Quarantine Venting. Read This Section Only If You Are Up To It.
The past 8 days have been really rough, and discombobulating. For me at least. I had a few rough days coping with this weird calm yet stressful time.
My province, BC is doing really well. Each day our numbers of confirmed infected are smaller and smaller. So what’s my problem then? This is great news if we can keep it up and we don’t get any super spreaders walking around. My angst is in the realization that these good numbers don’t at all change our current ‘lock down’ situation. It doesn’t change this weird new reality of our day to day lives. It only means we are healthy, for now. I am grateful for that, and for your health.
It’s still just really weird, and sad. I feel sad about the loss of a lot of things. I feel weirded out. I am sad about how challenging this is on relationships and the toll it takes. Anyone married is probably feeling this weird state of being super close and connected, but also very very stressed and quick triggered. I’m sad that I can’t hug my parents, or take care of them. I’m sad that if they got sick I wouldn’t be able to see them or help them. I’m sad for our kids missing out on simple human interaction which is crucial to healthy development. The loss of community. Amongst all of this there have been so many positives with how we connect. I get really happy to see our school post daily funny youtube videos and spirit day challenges, but it’s still….weird.
Anyways… enough venting on that. I could go on for pages and pages ruminating on how special this time is, or how much of an opportunity it is, or tell you all the ways I’m sad about it… but life goes on so lets look at my week in photos.
What I’m Wearing For WFM
Lost In Leisure Crops + Love Tee
Baking Sourdough
For unknown reasons, I was inspired to follow the viral Instagram trend of baking artisanal sourdough bread. I’m glad I did because it turns out it’s quite economical to have great bread made from just flour, water, and salt. Gotta love depression era recipes. I am not a baker but these turned out delicious. I delivered 3 of them to family members. This is the recipe I followed which seemed the least complicated.
The Work From Home Sitch
I’m not new to working from home or even working from home with the kids at home during spring break. The main difference now is coronecation. Having to home school our kids is absurdly stressful, isn’t it? I have to walk them through each task, including logging on and figuring out Microsoft teams each and every day. Oh yah, and share computers with the kids. Repeating the same basic log on instructions over and over again each day. This despite the fact that they can figure out tik-tok videos no problem, or build houses on roblox for hours.
How Corona-Schooling Is Going…
As you can see they are book adjacent. Computer is open, but not on school work. We are getting there. Each day we tick off one task towards school. Today was having the tools nearby.
Depression Era Food Sourcing
Food is getting expensive, y’all! Avocados are $2! I decided to start a garden and these are my little seedlings. Tomatoes, spinach, cucumbers, broccoli and I’m not even really sure what I have planted. Maybe Cheetos in the top left. They are inside right now in a window and I don’t yet have a plantar box outside for them. Considering keeping them indoors in a hydroponics system but that would be crazy, right? I’ve ordered this cute little indoor garden set which is pretty much hydroponics, but it hasn’t arrived yet.
Self-Care During Quarantine
I am rationing three things for myself. Lush bath bombs, Purdy’s Easter chocolates, and baking flour. Speaking of Easter, did you know Andrea Bocelli is doing a free concert on Easter from Duomo Cathedral in Milan? I’ll be watching it for sure.
I wish I could report that I’ve gotten farther in this book. I’m loving it so far but my attention span still hasn’t recovered from this stress. I’m about 1/4 of the way through but I will force myself to sit longer and make a better dent in it so we can discuss.
The two books I want to get through this month…
What We Are Drinking
A wine recommendation! We had this one last night and it was very, very good. It’s called Ribera Del Duero Celeste Crianza . It’s a slightly pricier wine but it’s my new favorite. My standby more affordable favorite is Almansa Laya.
This is the pour required to get kids through online learning.
AND… CHEERS to teachers, nurses, Dr.’s essential workers, funny people sharing good memes on twitter. And CHEERS to our adorable pets who are now officially essential workers – therapy animals. Pay them in treats and belly rubs.
Online Shopping & Fashion News
Did you see that Gap inc. is canceling Summer and Fall orders? I foresee a lot more brands doing this in order to economically survive. I don’t see Lululemon doing this, although they may space out their product releases.
On the shipping front, things are taking much, much longer to deliver so I highly recommend if you have a birthday coming up that you need to shop for, get on it early. We had a near-crisis for our daughter’s birthday and that’s bad enough considering no birthday parties are happening. Order several weeks in advance, especially for us Canadians who often have cross border shipping delays at the best of times.
I’ve ordered a lot of flour online from bakeries that are pivoting their business since local grocery stores are constantly out. Even restaurants are now leveraging their supply chain in order to offer groceries. Earls seems to have the best lineup of groceries, curated kits (protein, pantry etc.), family meals that you cook, or takeout. in Canada, we can now also order wine or beer on Skip The Dishes from most restaurants.
Another food retail-related item. Locally our farmers are having to dump their milk because of the loss from the restaurant and hospitality industry. This is incredibly sad for them. Cows need to be milked at the same rate they where before… moms who’ve breastfed understand what a bitch mastitis is. Because of this, the local mom’s group I’m a part of (for Coquitlam, BC) has been distributing free milk to all moms in need. As many gallon bottles of milk as you want! There are also other food industry donations happening in the same way so they are getting literal tons of fresh food to provide to moms or seniors in need, and then once they are taken care of anyone that wants stuff can pick items up on set days.
If you know of anyone in need in your area, maybe get them connected to mom groups and see if the industries in your area are also offloading food. This is such a tough time in all economic levels, but it’s acutely tough on low-income families or families that are now out of work.
I’ve used amazon prime to order some supplies but for non essentials, amazon prime delivery is delayed and showing April 26th as the soonest ship date.
On a positive note, Nordstrom Canada is now live! Those of us in Canada now have access to Nordstrom Canada distribution which means free shipping/free returns and no outrageous duties. The slight negative is that the .ca site has very little product in comparison to the .com, but I hope that changes over time. For my first order (ordered these joggers) the shipping was super fast and only took three days.
I ordered these Joggers for my first order. Love!
So, tell me how your weeks in Quarantine have been so far.
8 comments
My (lung transplant) hubby and I are bored for sure, but we’re doing okay. I constantly worry about him getting sick, but he should be safe if we keep doing what we’re doing. Due to his condition, we already had a ton of sanitizer, gloves, and masks on hand and were able to share with family.
I miss the gym SO much. It’s my biggest source of sadness. I used to lift 4x/week and am holding on for dear life to my 5 years of gains right now. I had a beautiful Rogue bar, plates, and rack setup that I sold about a year ago…because I preferred going to the gym. I’m kicking myself now! I have a decent home gym machine, dumbbells, a pull-up bar, and bands that will have to do the trick for now. To keep some progress, I decided to use this time as an opportunity to cut and so far am down to 16%. I’d love to see it just a teensy bit lower.
Sending much love from Texas. Hang in there!
I’m so glad you and your husband are doing ok and I wish you and him good health throughout all of this. Just keep doing the thing. We know what we have to do and we need to just keep doing it like we are in battle. Ask for help with grocery deliveries when possible, minimize outside needs, TAKE CARE of each other. Simplify the demands on your body. Workout for stress relief, sanity and health, and put down expectations for now.
Oh man, I hear you on regretting no longer having a home gym. I used to have a treadmill and never used it so I sold it but right now I would love to have it. Running outside is of course still an option and I usually prefer it, but somedays I just want to keep it as simple as possible. Maybe watch relaxing TV while running. Maybe just a 6-minute spring up a steep incline.
Love to you and your husband. You guys got this!!!
Thank you for this post. I enjoyed reading it and I can commiserate with you on a lot of these same things. It is a hard time. All the while people keep saying what a great opportunity it is to—– *fill in the blank*— cook more, family time, read, blah, blah, blah. It’s a strange contrast to be feeling restless and anxious, and then continuously have people tell you all the great things you should be feeling about this time. It is unique and I think there are no rules right now. Feel how you want to feel, and do what you need to do.
I was struck by one of the discussions on the FB group, when someone said they were disappointed about something being cancelled. A college graduation or some other milestone in their child’s life? And some other people lashed out, saying how ridiculous it was that they complained about it because, at least, they aren’t dead or watching someone they love die. Okay, yes. You can easily say that the cancellation of anything is better than the extreme example of someone dying. But, at the same time, that person had a right to feel how they wanted to feel. If they want to be disappointed and express that feeling to others, that is their right and it’s not okay to trivialize their valid feelings by yelling at them and then making them feel guilty about being alive. No one gets to decide how someone wants to feel about this current situation. They don’t need to be grateful because they are stilling in their house safe. They can be a little bitter about it if they want to.
I’m feeling periodic anxiety about the loss of personal rights. Each day, it seems to get tighter and tighter on what we are told we can and cannot do, all under the guise of “safety.” (And to be clear, I do respect the reasons for shelter in place. I have a mother who has cancer. But, the loss of rights still worries me. Some of the decisions don’t appear to be made for purely safety reasons.) I have some concerns about how we will get these rights back and resume our normal lives. I think we will get them back eventually, but it will take a lot more time than we think. I’m also really surprised at some of my friends and the amount of misinformation they are sharing on social media. People that I always thought were really smart people, saying things or sharing things that don’t even make sense. And then when you try to say nicely, this seems like an incorrect statistic or incorrect facts and you shouldn’t worry about this, they lash out. I think some people are incapable of having an open discussion right now. I’m seeing a different side of people and that has been disappointing in a lot of ways. I’m trying to remember that people are not themselves while this is going on.
Anyway, please keep blogging when you feel up to it! I enjoy reading. It feels like an escape back into normalcy when I read a new post.
Love this post! The redirect to the excellent bread making site was super informative and helpful (your bread looks amazing by the way!). In my usual type A way got completely carried away and almost pulled the trigger on $400 worth of bread making tools from a local online cooking shop (would have been $800 but the collapsible proofing box was out of stock :).. Managed to recenter on only a $7 weck jar for the starter and a piece of natural linen for proofing. Looking forward to making bread with my teenage sons. Thanks again.
So glad you liked the post and liked the link to the recipe. Very happy you didn’t buy new supplies. I purchased 1 bread proofing basket (came with some accessories) on amazon (this one) and the accessories where very handy. You need a dough cutter/bench scrapper, and a sharp blade to score the dough. Having a dutch oven is very handy but not essential. Other than that, you only need your ingredients. The bread turned out fantastic though so I’m glad of this new skill.
Thanks for the heads up about Nordstrom Canada! I’m looking forward to reading about items you find there.
In case you’re looking for more joggers, I recently bought a pair from Knix and am obsessed. They’re super soft and flattering, and it’s a Canadian company so I think it’s a win all around.
(Ps. if anyone is reading this and wants a discount I have a referral code, but I won’t post it yet in case Christina has a code or a shopping link)
Also a general note about the site: I personally find it tricky to tell which posts are the newest when looking at the homepage. In particular I can’t decide if an Upload post is new or old. It’s not a big deal because I just click on them and check the date, but I would hate to miss a post. This isn’t a complaint, just something to consider as you keep evolving your site.
Stay safe!
Thanks so much for the tip! I’ve been wanting to try Knix but hadn’t seen their joggers. Will definitely have a look. Are they these ones (Lounge Pant)?
Thanks so much for the feedback as well. I totally agree with you. I’ve been fiddling with the banner image to see what makes it most obvious that there is a new post and that they are chronologically ordered. Not fully happy with how I have it now but I will try and fiddle with it tonight. I appreciate the comment and definitely do not want anyone to miss a post.
Those are the pants! I bought the black and they’re amazing so far. This is a link to the Canadian site – same pants just Canadian pricing.
https://knix.ca/collections/lounge-collection/products/lounge-pant