Covid Fashion Trends – lululemon sweatshirts, tie-dye matching sets.

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.