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Welcome to the new normal.

Everything is still so uncertain in the world, but I am hoping that a little correspondence between friends will help us cope and maintain perspective. As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to effect our lives and livelihoods, we are having shared but separate experiences.

Yesterday, DH (Dear Husband) and I continued work on a little patch of land to the north of our property that will be our new vegetable garden. We have never had much gardening success in the past, but considering we have so much time to weed and tend this spring, this may be our year! The ground is covered in Texas native grass and weeds and they are extremely difficult to clear. My hands have been aching from pulling weeds. We have a small electric tiller that is helpful, but the largest grass roots need to be removed before it will work the ground well. So far, we are planting Early Girl tomatoes, bush beans, strawberries, and acorn squash.

In our county, there is not a shelter in place order yet, but non-essential businesses have been closed. We are continuing to homeschool, as we already did before, but all of our extra classes have been canceled. The children are coping well, it helps that they are used to a lot of time at home, but they miss their friends and extracurricular teachers.

My mind is mostly a muddle of daily data gathering, grocery shopping best practices, pantry inventories, and somehow finding myself never alone - but still a little bit lonely.

This may not be a very good start, but I am anxious to know how you are doing my friends.

Yours, Stephanie in Texas

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