The View from the Hermitage, Day 176

It's Labor Day not that I have been laboring. I did get several more shelves of books finished though I abandoned sorting in the process. I will soon have to venture into younger son's bedroom and start rescuing more of the random things we put in there almost two months ago. Now that the husband is back to teaching, reorganization and replenishing have pretty much become a one-woman show.

K-12 education starts here tomorrow. Yesterday's Washington Post had a couple of articles about the travails that some families have encountered in K-12 education elsewhere. In one case, an early elementary school student was expected to sit and watch a screen for six hours with only one break, for lunch. In another, a grade 9 student needed to use the bathroom during geometry class and came back to find himself locked out of the class. Older son suggested that it might not have been the teacher who had done the locking out but the software being used to deliver the class. The software might have been programmed to lock should a viewer leave the screen. Either way, teacher or software, that is not what should have happened. I know that here elementary students will not be expected to sit for a whole day. Each class will be split in half. The teacher will hold a synchronous session with one group each morning and with the other each afternoon. When not in the session with the teacher, students will have assigned work to complete and submit. 

I've said it before, but I would just have pulled the sons out and home-schooled them. Younger son has always been a bit more social than older son, but there would have been extracurricular activities such as Scouting to provide social connections for him. I do realize that home-schooling is not an option for everyone, especially people who must work full-time and not from home. I would not have wanted to use what is supposedly becoming quite popular but which is also closely linked to one's socioeconomic status, the learning pod. In a pod, multiple families combine kids and hire teacher(s) to instruct them. I guess you'd call it formal home-schooling. The sons were very independent students and disliked group projects or, at times, even learning along with other people. I expect they would have likened the pod concept to The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for which I'd give them points for creativity.

I ordered rug tiles for the living room, dining room, and kitchen this morning to take advantage of a 25 percent off sale ending today. A company called Flor sells carpet squares, just over 19 inches on each side. The squares are held together by adhesive units that don't harm the floors. We usually get a couple of extra squares so that if one square needs cleaning (pets do have accidents), that square can be swapped out for a clean one. You can also get the squares cut in various ways. What we have in the dining area is an octagon made using four squares cut diagonally. And in the kitchen, we're just putting a couple of squares down in front of the stove, in front of the sink, and under where the pets' water bowl sits.I hope that this is the last major expense for a while, though we have yet to pay for the new heat pump being installed next week. I blame the new rugs on the painter who suggested we try an accent wall or two. Without those, we could have just kept using the rugs we had. 

There have been articles comparing the "Pandemic 15" to the "Freshman 15," weight gained while sitting at home as opposed to moving off to college. About three weeks into my time in the hermitage, my weight hit a number that I've seen before but never liked, so I decided to be serious about lowering it. For the first while, I used the ancient Nordic Track ski machine every morning; eventually, I moved to walking, which I greatly prefer. I also started using the MyFitnessPal app to log what I ate each day. As of this morning, I achieved the "Pandemic -15," which means I have lost the weight I gained in the aftermath of my knee replacement two and a half years ago. Right now, I'm walking six or seven miles each morning, which takes up a nontrivial amount of time. Fortunately, I have that time to spare, so I don't have to wrestle with the guilt monster. All my clothes but one pair of jeans still fit, though some pants look better when paired with a belt. 

There were no new university covid-19 numbers this morning. It's legally a holiday, but the university is still holding classes for students while giving staff (except for faculty teaching Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes) a day off. Who knows what numbers I'll see tomorrow morning. New cases from social gatherings held over the long weekend probably won't show up until next weekend. Now if students tied one on at home before coming back to campus, those numbers could show up at any time. 

On the covid-19 front, I did go ahead and watch the official video I was supposed to have watched by tomorrow. It was pretty lame but fortunately was only 11 minutes long. There were no questions at the end to verify that I'd watched it. I could have done any number of things while the video played, but I was good and actually watched it. I also went ahead and watched a data security video I'm supposed to have watched by September 24. With my luck, I still won't be terminated by then.