Day 3 of lockdown due to COVID-19

We woke up at 5.45am, in time for the special Urbi et Orbi blessing by Pope Francis at 6am. He shared in his message to the faithful, the story of Jesus calming the storm as narrated in the Gospel of Mark. His words ring true in today's circumstances, as people cry out to the Lord: "do you not care if we perish?" Such a powerful message.

Now is not the time of God’s judgment, but of our own: “a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not.”

This reminded me of Rembrandt's stolen "Storm in the Sea of Galilee" painting. I would like to hunt down a replica of this painting to display in our home to remind us of this event in history, and more importantly to remind us of what is truly important.

The Pope also offered plenary indulgence at this time. This is of significant importance, especially to those currently afflicted with COVID-19.

After the extraordinary blessing, we stayed in the bedroom as it's quite a wet and chilly day today. We were able to catch the holy mass broadcast at Vatican before finally going to the kitchen for breakfast, with my wife and daughter cooking Champorado.

We decided to take it slow today. We stayed home the whole day. It's been raining incessantly anyway so that's a great excuse to hibernate. Which I did, for a couple of hours in the afternoon after I tidied up a bit.

In between naps, we brought out the old XBox and played motion games.

These dancing games and sports titles are so much fun! It's been a while since we last played and today was the perfect opportunity for it. In fact, it's already past 11pm as I write this blog,  but my daughter is still playing Kinect Sports.

Sometime in the afternoon I asked Kuya to help me with mending our bean bag. There's just too little styrofoam balls in it and I decided to add the extra ones we have in the garage. The zipper is broken so I asked Kuya for help with operating the sewing machine.

Lunch break!


We've been watching this Korean series "Who are you: School 2015 via Netflix. We finished the series today. The storyline was interesting, and is just the second Asian series we have completed together. The songs are also quite catchy; I'll try to add those in my playlist, next to my ever reliable 80s soundtrack.

We also watched this adaptation of the movie Annie in Netflix. My daughter likes this version, but I prefer the original.

There's 83 new cases here in New Zealand, making the total 451.