over a year!) I love to have a good to do list and accomplish it all before going anywhere to relax because then I’m actually able to. So Thursday March 12th (our 9 year anniversary) I cleaned the whole house — vacuumed, dusted, bathrooms, every piece of laundry, sheets...usually clean like this on Fridays but that was my new Friday. Two hours before we were going to leave Michael got an email saying it had been completely cancelled. The day before we had still been excited to go because they were going to stream it and we would be in our fancy hotel room ordering room service. Nope. All done. Cancelled due to coronavirus outbreak. Ugh. Things escalated very quickly from that day forward. Stephanie told us now Disneyland had been shut down, John Krasinski rescheduled the Quiet Place 2 so no one would be affected, our church leaders emailed about changes in temples, missions and sacrament meeting, and then of course school! They didn’t officially cancel until Thursday but we kept the girls home from Monday on... homeschool mama in an instant!
Everything just felt a little bit surreal. I assumed I would be having a melt down about it but I felt surprisingly calm and honestly I’m SUCH and a homebody/introvert that I even felt relief about upcoming school meetings and even birthday parties 🤭 not happening anymore.
It was not until the following Friday that they issued an official stay at home order - governor Newsom in California because things would escalate quickly if not.
Me and the girls are having fun, slowing down. Taking it all one day at a time with this homeschooling and maybe I’m not so stressed about it because I feel like the world is in it with me. All of us mamas are trying to figure it out. I have a loose schedule written out, a schedule nevertheless. Otherwise I WOULD undoubtedly go insane. Things I’ve thought of to be grateful for... haircut done, just gotten my mouth guard/retainer fitted on Wednesday before it all (hopefully makes a difference for my jaw!), Michael is able to send employees home with computers to continue working, Amazon prime(always a blessing), grocery stores that we can pick up from, lots of free online resources/ apps for help with homeschool...the list goes on.
On a day before any of this I had complained to Michael about someone at the warehouse at Magnolia getting my art order wrong. 
what a silly, dumb, little thing to be mad about in light of all of the wildness of today.
Sunday March 22, 2020
Our first at home sacrament meeting. We all woke up later 8-8:20 (another HUGE blessing of this horrible outbreak is sleep! We go to bed on time and wake up when our bodies are ready!)
No one had eaten and we got dressed, all my girls wanted a simple braid and they were so sweet and reverent for our whole 37 minute meeting. Michael put water in mugs and got out a single piece of bread. The Spirit was very strong and I felt so grateful for my husbands worthiness and goodness in this morning. We bore testimonies and talked about Jacob, sang songs and prayed. It made me reflect on how much more I yearned for the peace & powerful spirit in our home always. And to have the privilege of holding sacrament meeting in our home will, I think, help me during the week to catch myself before reacting in a way that disappoints and drives the spirit away. My girls are such powerful examples of purity and goodness. I need to step back & be more quiet and follow theirs more.
I love my sweet family. Even when Halloween jumped up on the stool in front of Michael (and Michael referred to him as his irreverent first counselor) they maintained reverence through muffled giggling. 
🥰
