APRIL 26, 2020 – Today marks 30 days, almost to the hour, since I have personally been out of work, locked down, furloughed and/or quarentined – every how you wanna put it.
I am, by nature, a home body. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy going too. Staying busy is key be it at home or out and about. In those 30 days, I didn’t take my first ‘trip’ for the first seven days. My vehicle had sat that entire time and unbeknownst to us, the battery had died. The next trip was to drop the vehicle off for warranty on battery as well as regular service (oil/tires). I saw ONE person. Didn’t touch.
The next trip out, a week later, was for supplies via curbside pickup. Each week, I did that trip and coordinated my webinar I had to do online at the office – usually alone. I took a short 10 mile ride on the bike and saw no one. I did do a ride-along with my youngest to the farm to care for horses – where we saw no one except horses and barn cats.
Bottom line. Folks, for 30 days, I left my home 1x a week for no more than a few hours each time and survived. I don’t understand why folks all around me are complaining and begging to go, go go. I know I’m a different breed because I can find things to do. I don’t have a mansion with a basketball court, bowling alley, swimming pool or theatre. I don’t have acres and acres of land to explore. I am a simple, average “Jane” in a 2 story home packed to the gills with clutter, 3 dogs and 4 bodies. We used every inch of our “little corner of the American dream”, playing with dogs, relaxing on the porch, sitting by a fire and doing yard work. We did take a walk the first week and we crossed paths with no one during that walk. We have sat on our porch, as this began to drag out, and watched kids playing basketball, riding bikes, gocarts, skateboards or playing flashlight tag in neighbors yard or running around the court with RC cars. The foot traffic has increased for sure. At the same time, the cars didn’t decrease. We saw just as many cars coming and going as ‘normal’. We can only assume they were/are ‘essential’ workers.
Has this been ideal? No! Has this been easy? No! Has this been thrilling? No.
Nor have a lot of things in life and we all have to put on our adult undies and suck it up! Think back to “before” COVID. I bet at least one day a week, you would be at work and wish you were anywhere but there. Even home. Can’t say you didn’t. We all do. So when this started, I told myself, “be careful what you wish for”. Because folks, as much as I love my job…I admit, there were many a times I wished I was home. I always have so many things I want to do. The only way to keep my ‘sanity’ during these 30 days was to make myself do those things I had wished I could do. My wish was granted and I had to appreciate it.
Among doing the typical household stuff, I was able to clean out a building, removing clutter of many years. Take advantage of a craft room that had been buried in ‘get to it later’ piles. Sorted through some tubs of memories, parting with things that were just taking up space and had no real deep meaning. I found things I had forgotten about. I relaxed – usually one day a week was spent chiling on the porch, watching TV or taking cat naps between eating, walking dogs and playing some mind numbing game on the phone (or my nintendo switch lite). I cranked up this blog to a new level – hopefully – and I kicked off my podcast that I had been kicking around in my head for a few years. All in all – I have adapted to 30 days of lockdown with only a few bumps and bruises. Seriously. During a garage cleaning/sorting, the first week, a pan we used for camping fell from above and hit my hand. It has been very sore since. Could have been broken/chipped – not sure. I must say, my entire family has really done pretty good at this lockdown. Not saying it wasn’t rough at the beginning. The younger generation wants to go, go, go and does not see the potential issues or danger.
As the country begins to attempt to begin a ‘new’ normal in the coming days, I will opt to stay where I am until I have no choice. I am eager to be back at work but I know that work will be a slow rebuild. We had a camping trip planned that was moved to May and right now, I am looking forward to it more than ever. This downtime gave us the opportunity to get things ready for the trip without rushing. We were able to do a more thorough ‘run through’ of loading and unloading as well as getting together our necessities. I believe the getaway will be so much more appreciated because we will TRULY be enjoying a change of scenery and routine. We won’t be exhausted from working long hours and rushed to pack.
I’m not known for seeing the silver lining often…so folks when I tell you that I SEE THE SILVER LINING – listen! This has been a much need reboot and I hope others have used this reboot. I think we have.
I hope I can continue this blog and my podcast as well as my wonderful craft room when life gets going again.
Thank you all for your time. Drop me a comment – check out my podcast…
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