Does anyone else feel like they are living in an alternate reality right now?! Hospitals are overflowing with people who have fallen ill, jobs are being lost, businesses are closing left and right, and we’re in a global pandemic. This virus is turning our world and economy as we’ve known it, inside out. It feels like we have no control over anything that is happening right now, and that is scary! Actually, the only control that we do have over the virus is to stay home so that we #flattenthecurve.
Thank you to all of those who are on the front lines running into the fire to help fight this; doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, paramedics, etc! Those that are keeping operations moving for our daily essential needs, thank you! Without all of you, fighting this would be impossible.
I realized yesterday that I have now been home for 18 days. My asthma puts me in the high-risk category for COVID-19. The medication I take for it also lowers my immune system, so I’ve had to be extra careful. My anxiety has been insanely high thinking about what might happen if I was to get this, or what would happen to my friends and family if they did. Honestly, the anxiety has somewhat consumed me up until the last few days. I know I’m not the only one dealing with an overwhelming amount of anxiety right now. If you are too, I hear you and I feel what you are feeling.
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What have I been doing the last few weeks?
A whole lot of nothing. No, really….nothing. Except maybe spending way too much time reading the news and scrolling through social media. I realized that it was not serving me well to check the news throughout the day like I was. I only check the news and Twitter in the mornings after my coffee now. That way if my anxiety spikes I can work through it and carry on with my day and not lay in bed wide awake worrying. Oh, and I no longer listen to anything that comes out of POTUS mouth….it makes me too angry.
Much like the rest of America, I am not used to being home this much, ever. I work in events and usually have a mixture of working from home, at the office, and on job sites. Right now, since there are obviously no events happening, I really don’t have much to do. No one is even pre-planning for the future because we have no end date for COVID-19 and that’s really not anyone’s priority at the moment. It makes sense since we are in a pandemic. It’s just weird because I normally have work to keep me busy 10+ hours a day.
I have a huge list of house projects that I’ve been wanting to have tackle but never have the time for. Now that I have the time, I don’t have the motivation to do them. Funny how life works. Over the last 2 weeks, I honestly haven’t had much motivation for anything, which is very unlike me. I’ve realized that the more I have to do, the more I get done. After a few days of not accomplishing much, I decided that I’d give myself some grace and just let myself be and do what I can.
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Some things I have done that I normally don’t…
-Made every meal at home for the last 18 days–I don’t know if this has ever happened. Even if we make the majority of our meals at home normally, there is always some take-out here and there.
-Made all coffee at home–I purchase coffee almost every day or at least every other day so this is a big change.
-Worked out a little bit more than I normally do–I might sound crazy, but I usually stop going to the gym during the peak of flu season (even with the flu and pneumonia shot that I get every year). Call me paranoid, but I had H1N1 when I was in college and it scarred me for life. I am and probably always will be a huge germaphobe so because of that we’ve been working on acquiring some of our own gym necessities to have at home. Right now, we have a treadmill, a few weights, yoga goods, and I’m thinking about getting a spin bike.
-Backed up my laptop and organized it along with the backup drive–my computer is old and I’m starting to notice some issues with it so I wanted to be sure everything was saved.
-Going to sleep only when I know I will fall straight to sleep–Bedtime has been pretty consistent between 1am-2am and then I wake up whenever I wake up which seems to be 9am-10am. I’m actually starting to get annoyed at waking up so late so I’m probably going to start setting an alarm next week.
-Rewatching some favorite old shows–Hello, One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl.
-Baking–I NEVER bake except for on holidays so this one is new. I finally found eggs so I can get back to it. I’m going to attempt dutch oven bread this week.
-Attempted to work on our yards–WOOF, this is going to be a process. We have soooooooo many weeds. I started pulling them out by hand and realized my back was going to hate me if I kept that up so I ordered a weed puller. We’ll see how that goes.
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This week I plan on actually starting to accomplish more by starting to tackle the home to-do list. The great thing is that we already have all the supplies we need so we don’t need to run to the hardware store. I’m also going to start planning out our backyard sprucing up and our veggie and herb gardens.
How are you all doing? Are you thriving or just surviving during this crazy time!
Stay healthy and safe!
XO,
Amber
