One of the things that surprised me about going on leave from the school library is how much harder masking is now that I’m no longer doing it 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I thought I’d be relieved to only have to mask every once in a while, but it turns out intermittent masking as Random Community Member is much more emotionally and cognitively tasking than wearing a mask to work every day.
If I were you, I’d be really curious to know what it’s like to work in a public school library during Omicron. With the caveat that our district has done a lot of mitigation work during this pandemic (ventilation upgrades, mask mandates, vaccine mandates), and is located in California so eating outdoors and opening windows is possible, Omicron is still having an impact.
One side benefit of The 14-Year-Old being older than I think she can possibly be, is the fact that she is eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine. We took her last week to one of our county’s mass vaccination sites. One shot down, one to go.
All week I kept stumbling across useful articles and podcasts about this almost-there-but-not-quite-yet moment in the pandemic. Here are three of my favorites on muddling through this moment in the pandemic; helping middle schoolers establish and evolve critical coping skills to manage their stress, anger, and anxiety; and pandemic changes parents actually want to keep.
Before I resume business as usual here on Caterpickles, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge what an utterly disorienting moment we are living through…
It’s the quiet time between Christmas and New Year’s, when we are supposed to reflect on the year past and make plans for the year to come. I’ll do my best.
About 20 years ago, my grandparents gave me a set of old family journals from 1871-1952. Mixed in with all sheep, pig, apple, and pork accounts are surprisingly interesting narratives of daily life in upstate New York in the late 1800s. This week, my great-great-grandfather goes to Rochester for a second mortgage, and comes away feeling a bit… swindled.
What I’ve been doing this month instead of blogging: participating in NaNoWriMo, orchestrating a veggie-free Thanksgiving, and booting up the Christmas spirit.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it came to my attention that while Amazon continues to be fine, independent booksellers are suffering. That’s why I decided to become a Bookshop.org affiliate. Starting today, my book reviews may contain affiliate links to Bookshop.org, an online bookstore that provides financial support to independent bookstores nationwide. I’ve also added a new Caterpickles Bookstore Learn more about Bookshop.org, affiliate links on Caterpickles, and the new Caterpickles Bookstore.
Last week our local public health office released official guidance for how to mitigate the risk of spreading COVID-19 during Halloween and Día de Los Muertos celebrations. I wanted to share it with you here, in case your family is also trying to figure out what those celebrations will look like this year.
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