Notes from a Self Quarantine

Remember that bird nest I mentioned in an earlier post? Well, we let the birds build their nest over our front door light. We think they might be “house finches”, but we’re not bird experts.

It’s a good thing we decided to just let them build the nest this year, because it’s provided hours of entertainment:

• 

The female bird is in the nest all the time now. We’re not sure if she laid her eggs yet (because we grabbed a step stool and tried to look into the nest one time that she flew away), but she’s there all day and she’s still there before we go to bed at night. My husband has taken to calling her “stupid bird” and repeats the name in a singsong voice until she picks her head up and looks at him through the door window. We check on her repeatedly during the day. I’m sure she is already regretting her decision to build here this year.

We might have a new development today – there’s been a morning dove scoping out the area. This new bird has been sitting either on the front step right near the nest or on the roof above the front door. My husband is convinced that she’s looking to eat the other bird’s eggs (are birds cannibals??), but maybe she’s just looking for a good place to build her own nest and is looking for some tips from the house finch. I told you — we have plenty of time on our hands. We really should be working during the day, but the birds are providing fun little breaks!

Or we are just really losing it…

I’ve seen all those tutorials online, everyone looks super creative and stylish with their fancy face coverings, but won’t those hair ties hurt your ears??

So I went to Shaw’s this afternoon — we needed a few items (or I needed a few items for lunches this week). I went at 5 p.m. figuring most folks would be home already preparing dinner. They weren’t.

I made this trip with a plan — debit card already out of my wallet and slipped into an outside pocket in my purse. I also read online that a Q-tip is helpful to push the buttons on the credit card machine, so I put one in the pocket with my debit card. I always bring a disposable plastic bag — there is no way I am touching a shopping cart or basket right about now.

This time I grabbed one of my scarfs from the coat closet — I wrapped it around my neck with a piece of it over my nose and mouth and the long ends in front of my chest so I could pull on the “straps” to make it tighter. It looked ridiculous, but it was the closest thing I had to a face mask without getting out some scissors and hair ties. Maybe that will be a project for another day.

I get everything I’m looking for in under 10 minutes — no cart, I just carry everything in my hands. I only touch things I am going to buy. The one hold up was a man in a wheelchair hanging out in front of the cucumbers checking his shopping list. I walked away to give him room and swooped in for my two cucumbers (only touched two!) as soon as he was a safe distance away from me.

Now I wait in line — the store has clearly marked on the floor where to stand so there are two cart lengths between shoppers. Most pay attention, but some just don’t. Like the women who ends up standing behind me — she’s wearing an actual mask so I know she got the memo, but she is creeping up way too close behind me.

I get to the register and the stupid Q-tip doesn’t work so I have to use my finger, which was the whole point of having the Q-tip!! Thank goodness for handsanitizer.

The whole trip might have taken me 20 minutes, but still it was exhausting. I was so busy watching other folks the whole time, trying to stay out of their way. Does everyone do that? Or is if just me?

I got home and must have washed my hands 4 times. And I washed the cucumbers, but not the other packaged stuff I bought. Then I saw another tutorial online about how to clean your groceries when you get back from the store. And now I am freaked out because I only washed the cucumbers.

At least I got something for lunch tomorrow!

Maybe because it has! Remember my husband was working on a project in our basement? He’s been staining 6 wooden interior door to replace the brown plastic ones we have currently in our home (who buys plastic doors??) Anyway, he’s finished staining the doors (and the fumes are finally starting to vacate my laundry room!), and our friend, who’s a contractor, is going to hang the doors for us sometime soon.

But we get water in our basement this time of year, so my husband didn’t want to leave them down in the wet basement, so Ta Da!

• 

My home office is getting a little bit crowded again…

Here’s to hoping that Monday will still be productive!

My husband purchased a bike last week from Amazon. He’s been an avid spin class participant for about 7 years now — he takes 4 or 5 classes a week. Obviously he can’t go to spin right now and he’s been missing the exercise. So he bought himself an inexpensive bike (he actually used credit card points and paid nothing for it!) and a Bluetooth helmet. Everything arrived on Wednesday, and he spent Thursday putting the bike together.

It rained all day here on Friday, so today was his inaugural ride on the new bicycle. Now at 43-years-old, he doesn’t think he’s been on a bike since he got his driver’s license at 16. He was a little nervous about the whole thing — we kept making jokes about how doing something we used to do is “like getting on a bike”. Haha – we are just so witty.

So he gets on the bike and I watch him pedal down our street and make a right onto the main street. I went back to reading my book and in about 5 minutes he comes walking back in the back door. That can’t be good. But I guess the tires needed a little more air, so he filled up, made a few adjustments and rode away again.

He was gone around an hour and a half! Sweaty, the back of his bright yellow sweatshirt covered in dirty spray from the rear tire, he looked pretty happy! If you knew my husband, smiling from pure joy isn’t usually his thing, he’s definitely a reserved kind of guy. Look — we can go back and relive moments and skills from our past. Maybe we just all needed a pandemic to remind us.

Yes, we did:

• 

What is in the very big box, you ask? Can you guess??

Do you need a hint? OK, it’s something we were totally worried about running out of. And for some reason, we just can’t find it in any of our local stores (darn you, hoarders!).

Still not sure? OK, here’s another picture:

• 

Look at that!! How amazing! 36 rolls of toilet paper! Or as my husband says — 36,000 square feet of tp!

• 

It’s definitely not going to fit on our toilet paper holder, but whatever, we should be all set for months! Thank goodness!

Happy Friday, folks, I hope the end to your work week was just as exciting as ours!

Today I participated in my first “office” Zoom call. My husband and I have done a few calls with family members, but I had yet to do one for work. So a colleague arranged for us to have a Zoom meeting this afternoon. He’s in a more senior position in our organization and I’ve been working on several projects for his office the past couple of months.

So I have been working for home for over two weeks now. I shower every morning, but I’ve been dressing in basically yoga pants and a sweatshirt. With no makeup or jewelry. This is not how I go into the office. Ever.

I sign into this Zoom meeting this afternoon in my casual clothes (I did think about slapping some makeup on, but didn’t really even want to take the time) and my colleague has a button down shirt on! No tie, but still a nice shirt. I did make a joke about me being more casual, I don’t think he was offended, but next time I might wear an actual sweater instead of a hoody… and maybe a little eyeliner.

It definitely was nice to connect remotely with a co-worker, it’s amazing how quickly you can feel like you’re on your own island. But Zoom is a little freaky too, there’s just so many options. Now I just sound old and uncool…

But it might not be totally our fault. Our house cleaners came again today. (Yes, don’t judge me, I have a house cleaner, it’s the absolute best thing I spend money on!) She came first thing this morning with her two helpers. Yes, that means there were 3 additional people in my house this morning. Yes, they wore gloves while they were here. And a lot of her clients have been canceling on her during this pandemic, and maybe that’s the smart thing to do. But remember they still have to buy food and pay bills through all of this. And my house looks fabulous.

And I went to Shaw’s this afternoon to buy baking soda. Why baking soda? Because my husband has been staining 6 wood doors in our basement and the fumes have come up into the house and every time I run our gas dryer the clothes all come out smelling like kerosene. So he wanted baking soda to get rid of the smell. And I have to rewash three loads of laundry. Thank goodness I have some time on my hands!

And my husband went for his sports massage tonight. Yes, he did. I guess this falls into the same catergory as the house cleaners — if the masseuse doesn’t get paid, how is she paying her bills?

So we are bad at social distancing, but we have a clean house and our muscles feel better! Right?

And it’s now April, I’m looking forward to better weather!

That’s right, but I have been out of my house during that time — a couple trips to the grocery store and Target and twice to get take out from our local pub. Oh and I have gone for walks pretty much every day and did a couple of runs. That’s not too much in the last two weeks, but it’s scary to think that one of those trips could have exposed me to this virus.

Our governor announced this afternoon that all non-essential businesses will be closed until at least May 4 now. That seems like an impossibly long time to be out of the office. (Thank goodness I brought my office plant home!!) It also sounds like a crazy long time to be stuck in the house with just my husband for company. We might need to take separate vacations later on this year…

My last day in my actual office was two weeks ago today. That seems just so odd. I have decided that working from home is pretty darn boring. I typically work on a bunch of events, but with COVID-19, all of my events have been cancelled. I spent a really long time working on an expense report this afternoon, like a ridiculously long time. Even the flow of e-mail has slowed. And the only “co-worker” I’ve seen is my husband, and he only went to one store today — Home Depot. Social distancing at its finest!

I did go outside for a walk today, but it was pretty raw and rainy. It’s been crappy the past few days, so I thought I’d share a spring-type photo:

• 

My orchid plant is blooming again!! This is a big thing for me — typically I bring home beautiful orchid plants and they slowly start to rot in my living room. I have tried everything — the 3 ice cubes once a week, rotating them, ignoring them. But they always die and they most certainly do not ever flower again. But look at this one — there’s a ton of new growth!!

I’m taking this as a sign — spring is coming and we will get through this coronavirus!

It’s been raining and cold all day — sometimes the rain was pretty heavy. My legs were sore from yesterday’s run, so I decided to take today off. I didn’t exercise, I didn’t go for a walk, I didn’t go outside at all, not even for a drive around the neighborhood. I slept in a little, read over a hundred pages in my book and took care of my inside plants. I did some typical Sunday chores, but didn’t stress myself out. And I didn’t clean a single door knob!

My husband’s been in our basement for most of the day working on a home improvement project, so I’ve enjoyed some much needed time alone. Please don’t tell him I said that…

Earlier he went to the Big Y supermarket to do our weekly grocery shopping, to Home Depot and Lowe’s for items for his home improvement project, to Shaw’s for more groceries and the liquor store because he is now hoarding wine. I just can’t win this battle folks.

Two weeks of self quarantining are almost complete! Here’s to hoping the next week is just as uneventful. Happy Sunday!