Notes from a Self Quarantine

Seriously, it’s like a time warp or something this week. Or maybe most weeks. I felt like I had no idea what day it was all week for some reason. And how is it only Thursday?? I do feel like the days fly by so fast while I am sitting here working from home. Or maybe it’s more like the hours go by so fast. But the week drags on. Does that even make any sense??

No, it doesn’t, but it’s OK, because nothing makes sense these days!

I think I did something weird to my back this week — whether it was from working out or pulling up my old raised garden beds or just sleeping in the wrong position — something has been off the last couple of days. So I bought myself an ergonomic lumbar support seat cushion for my home office chair. Now I really do feel like I am in my mid 40s! Happy early birthday to me, right?

Hopefully the new cushion will work, because I’m stiff and annoyed right now. But excited that tomorrow is Friday! And if my husband ever gets back from the errands he’s running (because the man cannot sit in the house!) we will order pizza, because it’s Thursday and that’s pizza night in my house! Oh, the wonders of living with an engineer!

Tonight I am doing my first ever virtual event that I had to pay for — OK, so a friend actually bought the ticket for me, but you get my point. Guess I’ll have to actually show up. Just kidding, Linda!

This is definitely going to be a new thing for me. I attend author/book events all the time, but never from the “comfort” of my own kitchen. There’s no opportunity to get my book signed, no chance to take a photo with my favorite author. It’s an odd time. Least they are not using Zoom for this event (sorry, Zoom, I am so over you already!).

But I also know that during this pandemic, this is the only chance that authors have to promote their books and to meet fans. So I will attend wearing my yoga pants and fleece sweatshirt — I can still pour myself a beer, relax and let writers that I enjoy entertain me for the evening. And that’s what it’s all about!

Yes, I did! I haven’t been there since the end of March when I doubled or tripled up on purchasing our “everyday” products like hand soap and dishwasher detergent. I haven’t been to a store in like 3 weeks now — I let my husband do the grocery shopping and errand running because he just can’t seem to stay in the house. So I haven’t been anywhere and I have mixed feeling about that. Part of me misses going out and doing what I need to do, and then the other part of me is horrified about germs lurking on door handles and shopping carts. Is a face mask enough? Do I cover myself in plastic before I go outside?? What is normal here??

So I go to Target today. I wear my face mask that my mom made me (thanks, Mom!). I brought my own wipe to clean off the shopping basket (and it wasn’t a non-toxic brand, please don’t tell on me.) and thank goodness I did because the wipes were at the store entrance, but there were no baskets. I found a basket further into the store, but there were no wipes! Geez…

So I wiped down my basket and attempted to find the stuff on my list. Well, now hand soap and dishwasher detergent is on the non-existent list, the shelves were completely empty! I walked by the toilet paper aisle just for fun. Haha — complete wasteland there! I did buy the greeting cards that were on my list, oh, and a bunch of seeds for my garden — because all of those items are definitely essential.

The checkout line was long and the women behind me was a little too close for my comfort, but I survived. I used my hand sanitizer after touching the credit card key pad, again as I walked towards the exit, again when I was walking through the parking lot and again before I started my car. At this point, I am surprised I have any skin left.

It was a sort of successful shopping trip — I got 60% of the stuff I was looking for, the seed packets might throw off the percentages. I made it home and I didn’t immediately change all my clothes and take a shower. I did wash my hands a few times. I’ll try to remember to put some lotion on later tonight. Thanks Target for a fun 50th day of quarantine!

Seriously, how did that happen? Wasn’t yesterday just Wednesday?? I am definitely having trouble keeping track of the days. And my body did not think that it was supposed to be Monday this morning — my alarm went off at it’s usually time and I did NOT want to get up. So I didn’t…I let my husband get up when his alarm went off and I just laid in bed for just a little bit longer.

It felt so good to just be still — I didn’t sleep well during the night. This was the first night that we left the bedroom windows open since the fall and the smallest noise from outside just woke me up. The TV was too loud, the blankets were too warm, my husband was making too much noise. So I slept like crap and didn’t feel like getting up early. So I didn’t.

It is pretty amazing that I can do that right now. If this was a normal workday and I didn’t want to get up, well, I would have missed my train, and hopefully gotten on a later one, but I would still have been late for work. But this morning, even though I slept in, and got out of bed protesting, I still logged onto my computer on time. Sure, I didn’t get a morning workout in, but I just waited and did it at lunchtime. Problem solved. And I got out and did some work on the new garden set up. Wouldn’t have been able to get that done if I’d gone into the actual office today! See — there is a silver lining in all this coronavirus quarantining — I just had to sleep like crap to figure it out!

Yesterday, after I pulled a clean load of laundry from the dryer, I stumbled slightly under the weight of the laundry basket and pitched forward into the door jam. I righted myself quickly, and thankfully nothing fell out of the basket, but as I did, I heard a slight ripping sound, which is never a good thing.

And yes, my plastic laundry basket had caught the door jam, pulling out that little metal piece that allows the door to click into place and close. Yes, on my brand new wooden doors that were just installed 7 days ago. I have lived in this house for 12 years, I have done countless loads of laundry here. I have stumbled with a laundry basket many times. But during any of those times, I have never ruined a brand new door!

I tried to push the metal piece back into the door jam, but it was sticking out really far and I couldn’t get it to budge. I couldn’t push it back in and I couldn’t close the door. So I did the only thing I could do — I went out for a run and left the broken door jam for my husband to find when he came back from the store. Maybe he’d even think that he broke it…

When I got back from my run, the door was fixed. Maybe I imagined the whole thing!

My husband and his high school buddies organized a Zoom conference call for Friday evening. We made sure that we ate dinner earlier than normal so he’d be ready for the call. Now I mistakenly thought that wives would be invited, at least for the beginning of the call, you know just to say hi and update folks on their kids, that kind of thing. Oh no, wives were not invited. I guess I might have been the only wife that was still awake when the Zoom was going on. Maybe that’s why they picked the time!

So I let my husband chat with his friends and took my book into the living room. But, boy are they loud when they get on Zoom! Amd quite honestly, listening to them might have been more interesting than the book I am currently reading. The insults they throw at each other! The filthy language! The gossiping! It was like watching a bunch of old ladies at a church picnic!

And boy, could they chat! My husband always says that I’m a talker — these 5 guys started at 8:30 p.m. and my husband didn’t come into the bedrom until almost 1:30 a.m.! And they were chatting and laughing the whole time — I could hear them from the kitchen after I had gone to bed!

Good for them — I don’t keep in touch really with any high school friends, so I am a little envious that he has these relationships after almost 30 years (OMG — are we really that old?!?).

So my husband tries to be quiet when he finally comes into the bedroom (I went to bed about 11:30 p.m.). He takes his contacts out and brushes his teeth in our bathroom (he’s trying to be quiet, but he’s not a quiet man), but he turned the light off in the bathroom before he turned on his bedside lamp — and then he trips over the TV stand because there were no lights on! Sigh. I am happy that he had fun on his Zoom call, but now I am awake…

May is my favorite month, not just because it’s my birthday month (although that does help!), but because it’s when the weather finally starts to get nicer. It’s warmer, there’s more sunshine, more flowers and folks are just plain happier. I know that I am.

Now I do feel like this year April went by in a flash, so I am pretty surprised that May is already here. Maybe because April’s weather was so crappy, it actually felt like an extension of raw March. Whatever the reason, I am so happy that today is May 1!

It started off raining this morning (big surprise!), but this afternoon the sun came out and it was about 70 degrees! The whole weekend is supposed to be the same. My husband and I are planning to get the two new raised beds situated in the garden. We’ve still got some ground leveling to do and we bought new weed blocking mesh to put under the beds. After we get that done, we’ll take down the final broken bed and my husband will work on building the last new bed. And I have to figure out how to get top soil delivered to fill these brand new beds — there is no way we can lug bags of soil from Home Depot this year! These new beds are huge! I can’t even imagine how many bags it would take to fill each one…

So we will be busy this weekend, which is fine with me, because it will be NICE outside! And the garden will look so fabulous when we are done. I’ll have to remember to dig out my leftover seeds. And go get new seeds and plants! So many fun things to do when it’s nice weather!

I’ve been home 7 weeks at this point, and I had not, until today, gone out for a midweek run. I’d been limiting my running to weekends, which is exactly what I tend to do when we’re not in a pandemic (you remember that time, right??). And I have no idea why I haven’t been running during the week — sure I’ll take a walk during my lunch break, but by the time 4:30 p.m. rolls around, which signals the end of my work day, the last thing I’ve wanted to do was put on my running shoes and exercise.

So I made myself go for a run today. I waited for the rain to stop (the sun even came out!) and just got out there. I also went at 3:30 p.m. when I was supposed to be working…please don’t tell on me. I made sure to check e-mail when I got back. No one was looking for me, maybe they all went for a run!

And I felt better that I did it. I actually felt better while running (well, my feet were hurting, I think I need new sneakers) — I have been stuck in my house, staring at my computer screen, trying to get work done remotely and trying to stay positive while all my events get cancelled because of COVID-19 and the only way I see co-workers is through Zoom. I can’t be the only person who is already so over Zoom…

So I went for a run today, during my work day, instead of after it. And for a little bit I actually felt like I had control over my life again. Just for a little bit, but it was satisfying. I did 5 miles and I felt good while doing it. Maybe tomorrow when I log back into Zoom I will remember that feeling — I took time for myself. And I felt good because I did it.

I haven’t been driving too much lately — honestly, I’ve never been much of a driver. I take the commuter rail train into work when we’re not in a pandemic. That leaves my car adventures to mostly weekends — I drive to yoga, to Target, to Kohl’s, maybe to the grocery store. Oh, T.J. Maxx! I love going to T.J. Maxx, I’d forgotten about them! Now I want to go there!

OK, I’m rambling, but back on track — there hasn’t been too much driving for me lately, because there is honestly nowhere to go. Most of my normal destinations are closed, and my husband has a darn problem staying in the house, so I try to leave the grocery shopping to him basically so he has something to do. Yes, I am a martyr.

The last time I got in my car was almost two weeks ago when I drove to the center of town and then came right back, didn’t even get out of the car. And wore my slippers, didn’t even bother with real shoes (although I did wear the same slippers to yoga once, by mistake! and no one commented so maybe they’re not too slipper like. Or folks just expect behavior like that from me…). And then the time before that, I drove over to the grocery store for a couple of items and felt like I needed to take a shower after I got home and disinfected my purchases.

So I actually got in my car this evening — it started! And I drove down the street, took a right on our main street to the center of town, and drove back. I was gone maybe 7 minutes (there’s a section of town where the speed limit is actually 20 mph, and I have nowhere to rush to) and drove maybe 2 miles. Even the car was bored with the whole trip when I pulled back into the driveway. And I wore outside appropriate shoes this time. Maybe I’ll go an additional mile tomorrow…

OMG, you guys, my husband started construction this afternoon on one of the raised beds for the garden! I will admit that I was a tad skeptical at first — the design that he described sounded a little bit like the old raised beds, which only lasted two seasons and now they are busted. I didn’t want him to spend all this time building beds just to have them meet the same fate as my originals. But it looks like he has solved the problem!

So here’s his backyard construction site setup:

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Now those are sawhorses! At least I think they are pretty cool looking…

And he finished one of the beds!

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How amazing is this?!!!?? It’s enormous! And looks so professional — I am impressed.

We put the new bed in the garden just to check out possible placement. It will look so fabulous. And now he’s thinking about building me a third raised bed — I could have three huge raised beds this summer! Now I have to figure out how we are going to lug all that darn soil into the yard to fill these beds…but that’s a problem for another day.

Right now I am super excited that I’ll have new solid beds this year. Last year I had to lean a 2X4 against the side of one of the broken beds so the soil wouldn’t spill out. That didn’t work out so well. But this year is looking up!