Notes from a Self Quarantine

It really did and I can’t actually pinpoint where I went wrong. Maybe it was when I didn’t get up when my alarm went off this morning, but who doesn’t like a few more minutes of sleep?? Maybe it was when I decided to have a cup of coffee and check my work e-mail before my morning workout. Maybe it was the impromptu Zoom call that lasted over an hour…

And all of a sudden it was 2 p.m. and I hadn’t worked out, I hadn’t showered, I had a mountain of stuff to do and it was way past my lunch time. So I stuffed a quick sandwich in my face while reading e-mails, took 3 more phone calls, and finally finished the one project I wanted to get done today just before 5 p.m. I got my workout in just before 6 p.m. and rewarded myself with that darn shower. My hair was so itchy!

It was not my best day at all. And I keep thinking — if I had just gotten my butt out of bed when my alarm went off, would this day have turned out so much better?? Will this lesson make me get out of bed on time tomorrow morning? Probably not…

I got out of bed as soon as my alarm went off this morning. I used to always do that when we were back in normal times, but now since COVID-19, I never know just how many times I am going to try to snooze my alarm. Some mornings I just want a little more sleep, and since my hour and a half commute one way has now dropped to zero minutes, I figure if I want to sleep in a tad, so be it. I’m never late to work now, how could I be?? The spare bedroom is just not that far away.

That’s one of the weird things that I have noticed about myself during this pandemic — I’m getting plenty of sleep, but I still just want more every morning. It’s like my alarm goes off and I feel like I just closed my eyes 10 minutes before. It’s irrational — I know that I went to bed at an OK time and that I should be fully rested, but my body just disagrees. Maybe it’s just because there are so many other irrational things going on the past few months, I’m craving sleep to make sense of it.

This morning I finally broke my trend — I got right up when my alarm went off and got right in the shower. Typically I have been working out first thing in the morning, so I’ll shower later (or after I go do a little weeding in my garden during my lunch break — no one can see me in my workout clothes, don’t judge me!). But today I had a 9 a.m. meeting and ended up saving my workout for early evening after work. And you know what? I’m still tired! Maybe I do need that little extra sleep in the morning right now.

Today is my husband’s birthday. He treats birthdays the exact opposite of me. He’ll tell you he doesn’t like his birthday, he doesn’t want cake, presents or even a card. There was one year he actually uninvited his family to his birthday party — we’d decided to have his mom, sister, his nephews and brother-in-law over for a BBQ. He decided that he just didn’t want to celebrate that year (I think it was his 39th birthday, he might have struggled with the approaching 40 milestone), so he told them not to come. They respected his wishes and I think he was secretly upset that they just didn’t show up anyways. But they’re not mind readers, buddy!!

Now me — I love a birthday party, it doesn’t even have to be mine. I love cake, presents, and if there are some balloons I’m super excited. I love having a huge group of folks over at our house, especially folks who don’t all know each other — it’s such a good time for everyone in my life to meet! I love the loudness, the chaos, all the dirty dishes — it’s evidence that we are loved, happy and well fed. I love when folks spend the night.

Basically I love all these things that my husband does not want for his own birthday. His family teased him tonight about his routine — how we grill pizza on Sunday’s, order pizza on Thursday, go out to eat on Friday’s, but I have already written about that. My husband does like his routine, so right now he is grilling us a pepperoni, sausage, bacon and multi-colored bell peppers pizza because it is Sunday evening and that’s what we do, even if it’s his birthday.

I hope that he had a nice day — sometimes you just can’t tell with him, he’s not an overly enthusiastic emotion shower. That’s why he has me.

My husband’s boss has been building bird houses during his self-quarantining time. He was looking for something creative to do while stuck inside his house. I guess he’s built a bunch of them for family and friends. Well, he built us one!

He dropped it off yesterday and he said that installation was included with the gift:

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Look at that bird house!! I love all the little shingles! And thank goodness he showed up with all the tools to install the house, because if we left it to my husband to hang, it would be collecting dust inside our house. I still have pictures that need to be hung after 12 years…my husband does not like to hang anything! He says he doesn’t like to put holes in the walls. I think he just doesn’t want to hang things.

Here’s another photo of our new bird house overlooking my garden:

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It’s absolutely perfect there! I love it! Now I wonder when we’ll get new tenants. Those house finches are going to be so jealous when they see this! Maybe they wouldn’t have taken off and left their nest if they could have built it in an actual bird house. I can’t wait to see what happens! Will the neighborhood birds fight over who gets to move in? How do they even know it’s meant for birds?? Oh, I’m looking forward to all the excitement!

Yes, it is, because — we are going out for dinner tonight!! At an actual restaurant! We’re not getting take out and dragging it home while hoping it will still be warm when we get there, we are going to an actual restaurant, sitting down and ordering off a menu! I won’t have to clean up any dishes afterwards!! Well, maybe if I forget my wallet at home…

Restaurants in Massachusetts opened up for outdoor dining on Monday. My husband and I have been excitedly watching one of our local restaurants erect a big white tent in their parking lot, fill it with tables and umbrellas and basically making a cool looking patio out of their parking lot. OK, maybe I have been watching it excitedly, my husband doesn’t typically do outward displays of excitement. Most days I do enough for both of us.

I have been so excited about finally going out to a restaurant this week that I called on WEDNESDAY to made a reservation for tonight. Surprisingly, they had availability when I called on Wednesday, but earlier today they announced on Facebook that they were totally booked for tonight. Look at me – getting things done early!

Other new things that I have done today — I actually changed out of my yoga pants and workout tank top and put on real clothes! Surprisingly they still fit!! And I put on a real bra, not a sports bra, a real bra. That was a shock to the system since I haven’t worn one of those since March 16… And I put on makeup! I’d almost forgot about that stuff (and there is a chance you can tell just by looking at me!). And I put on jewelry and sparkly sandals!!

All to eat outside in someone’s parking lot… It has been such a beautiful summer day here today, which means as soon as I sit down in my reserved-since-Wednesday seat, the skies are going to open up and it’s going to downpour all over my makeup-and-real clothes-wearing, excited-to-be-finally-out-at-dinner self. Hopefully they put us under that tent, because I plan on ordering a local craft draft beer and a full hot meal even if it’s in the rain!

I finally ordered new running sneakers from Marathon Sports last week. My current pair had been worn pretty thin, I felt like I was running on flat tires during my last couple of runs. My local store didn’t have the brand and style that I wanted (I overpronate on my right side, I didn’t even know what the heck that meant, but as soon as they put me in the correct shoes all my knee pain just disappeared!), but they offered to ship my shoes for free from another store to my home. Yes, please!

The new shoes arrived on Tuesday and look how fun they are:

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Teal is the perfect color for summer! And my carpet looks just plain awful in this picture, please ignore it, it’s not really that dingy looking. Or maybe it is…

So I tried out the new kicks today — you don’t realize how old and worn out your running shoes are until you go for a run in a brand new pair sneakers! Sunday’s run was painful, hard and at times felt like I was running without shoes. Today’s run was like running on fluffy clouds! It wasn’t a super fast run — it was so humid this morning! But the shoes definitely made all the difference!

And it’s been raining this evening, so maybe some of this awful pollen will be washed away. I left my car parked out on the street instead of under the oak tree — who doesn’t like a free car wash!

The pollen has been really bad this year — everything is constantly coated in a layer of yellow dust. My husband went out for a run this afternoon and when he got back his sneakers and socks had yellow particles all over them.

There’s a big oak tree next to our driveway and every time I even think about wanting to go for a little joyride, I have to remember to grab the glass cleaner and a paper towel so I can wipe all that yellow yuck off my back windshield first. It’s so gross. And I’m sure it’s because we really haven’t had any real rain the last few weeks. We need a couple of good rain days to wash all this crap away. Not that I want a bunch of rainy days in the summer, but I also don’t want to bring a spray bottle and some paper towels outside anytime I’d like to run to the grocery store.

And I refuse to bring my car to the car wash when it’s like this, because I know that the second I park my clean car in the driveway, the trees will release more pollen and within an hour it will look like I didn’t even bother and I’ll be back to needing Windex and paper towels just to back out of my driveway.

Today I wanted to go to Target — I made sure to grab my supplies from under the kitchen sink before I even looked for my car keys. But unfortunately we were out of glass cleaner, so I used a surface cleaner on my back windshield. Sure it was a tad soapier than I would have liked it to be, but a few extra paper towels and some tap water from my gardening watering can, and the windshield was sparkling clean and ready to go to Target. And of course Target was out of window glass cleaner, because everyone must be having the same problem! So I guess I am using surface cleaner again tomorrow!

Oh, yes I did! OMG folks, I haven’t had my hair cut and colored since the end of February! I had a scheduled appointment near the end of April, but we all know what happened there — it was cancelled.

Now, I was pretty much one of the last hold outs on getting my hair colored –I watched the grays grow in and I basically willed them to go away. And sometimes I used tweezers on the most prominent ones. But then one day I asked my stylist to color my hair and I’m just never going back. She does a semi-permanent color so I don’t get a line of different colored roots as my hair starts growing, but you can definitely notice the difference as it starts to fade…

Hair salons opened back up in Massachusetts on May 25 and I was thrilled when they called to reschedule my appointment. I went in this evening, but it is not the same old salon — you need to wait outside the building for them to call you in, you have to wear a mask (I wore a disposable one because I was getting color), all the chairs are 6 feet apart. They actually moved my stylist’s area to a little nook towards the front of the salon — it was cute and private and she joked that she just might keep it there. There was a plastic shower curtain separating each of the hair washing sinks. And after she applied my color, she had her own hair dyer hood thing — I sat in my chair at her station, I didn’t have to go into the back of the salon like we normally do, I had my own private hydrating hood! I felt like a princess. I don’t even know what the rest of the salon set up looked like, I never went father than the sinks — I have no idea how many stations they were able to set up towards the back, I had my own private nook!

Now I did have one moment of panic — I put my disposable mask on outside the salon before I went in the front door. I sat in her section, we chatted for a few minutes and then she went into a back room to mix my color. It wasn’t until I was alone that I looked into the mirror and noticed that I had my mask on upside down! There’s a little metal time piece that was meant to adjust over my nose, well that piece was below my chin. No wonder why the mask felt a little loose around my nose and cheeks and kept scooting down. I was by myself at the time, so I thought about quickly taking it off and flipping it the right way, but what if someone saw me? Could I safely make the switch? Did I have enough time? And what if I contaminated the mask by putting the section that was currently over my mouth to over my nose. There were too many things to think about, so I did nothing. No one had called me out on it, so they must not have noticed. My stylist’s mask moved around just as much as mine did, so I figured I was where I needed to be. Oh, the stress of getting your mask on right! Maybe I should take a class…

So my hair is cut and colored, and I feel like a whole new person! It’s funny — I put a little bit of makeup on before I left the house — just some tinted cream, coverup, loose powder and a little eyeshadow. I guess I wanted the color to look good. But with the mask covering half my face, I am not sure who could tell that I actually made the effort for the first time in months. Now I have to remember to wash it off. And for that matter — while I am stuck at home, who is going to notice that I got my hair colored? I guess it’s just for me! And so my husband doesn’t tease me about all my gray hairs. Men are such pains!

My outdoor garden is doing so well this year, the new raised beds are really working out and I have so much space now. Yesterday, my neighbor gave me 10 extra tomato plants that he didn’t have room for in his garden — and I found room in mine! That’s in addition to the 3 tomato plants that he gave me on Saturday. I have so much room in my vegetable garden now that I was able to add 13 new tomato plants weeks after I laid out my garden! I could have never done that with the old raised beds. Props to my husband for building these much better garden beds for me! Now don’t tell him that I said that…

My indoor plants are also doing so much better than they usually do. I guess that’s what happens when you are stuck at home all the time and you actually remember to water your plants…

Check out this one:

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Now I have owned many orchids before — they are beautiful when I first bring them home, then all the flowers fall off and the plant slowly dies. I’ve never gotten an orchid to rebloom EVER. And I have done the 3 ice cube thing, maybe not as religiously as I should have, but I have done it.

Look at this plant — the photo isn’t that great, but there are 9 purple flowers on that orchid — 9!! And I have had this plant for almost a year now — that’s almost 12 months that I have kept this orchid alive! I might just need a medal for this, because frankly, I don’t see this ever happening again. With my luck, by next week, all the flowers will be gone and the entire plant will be wilted and dry on my window sill. Maybe if I don’t look at it too much it will keep blooming…

Yes, it was! Today was the first normal Sunday that I have had since, let me see…Sunday, March 15! How many months ago was that?? It was a least 83 days ago…

So why was it so normal for me? I went to both a live yoga class and to church, two things that I tried to do most Sundays when we were back in “normal” times.

Massachusetts allowed houses of worship to open back up for services on Monday, May 18. The church I go to had their first weekend mass on Saturday, May 30. I went for the first time on that Sunday and boy, was that church empty. I went to my normal 5 p.m. mass and I think there might have been 22 people in the church. We had to wear face masks and only every other pew was open. There was no singing (which I am actually OK with) and no bringing up the gifts, no collection at all. The whole mass lasted about 30 minutes (again, I am not opposed to this) and they did the Eucharist after the mass was over — we all processed up the side aisle with 6 feet between each person, received the Eucharist and then exited the church through the side door. It was a different experience.

And also please tell me, if you are wearing a face covering or mask — why do you take your nose out of the covering?? That totally defeats the purpose, folks! OK, that’s just today’s PSA…

Today I went back to mass, but I went to the 11:30 a.m. service because the yoga studio that I’ve been going to for the past 7 years (where did the time go??) was having an actual outdoor live practice at 4 p.m. They’ve had virtual classes for the past few months, but this was the first live in-person class since mid March. The class was in a field a few blocks down from the studio — they marked out squares 9 feet apart so you didn’t have to wear your mask during the actual class. The sun was out, it was a beautiful day and it was just so amazing to be in a yoga class again after all these weeks. I’ve done a ton of yoga at home, but there is just something about practicing physically with other people — its like the folks around you just push you forward and you find yourself getting so much more out of each pose. I don’t even know how to really explain it.

I came home this evening feeling so much more at peace with myself and so satisfied — it was a good, hard workout and one that I wouldn’t have achieved at home. And I did feel like it was a normal summer Sunday. And I needed that. Hopefully I will be able to do it all over again next Sunday!