Face Masks

So this morning, I start checking the news and see articles that NJ hospitals are now being stretched thin with the volume of coronavirus cases. I start worrying more than ever when I find out that my town has 131 cases as of today.

We don't have masks, I didn't buy any from before as I didn't want to be among those panic-buying PPEs so I thought I'd better start looking for ways to make our own.

Thankfully, Mr Google has been a lot of help and there are lots of easy instructions and free patterns out there. I made one for each of us in different sizes and instead of ear loops, I opted to just put in longer elastics that would go around our heads, I think that would be more comfortable.


Thankfully, I had all the materials on hand, as well as the toy sewing machine I bought 17 years ago for $12.80.

For the fabric, I went through Swe-cha's old clothes that I had set aside for donation and pulled out a few ones that were 100% cotton and salvaged fabric scraps from the outgrown shirts. I also still had braided elastic cord left over from when Mom brought some over for me to repair PJs.

The first mask took me 2.5 hours to make and the next, 2 hours and probably less than that for the 3rd one. The only thing that gave me a hard time was that

(1) my toy sewing machine keeps breaking
(2) the threads keep snapping
(3) I didn't have any tailor's chalk or anything that I can use to trace the pattern(s) onto the fabric.

And yes, I'm aware that these have to be washed after every use to prevent contamination so ideally, husband and I should have 2 each. Swe-cha will most likely not be going out.

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Edit: the sewing machine broke. I guess it must not be used to being used this much.

Week 2: COVID-19 Quarantine

So we're at week 2 of self-quarantining due to the COVID-19 pandemic and things are a bit messier.

We've (temporarily) lost R and B, our ABA therapists. Their agency has closed so we're on our own. Today, I gave Swe-cha his worksheets and daily journal to complete and while there were complaints, he did finish them by himself. I will need to sit down with him a bit later today to work on the more difficult sheets.

On the home front, we have a healthy supply (from pre-COVID-19 days) of food and groceries except for milk. Swe-cha chugs down a lot of milk and Costco is limiting the purchase of  Lactaid to 1 container / person. So far, the workaround seems to be getting 1 whole milk and 1 low fat (the limit is 1 container on each variant) and then just mixing them up together before serving. No complaints so far.

I also had a realization that while we thought we have plenty of rice in stock, that may not be the case. We're still good, no worries for the immediate future, but I will have to consider buying another bag of rice if/when we get the chance. I've found that I've been cooking rice more often now that we've been having 2 rice meals at home per day instead of just dinner. Also, not getting takeout is also putting a serious dent in our rice supply.