What a week, right?
My son is home from college for spring break and that’s been extended by a week with possibly more to come.
Our church isn’t going to hold services until early April (thankfully we have a church on YouTube that we like to follow and will tune in there).
Our daughter’s school is closed for two weeks, and a performance she was rehearsing for next weekend has been postponed. It seems like the rest of our calendar has been wiped clean within a few days.
Of course, my husband is busier than ever at work because he’s active duty military, although he will be at home for the next month or so. All of his travel plans have been canceled. Moves are on hold.
I’m guessing things are the same where you are. We’re all in this together!
As we plan for several weeks of “social isolation,” I’m opting to look at this as an unexpected opportunity to enjoy downtime with my family. We usually go at about 150 mph so this might be a blessing in disguise, although of course we’d all prefer not to have a global pandemic being the reason we have to pause and hibernate.
Oh, and did I mention that I have a cold (but no fever!) with a really nasty cough right now? Perfect timing, right? So I’m definitely staying put so I don’t get the stink eye from my neighbors.
On the agenda for this next week is cleaning up the porch and front yard. The amount of pollen dropping right now indicates that spring is here and being out in the fresh air soaking up the sunshine makes raking and pulling weeds seem almost enjoyable!
Also, Harley will probably get plenty of walks because the weather is gorgeous.
Amy’s Friday post on shopping and cooking for two weeks’ of meals is {here} and I thought it was super-helpful. If you have a local store that does online grocery ordering with curbside pickup, you can limit your exposure even more–and who knows, you might even be able to score a coveted package of toilet paper!
And although I hope we won’t need it, we’ll plan to post another two-week menu and shopping list soon.
In the meantime, if you need some tips for keeping your home sparkling clean, check out this post I wrote just a few weeks ago on my favorite cleaning products (Amy’s parallel post is here), or this post on how we sanitize our homes during cold and flu season.
I thought it might be helpful to share some ideas for things to do indoors, too.
Our family loves to play games, and our favorites include Cranium, Catch Phrase, Scrabble, Parcheesi, and Rummikub (our youngest is 16 so obviously these are all geared towards older kids and adults). Our Wii is collecting dust but I have a feeling we might pull it out this week and take a walk down memory lane (bowling or Guitar Hero, anyone?).
If it’s time to hit the couch and get caught up on some binge watching, I gathered a few favorites from friends (I’ll star the ones I’ve watched myself and recommend):
Prime: Fake or Fortune, *The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, *Downton Abbey (only if you’ve been living under a rock and have somehow missed it!), Troop Zero
Netflix: *The Crown, *Designated Survivor, Call the Midwife, *North and South (not the miniseries with Patrick Swayze but the BBC miniseries), Virgin River, Schitt’s Creek, *Poldark
Starz: *Outlander, *The Spanish Princess, *The White Queen, *The White Princess
Hulu: *The Good Doctor, The Biggest Little Farm, Sons of Anarchy, *Dr. Pimple Popper, *Good Bones, *Home Town
Feel free to leave your favorites in the comments, too.
If you’d rather curl up with a good book, just check out our “What We’re Reading” posts for some of our recommendations. Between Amazon and being able to access the public library via the Overdrive app, there’s no need to venture out. Our awesome local bookstore is offering free delivery right now and I am making it a huge priority to shop local now more than ever, so it might be worth checking to see if you have a similar option in your area.
Last but not least, when I was fifteen months pregnant with my first child, Amy’s mom recommended that I find a “Blizzard Project” to keep my mind and hands occupied. I spent about a week sorting through old family photo albums and organizing the photos in boxes by date. Similar ideas would be to organize your pantry (my friend Leslie is doing this!) or closets, scan old tax documents and shred the originals, put together an enormous jigsaw puzzle, or even start learning a new language. I’m working on the tax document project and learning German, so those projects ought to keep me busy for awhile in addition to my usual work and home responsibilities.
I’ll be back on Wednesday with a spring home tour…to be honest, I haven’t done much spring decorating because this past week has been filled with other things and our house is full (and messy), but I’ll at least have a few pictures of pretty corners of my home to distract us all a bit from the news.
In the meantime, wash your hands, and thanks for stopping by.
