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Posts Tagged ‘#quarantine’

Will You Quaranteam?

If you could choose 5-10 people to quarantine with who would they be?

This is the question we may all be facing as we head into winter. If you live on the east coast like me, you know your days of fun in the sun are dwindling fast. Even today, there is a chill in the air that tells me colder weather is on its way. Tomorrow, it’s supposed to rain and someday soon there will likely be snow.

I bring you this weather report because we are going to be spending a lot more time indoors. Now that I understand the virus a little better, I can be more strategic about who we choose to spend time with and remain healthy.

Quaranteaming vs. Germ Pods

If you aren’t sure what your plans are yet, you have a few options to choose from. Some people form “quaranteams” which technically means leaving your home behind to stay at someone else’s home or inviting friends to live with you. The purpose of this is to have some form of social interaction – besides with your immediate family — while on lockdown.

Personally, I don’t think I could quaranteam. I love my friends, but I want to KEEP my friends. Unless we were all quaranteaming in Hawaii – then, I’d make an exception.

I’d prefer forming “germ pods. Or as I prefer to call them, quarantine bubbles. (Sounds nicer, doesn’t it?) These are made up of about 12 people, or three families, who stay in their own homes but agree to go steady – meaning they don’t socialize outside the group.

They share the same values and follow CDC guidelines like wearing masks everywhere they go and wash their hands frequently. These are people I can spend quality time with without much fear of being exposed–and we don’t have to share a bathroom for three months.

My Bottom Line

Of course, there are no guarantees. I can be exposed to COVID-19 while food shopping or pumping gas. Every time I venture out for basic necessities, I know there is a risk. However, socializing with friends in person is important to our well being. It is a luxury and a responsibility that I am willing to take on if it results in keeping us all happy and sane.

So, what are your plans? Are you quaranteaming this winter? Forming a bubble? Or winging it?

Quarantine Projects Update

My first “before and after” quarantine project!

On March 10th, my office closed indefinitely and all employees were told to work from home. I was thrilled to give up my commute and spend more time at home with my family during this crisis.

I also had big plans for organizing my home. I thought to myself ‘FINALLY! I’ll have time to declutter and reorganize. I can cook three healthy meals a day, get some much-needed exercise, and lose a few pounds. My house will be so clean, and my to-do list will pare down to a few items.

So, how is going? Honestly, not so great. Things were promising to start. I cleaned out the toy closet in our bonus room (see photo). My kids are 19 and 16 years old and have outgrown the games I was inexplicably holding onto like Hullaballo and Chutes and Ladders. I gave my sister-in-law a bunch of Disney movies and kid-friendly musicals on DVD. My six-year-old niece is a big fan of Mama Mia and – thanks in part to me – she knows all the words to Dancing Queen. The closet has since been repurposed to house bulk items from Costco, cleaning supplies, and my growing collection of jigsaw puzzles.

I also started reorganizing a spare closet in my bedroom and came away with a lot of old clothes and a pile of books to donate. I threw away about 20 magazines that I thought I would read in-depth but never got around to – but I went through each one first and tore out articles I plan to read later. Somethings are hard to give up completely. I even organized random photos and threw away the duplicates.

Side note: Why in the world did we ever print doubles of photos? What a complete waste of money!

I have other quarantine projects to tackle, but I’ve put them on hold for now. This is mostly because I’ve come to realize that keeping up with laundry, cooking, and cleaning takes a lot of time in itself. And if I don’t do it, no one else will. Am I right? As I write this blog post, I am staring at a sink full of dishes and the dryer buzzer just went off.

Four months into this quarantine and I am now lowering my expectations. I may never get to cleaning out the dining room breakfront or the kids’ closets – a task I have been putting off since 2015! I do have a life to live, and the books on my nightstand are not going to read themselves! So, I’ll move the attic cleanout to the first snowstorm of the year and give myself a well-deserved break.

What household projects have you completed during the lockdown?

Getting Back to “Normal”

Well, it’s happening. We are slowly starting to enter into a whole new world. A world where we need to wear face masks in public. A world where we still need to maintain a social distance from each other. A world where we need to remember to bring your keys, phone, wallet, face mask, gloves and hand sanitizer before we leave the house. And when we leave the cocoon of our homes, we must learn to trust other people that they have socially distanced as well. Let’s face it – few of us have followed these things to the letter. Personally, I would have loved to secure a delivery slot on Peapod or Instacart instead of going to the grocery store every week.

As much as I want to support small businesses, I don’t think I’ll be running out to shop anytime soon. But I would like to get a mammogram which is way overdue. I’d like to go on vacation, but I have to think about what that looks like for our family. Regulations have been lifted in some places for the Memorial Day weekend. Experts say we won’t know the effects of this until Father’s Day. Will there be a spike in cases? Time will tell.

Looking into the not-so-distant future, will we be dropping Jenna off on campus in the fall? Will the high school reopen on a staggered schedule so some kids can attend? This is his junior year coming up. What will his college visits look like? Will those kids practice social distancing to the best of their ability? What will high holidays look like this year? All of it makes me incredibly nervous.

Meanwhile, I haven’t finished going through my pile of books I wanted to read. Truth be told – I’d need another six months in quarantine to get through them all. And there are still closets to clean and home improvement projects to work on. Not to mention that I’d like to lose a little more quarantine weight before I am seen in public again. To me, staying home still has its perks.

Everyone here is antsy to get back to normal life, but what is normal these days? We are about to find out.

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