I will be documenting our experiences, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to preserve this time at home together. Although the world is a very scare place at the moment, I want to be intentional about our days at home together and provide my children with the story of what it was we lived through. Day One for us was Monday, March 16th (I’m counting down starting with the first day our regular schedules were disrupted) — the first day the girls didn’t report to school.
Monday, March 16, 2020
I’ve been trying to figure out how to blog more often and also how best to share during this very bizarre time of our lives. Since I now have a lot more extra time on my hands, I decided to share something akin to diary entries for the duration of our quarantine period (or after, depending on how this thing grows and goes in the coming weeks). One of the things I love best about past years of blogging is how much detail I recorded about our every day lives. Given that this is a monumental moment in history, I know I’ll appreciate having some record about how we’re all surviving. I’m not planning to share daily, but I hope to write at least a few days a week about what our lives look like in rural Alabama.
Let me start by telling you that I don’t watch the news. We have cable television only to support our college football season, to watch Survivor, and for times such as this. Josh is a news junkie, but he prefers Reddit, Twitter, and other random internet sites. I read and research things I want to know more about, but that almost always starts with a conversation with my husband. He is crazy intuitive, brilliant, and always has the best perspective on things. I trust his judgment and he hasn’t once steered me wrong on an important topic. This is why I dutifully doubled our grocery orders in February, even though I thought stockpiling food sounded ridiculous.
He had been following the virus’ growth in China and was immediately worried for how it might impact the U.S. infrastructure. He cautioned me about gasoline, toilet paper, and basic necessities. I doubled our grocery budget in February (ouch) and bought extras of all of our pantry supplies, daily household needs, and meat for our freezer. We reorganized cabinets, decided to use the camper as extra storage, and encouraged my parents to follow suit. He proved to be one hundred percent accurate when Amazon cancelled my toilet paper order for the month and we struggled to find any locally. Let me assure you that we do not have an unnecessary stash, but I do have a 2-3 week supply of everything I would need to keep our household running. Also? We happen to have bought a Tushy before the holidays and then never installed it, so we will be happily rinsing our bums for the next few weeks, if necessary!
We have been debating when to begin “social distancing” for the last week or so and our school district helped to make that decision for us last week. After the governor extended Spring Break through the end of the month, our county closed their doors immediately and extracurricular activities starting following suit. My pediatrician called this morning to cancel our previously scheduled well visits and informed us that she will be treating and prescribing medicine via telephone for the foreseeable future. Our dance studio is still open, but Ella will not be in attendance. Despite my better judgment, we attended a birthday party for my niece yesterday afternoon, ran to Home Depot for a few supplies (we will be finishing ALL the projects this month), and stopped by the bookstore for puzzles and books for the girls. My library holds all came in on Friday and my family will not be leaving our property for anything less than an emergency.
Fortunately, Josh already works from home and we should be afforded the privilege of continuing to get a paycheck throughout this period of social distancing. My offices are still open, but I’ve been given the option to work from home. For now, I’m still commuting 2-3 days a week, since I can easily distance myself at work and I’m trying to be careful in case I need to work from home for longer than anticipated.
The biggest question for me, so far, is whether or not to go to the gym. I went on Saturday, but I was hyper-aware of how many things I touch and how many times I touch my face and how gross my towel must actually be by the end of the workout. Orangetheory packs the studio, so I was pretty close to the people next to me and just couldn’t be comfortable with continuing to do that. We have heard that they will be reducing the class sizes, so I’m curious to see what all that entails, but for now I’m doing other workouts. The gym in my office building is grossly under-utilized — especially at 5 o’clock in the morning — so I’m going to do an OTF style workout there on the days I’m in the office. For the rest of the time, I’ll be lifting weights with Josh and running outside. A little fresh air never hurt anyone!
The girls are at home with my mom today and I’m letting them enjoy a day of vacation. We’ll have a schedule and chores, starting tomorrow, but I thought they could probably use a little stress relief themselves. Otherwise, we’re navigating uncharted waters and trying to decided how much preparation is enough or too much or just plain crazy. I’m all ears if you have any sage advice and I’ll try to share how the girls and I survive our first day at home together, later this week.
