Coming Out of Hiding?

Something pretty seen on a walk

I’m in a state with a very low number of cases of Coronavirus (at the moment, anyway). We are beginning to venture out in baby steps while the numbers seem to be in our favor. I’m even contemplating a trip to Trader Joe’s. I haven’t been in a grocery store since before March 13th!

Hair cuts – I have cut my husband’s hair twice and DD’s long hair once. This is a new endeavor for me, and thanks to YouTube, I think I’m pretty good at it! I had a professional haircut from an acquaintance who works alone with a lot of safety precautions because her daughter has special needs.

Medical – I was able to have my annual asthma checkup via FaceTime. DD and I are scheduled for dental cleanings this week. It’s a little bit nerve wracking, but at the same time, it seems unwise to wait until fall when our numbers could be higher.

Groceries- I have been ordering online through Kroger for pick up or through Amazon Fresh. It’s been so convenient for everyone in the family to add things as they think of them. I’m grateful that at the moment it is easy to get delivery spots.

Summer Fun – This is an area we haven’t mastered yet. My daughter and I are both off for the summer, but all of the usual summer pastimes are off limits. It is hard to know where to draw the line with seeing friends, but we are looking for ways for her to get together with her besties and be reasonably safe.

We will have a new adventure tomorrow visiting an Amish bakery in a town about 20 minutes away. That’s the whole plan….then come home. Again, baby steps.

Fathers Day – do you have any plans for Father’s Day this weekend? I plan to make DH some Toll House cookie bar, and we will probably get some curbside pickup from a place of his choosing. We would like to take him to a huge outdoor nursery that is about 45 min away, if we can figure out a way to have access to a bathroom along the way. Not all of our restaurants are open… even places like McDonalds do not have their dining room open yet though they are permitted to.

Homemaking – I’ve been getting back on the Flylady/Diane in Denmark method of keeping up with the house. This seems like the ideal time to restart some good habits since I am at home. Last week we were in Zone 2 (Kitchen) so I took care of cleaning the dishwasher filter, cleaning out under the kitchen sink, and wiping down the fridge. I added any kitchen supplies to my grocery list and was thrilled to see Windex is available again. I have no idea why people were buying up Windex during Coronavirus stockpiling. Maybe it’s a My Big Fat Greek Wedding thing??

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Welcome back Windex!

Adapting to Change

Signs of Spring in the Garden

How is everyone doing?  I’m finding it difficult to focus a blog post on any one subject, so I’ll give you a bit of an update on how we are adapting and any tips we have worked out for dealing with Stay at Home orders.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

Let’s talk TP.  We have been committed to ordering our groceries online, but our main store, owned by Kroger, won’t let us add toilet paper into a pick-up order.  I found that Kroger does SHIP many items in the mail.  We were able to have TP shipped for 4.95 shipping fee, or free shipping if you spend over a certain amount.  If your grocery is owned by a larger corporation, you might check this out.

What comes next?  I’ve been seeing a trend in my midwestern state that manufacturing anything is really difficult with Coronavirus lurking.  I asked my daughter to think about what clothes she might need for the summer and we ordered them right away.  I wonder if clothing manufacturers are going to have a hard time keeping their merchandise in stock with international factories closing, opening, and potentially closing again.  As for me, I just need to make sure I can still fit in the clothes I already have!

Speaking of supply issues . . . Apple seems to be having exactly the issues I described above.  I have been contemplating an Apple Watch for the last few months, and it’s about a 5 week wait to get one shipped.  DH found Best Buy had certain colors on sale for 100.00 off so guess who is wearing their Mother’s Day present already!  My Dad was always shopping for a new watch when I was a kid, so I feel this purchased is “Dad approved.”

Simple Things – We are enjoying our days together with work and school from home peppered with plenty of walks, planting cold-hearty seeds like kale, watching Project Runway and Top Chef All Stars, and occasionally getting meals delivered.  Restaurants we never even bothered with in our spoiled pre-Coronavirus past, like Jimmy Johns (sandwich place), now are bordering on magical when we get them delivered.

What simple things have you discovered? Any tips for procuring short-supply items?

 

How Teacher Training Prepared me for Coronavirus

The past 8 weeks have altered many of our routines around our home and finances.  I don’t have a crystal ball, but I want to share how training at the school I work at prepared me for the Coronavirus crisis.

Every school in the US has some sort of training for active shooter incidents.  After many years of these training classes I have learned that the normalcy bias can be the difference between surviving a crisis and not making it.  The normalcy bias is the brain’s tendency to want to normalize events that might point a problem.  We don’t want to seem foolish by over-reacting, so we do nothing and assume things are OK until somebody else tells us there is a problem.  If school employees hear altercations, popping noises, or screaming, we are trained to begin taking action.

I used this training to ease our household into preparing for the spread of Coronavirus.

• At the end of January I asked my husband if we should make a reservation for a regional vacation instead of flying somewhere.  I asked around to friends to see if they had any recommendations (now even this seems unlikely).  We opted to stop talking about international vacations for this year.
• As the virus spread to Italy, I began thinking of our food and household needs.  We have a small home and don’t typically stockpile much of anything.  I try to be dairy free so I sourced some shelf-stable soy milk and made sure we were ahead of the curve with toilet paper.  I bought a little extra each week at the grocery store.
• When the virus hit Kirkland, Washington, I was in full-on prep mode.  We celebrated my daughter’s birthday with her friend at Shake Shack, thinking it might be our last opportunity to dine out (correct on that one).  We bought flour, sugar, toilet paper, electrolyte drinks, fever reducer, and confirmed that the thermometer still worked. Should have bought some yeast!  I bought disinfecting wipes and latex gloves and wondered if I had gone too far.
• When the virus began to show up in New York and on cruise ships, we started to reduce our outings outside of school and work.  Sniff Sniff, that included Starbucks. We got haircuts and a brow wax and I squeezed in a cavity filling at the dentist.  By that point I was a little creeped out being at the dentist.  We also stopped selling Girl Scout cookies at booths even though our council still allowed it, and I am glad we did.

I definitely encountered other people’s normalcy bias as the virus unfolded across the country.  Our school was planning an all school event that involved playing games.  I inquired as to whether that would be safe having everyone touch the same objects for the games.  The response was, “The health department hasn’t advised us not to.” Normalcy bias.  (By the time the event would have happened we were closed, I rest my case.) My extended family also implied I was excessively concerned about these problems occurring elsewhere.

There’s definitely a delicate balance between over-prepared and under-prepared.  My husband and I seem to be on the same wavelength and we have appreciated the preparations we have each contributed (I ordered a hair clippers early on, he has made sure we have hand soap and vitamins).  I continue to think about how Coronavirus might affect us moving forward, especially as to how it might affect my job in the school setting come fall.

How have you adapted to the pandemic?  Are you an early preparer, or did the closures take you by surprise?