Welcome to May - and life will never be the same

Cases in Canada: 81 new cases today in Alberta

Cases worldwide

So again I haven't provided an update in a whole long time but such is life. I've actually felt really productive over the fast week or so. I've started doing a lot of painting projects as well as just general art projects. I also started my spring courses.

Another big update for this past week, Alberta lifted the bans on the provincial parks so we were able to go for a short walk and drive through the mountains. Apparently on Thursday a lot of other non essential services are beginning to open up again which will be interesting to see. We still haven't heard anything about courses in the fall but it's completely out of our control so I'm not doing to worry about it. I was also allowed to go visit Carson this past weekend which was big news. We have both been in isolation and it had been five weeks since I had seen him, including the entire month of April, and it was good to see him again. I spoke to his mom and we went for a walk in Fish Creek Park which was really nice. It was a nice taste of normal again after this whole big situation that still feels like a weird fever dream.

Sabrina left to go back to the States with her family so I also broke my isolation to say goodbye to her. I'm sad to see her go but I'm happy she'll have the opportunity to be back home with her family. It really has been a weird couple months and it's really shaping a new environment for everyone. We've been using Zoom to engage with family across the country as well as our friends in New Zealand who we haven't seen or spoken to in person in ten years. This whole lifestyle of minimal social interaction is setting a new base standard for how the future of the world has come.

Trudeau came out with the CESB and the CERB which I'm not sure if I've mentioned before. I am still unsure which to apply for. The CERB gives you $2000 and the CESB gives you $1250. The CESB is benefit all students regardless of wage earning and the CERB is to benefit anyone over the age of 15 that earned at least $5000 last year and is out of work for COVID related reasons. I technically qualify for both, as the internships I applied for have been cancelled because of COVID but there's this grey area of "if I was never formally hired do I count as out of work." I'll have to apply for one or the other in the upcoming week so I'll have an update on what ends up happening.

In other news, WestJet and Air Canada may go under with this whole thing going down so Sabrina, Carson and I are hesitant to book anything in for our optimistic plans of the Dominican in November. If we book it through WestJet Vacations like we wanted to there's a good chance WestJet will go under and we won't get our money back. But such is life.

As a family we're doing ok, Leah is working again at Mucho Burrito which is really good and both my parents are still employed and working from home. I'm taking spring courses so I'm going to also consider myself employed just so I don't feel useless.

People seem to have different views on what's going to happen in the near and distant future - some see it letting up soon and others see this as a long term (as in Christmas) type of ordeal. In our household, however, we've just come to terms with the fact that there's nothing we can do about any of this so there's no reason to stress. We're relatively happy, we're healthy, and we surviving with each other for right now.

Now that schools picked up again I'm going to try to get myself into a new routine with my bullet journal so I might begin posting more regularly and more different types of content. I've been in a weird mood though, feeling pretty unmotivated but that's to be normal I guess when your daily routine no matter the day is the exact same as the other.

Until next time.