Work from Home

So many people are now working from home it’s astonishing. Most of what I’m hearing suggests that it’s working really well for people and a good deal for their employers because, despite fears of employees goofing off and very real distractions, people are finding they are more productive this way. I am dead-sure there are exceptions, total layabouts bilking bosses somewhere, but I haven’t heard from any of them. I’m getting tons done at home and my husband is accomplishing so much it’s absolutely staggering. Working from home seems to have revealed his super-powers. He’s amazing.

I normally work in a library serving the public face to face and running programming for teens and tweens. It’s fun. I help people find books, dvds, audiobooks, and the like, run craft workshops, host role-playing games, help folks with technology, order books for the collection, and so on. Now I’m working from home and not seeing anyone face to face at all. I’m taking webinars on how libraries can serve the public through this pandemic crisis, concocting ways to run some teen programs over the web, sending emails to the groups I run trying to check in with all the isolated, learning from home kids I’ve come to know and love, and I continue to work on Summer Reading hoping at least some of it will happen somehow. Will we be back working at the library by then? I don’t know. I do know I have ideas on how to run at least some of the programs I have planned through email, posts, or online chat platforms. Oh, and I order ebooks now! My boss used to handle it because it was a tiny little bit but now it’s half the budget.

So I broke down and got an ereader, got a Nook from Barnes and Noble. I’ve downloaded a couple of books onto it and I’m hoping I can sort out getting Libby/Overdrive onto it. That’s the library app where you can check out virtual books and it’s really cool. I have it on my phone but my phone is tiny, plus I want to learn how to do it so I can help patrons figure it out. I bought Serpent of Venice; by Christopher Moore. The first few pages are great. ^_^

Oh, and I won a physical book on goodreads.com an awesome site for readers. There are a lot of contests to win free books, I think I’ve won 3 or 4 over the years and it’s lovely. You can track your reading there if you like, stock a virtual bookshelf with books you own, books you’ve read, or books you want to read. You can post and read reviews and sometimes chat with authors. Yes, I am a huge book nerd.

this is the book I “won” in a free drawing. Can’t wait to read it.

How are you all staying sane while confined at home? Let me know in the comments.

3 Weeks in.

My husband figured it out, I think I’ve been in denial, we’ve been inside (mostly) for 3 weeks now. I did make a couple of surgical strikes on the grocery stores early on. I was still dropping K off at the community college early on, and we do still have to take our trash to the transfer station. (where we wait till we can do it with zero human contact and without touching anything) We’ve had 2 small Instacart deliveries of groceries but our last order got cancelled and now there is no way to place new orders. Peapod also delivers in our area but they are full too. Shit is getting real for me now.

We’re ok. Just stressed. The Schedule I made of activities hasn’t taken off and it needs to, that’s clear to me now, I made it for a reason and NOT doing it is proving how much we need it to stay sane. So, today, I’m going to bake a nice B-day style cake, we’re going to play Pathfinder, we’re going to try ordering a whole bunch of pizza, maybe I’ll pop some popcorn and put on some music. We’re got to fight the GLOOM.

Normal nods yep, normal…

The new normal is weird. We’re probably all thinking about ‘when things get back to normal’ but I’m not sure that’s what will happen. The virus seems to be changing things more than I thought it would, I never imagined having to actually avoid all human contact outside of the people I live with, and … how does this ever go back to the way things were? I’m not sure I will ever regard surfaces as innocent, harmless things again. I’m not sure I will ever hear a cough or see someone who is obviously ill and not have a reaction of anxiety. I’m not sure I will ever be able to believe that symptomless people are safe to be around. Will we have loads of people with a kind of PTSD-like reaction to crowds, coughs, stores, etc?

I took part in some webinars recently, having to do with my job, and there was a repeated theme of ‘our jobs are, right now, fundamentally changing and we shouldn’t think that this will be temporary because it probably won’t be. I know my boss is or has been thinking that things will just revert to normal, last I heard she was hoping w/in 2 weeks. (!!!) There is no way that is a safe timeframe at all but I hadn’t thought about things not going back. We’re shifting the materials budget more into ebooks and other digital content, we’re coming up with programming to reach people at home, to interact online. There is a lot of worry over the digital divide which is suddenly even more of a problem. How can we serve those who need us most if they can’t access our services from home? Yeah, I don’t know. I’m seeing a lot of experts saying things aren’t going to be safe anytime soon. Summer Reading is in serious question right now. Everything we’ve been planning is in doubt.

And there’s all these kids and teens at home trying to go to school online. They are having no face to face contact with peers or anyone outside their households and it’s important that they don’t. But what is that doing to them psychologically? Keeping us all healthy, protecting our communities is obviously vital and the top priority but how do we keep this from scarring our kids? I know we’re all trying, we’re all doing our best, but the situation right now is NUTS and it’s scary.

Day by Day

We all check emails for work and school, attend virtual meetings, and work on anything we’re assigned.

What is your daily life like? How has it changed? How are you and yours coping?

We’re doing ok here so far.

Our alarms still go off every morning, though they are now set for 7am rather than 6, and one of us gets up and gets breakfast for the 2 of us. (1/2 a bagel and a cup of tea, hummus and Earl Grey for him, cream cheese and Yorkshire Gold w/milk for me) We shower or don’t. Sometimes we sort of get dressed, mostly we wear PJ pants and T shirts, bathrobes are the new sweaters. We get the boy up and tell him to walk the dog and get ready for school. He considers ‘ready for school’ to mean; out of bed and slightly finger combing the wild tangle of full-on muppet hair he’s sporting and shrugging. The girls get up and K feeds the birds, I does dishes, they take turns with the video games, do chores, chat or game online with friends. T, the boy, gets into the mix when he’s done with classes.

Breakfast and lunch are usually forage for yourself kind of affairs but sometimes I make pancakes for breakfast or whip up a pot of homemade soup for lunch and we all eat together. Dinner is always as a family and I’m struggling to keep any kind of variety going. I thought I was prepared for this, and I did do my best, but varied is not exactly what I’d call our diet. Pasta and rice are the base of nearly every dinner and just NOW I find out my son hates rice. He hadn’t ever complained about it to me, my daughter let it slip a few days ago and my son was clearly deeply frustrated that she had. Sweet of him to want to pretend. How many ways can I find to make pasta seem different? We’ve had mac & cheese, pasta with marinara for everyone else and some weird tomatoless sauce for me, noodles with cheese and butter, there were meatballs once, we had cheese ravioli early on, … I could make a tunafish casserole maybe, if I can get some milk. Ok, this is a little depressing.

SO, on to the good news! I’ve been seeing some good stories emerging from the chaos so I’m going to post some links in case you need something positive to think about.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/25/politics/coronavirus-national-cathedral-donates-masks-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/videos/style/2020/03/26/fashion-designer-christian-siriano-coronavirus-mask-support-bts-cpt-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/coronavirus/

And here’s a message from The Doctor to all of us who are worried here on Earth. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/25/entertainment/jodie-whittaker-doctor-who-coronavirus-trnd/index.html

Rise of the Introvert?

I have a thought. Sure, I have a lot of those every day but now I’m thinking a new one based on days and days of observation and it feels like something I should maybe talk about.

This new pandemic is making it clear that there are 2 kinds of people in the world: those that hear “stay inside” and, you know, Stay Inside, and those that hear “stay inside” and do pretty much anything BUT.

I think this crazy virus is heralding the rise of the introverts.

Seriously Everyone, I have been training for this my whole life. My little family of introverts, led by my news savvy hubby, decided to isolate prior to the suggestion that we should observe social distance. We’d kept an eye on the news from China from the very first hint something might be brewing and we only grew more concerned every day. My husband suggested I stock up on a bit extra sometime in February and I said; “I’ve been doing that since January.” Every week I got a little bit more than I usually bought just in case the latest coronavirus grew legs. I mean, I didn’t go crazy or anything, and the past couple of weeks have reeeeally shown me my blind spots, but I think we’d be ok for a short time even if Instacart stops delivering. I mean, ramen is technically food, and doesn’t go bad for a long while, so we might be unhappy but we’d be alive.

ANYWAY, we’re introverts. We have books, games of various sorts, streaming videos, internet, some art supplies, items to use for crafts, our pets, and our meds. We are basically cool with chilling here for … well, let’s say I’ve only heard one estimate that gave me pause: 18 months of isolation to stop this thing from wrecking life as we know it. Now that sounds a bit long even for me, BUT, I have friends and family who are refusing to do what needs to be done. My mom thinks everything is just totally cool if there are less than 10 people there, she seems to believe she doesn’t need to stay 6 feet away from people if the group size is small enough. She and some friends brought a cake over to someone’s house so they could all celebrate a birthday together. I have friends who think anyone taking this virus seriously is a lunatic. And have you seen all the news reports of people clogging up natural attractions? and beaches? People complaining about cancelled plans, not being able to go out to clubs, or the movies, etc. I have friends who are still leaving the house for work, working with the public and claiming they haven’t been exposed to the virus. But we know that symptomless people are driving the spread of this monster!

Look at this article setting out reasons people are just not taking proper precautions: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/health/social-distancing-wellness-trnd/index.html

Long confinement is going to be tough, especially on extroverts, and if some are refusing to isolate at all or going nuts after a few days I’d guess the ones submitting to social distancing at all are going run out their doors the first chance they get. A while later I guess the meek will inherit the Earth. If we’re considering introverts meek, that is.

Living the New Normal

As of today we are under further restrictions here. The governor asked everyone to shelter in place. He didn’t make it an order but I cannot tell you why not. We have got to all stay home as much as possibly possible to try to contain this thing and keep it from destroying our entire health care system. I mean, the health care might suck here but imagine if it was GONE. I have no idea what that would be like and I am trying my hardest NOT to imagine it.

I buckled down today and made and printed up lists of chores/expectations for each other offspring and made a chart of the week showing what each of us has on our schedules, (classes, work from home, skype therapy etc) plus suggested evening family activities. I posted it all on the fridge and put in in a binder along with any special rules and suggestions for life here during the quarantine. (Don’t open the door to people, never flush sanitizing wipes even if you wiped down the toilet with one, suggestions for exercise, etc.) The binder now sits on a side table in the dining room so everyone can check it if they want to. Having 3 autistic kids means I need to create some kind of schedule and specific expectations, as well as outlining procedures they can follow if they get overwhelmed. I put some camp furniture and an airbed in the empty apartment along with a tv and dvd player so anyone can go down there and be alone for a bit if they get overwhelmed or annoyed. I think we’ll add an old game system and some light refreshments and other small comforts. There’s a full bath too so long breaks will work well if any of them needs one. Or if the hubby and I need one!

My boss asked for an accounting of what work I’ve done from home and when and in trying to put that together for her I realized my little notes to myself SUCKED and were completely disorganized. I came up with a new system for tracking my activities for her that will work much better. Bullet Journal to the rescue! (again) If you’re having trouble staving off the chaos during confinement, or anytime really, I highly recommend bullet journaling. It’s simple and completely adaptable to whatever your needs are and you change it up in an instant absolutely whenever you need to. There are some great books on it, the original is by Ryder Carroll: The Bullet Journal Method, and that’s where I started. My current favorite book about it is Dot Journaling; a Practical Guide; by Rachel Wilkerson Miller. It’s very visual and a lot less intimidating than some of the information out there, less overwhelming and more reassuring. I’m using one of her examples of a “daily spread” to track my work from home activities.

Thursday marks 23 years of togetherness (not marriage we’ve only been married 16 1/2 years) for my husband and I. He asked me a month ago what I wanted to do to celebrate, we celebrate everything like goofballs, and I said I didn’t know. Maybe dinner and a movie? I think we had a movie in mind but I can’t remember which one was supposed to come out around now and we probably would have gone out for Indian food as it’s a heavy favorite with us. Our options have narrowed a touch, what with the isolation and all, so we’re going to stay home, watch a movie on Netflix or something, and eat whatever I come up with for dinner that night. Neither one of us even had the chance to buy a small gift for the other. I probably have a card stashed somewhere if I can find it. We also didn’t remember, what with the state of the world and all, to order anything in time. I told him to look over the offerings on STEAM and order a cool game but I don’t think he’s going to. He’s busier working from home than he was working at the office. It’s ridiculous. I’m really proud of him though, he is kicking ass getting everything together for distance learning for when the kids “return to school” next week. Everything depends on him. I know he’s stressed but once everything is up and running, and the staff and kids get trained in it, I think he’ll be able to scale back and take a small breather.

Bright Side of the Apocalypse

It’s too easy to focus on all the bad stuff. I find myself obsessing over the spread of the virus, the shortage of critical medical equipment, and the uncertainty that surrounds us all right now. i’m already doing everything I know to do so, in the hope of taking a break from my anxiety, here are some things I am really enjoying about the world being so changed right now.

Pajamas: I wore my polar fleece PJ pants with my Rocket Raccoon T shirt for 3 days and no one cared and I was comfy. Today I wore my elephant PJ pants with the most clashing color/patterned shirt possible. My family didn’t say a word.
Gardening videos on Youtube: there are tons of cool videos on growing food that focus on the cheapest, easiest ways to do so. They give me hope that even a blight druid like me can do it. The idea of growing my own food calms me down.
Time to bake: I made cookies and brownies and there was much rejoicing.
Minecraft: when the real world is too stressful I go to a blocky place where I can build amazing structures, mine for iron and coal, farm, and get shot at by skeletons, bitten by zombies, blown up by creepers which I stubbornly refer to as boomers, and raise, at last count about a thousand chickens (if you feed them they have babies but what am I supposed to do? Let them starve???)
Reading: I am 5 books ahead of my reading goal for the year so far.
No bra: I am loving not leaving the house and not wearing these medieval torture devices.
Binging TV shows: Community, Dexter, Last Week Tonight, whatever! I don’t even feel guilty as long as I’ve done a load or 2 of laundry and made dinner that day.

That’s all for the moment. It’s almost 3am and I think I might be able to fall asleep again. Be safe and stay well.

Surreal Still-life

We’re in a holding pattern, caught in suspended animation, life feels like the gods have pressed some cosmic pause button. My family has been stuck at home, like many others around the world, for some time. My husband got ill over 2 weeks ago and hasn’t had any in person contact with anyone outside our little family since. I’ve been inside since shortly after that. Our son had his wisdom teeth out on March 9th and hasn’t been out since then. We asked our daughters, both in their 20s to stay home as of last Thursday. One is a month or 2 away from her degree and the other lost her job of a year and 1/2. Insane, right? With my husband’s severe asthma, and the fact that he doesn’t seem to have corvid19, we felt we had no other choice.

So now were all here counting off the days till we can relax a little if my husband hasn’t become seriously ill. My husband spends most of most days working from home. He’s doing more work than he ever did at the office, tons more. He’s head of IT at a boarding school and is pretty much solely responsible for getting them set up for distance teaching/learning. I’m absolutely amazed at what he’s managing to accomplish. I am also working at home, much, much less than he is, my job is only part time and greatly depends on dealing with the public but I am doing what I can. I am working on getting ready for Summer Reading, with a fairy tale theme this year, in the hopes that there will be a summer reading program at all. There is plenty to do there but it’s all very nebulous and possibly pointless. I’m thinking of making a specific summer reading blog that the teens could access for craft ideas, a virtual book club, maybe a fairy tale movie club… just in case the world isn’t back to normal by July. Our son’s school is figuring out how to manage distance learning so he has some classes, middle daughter is on spring break which is extended to 2 weeks but we’ve no idea what the community college is going to do after that. Eldest is just out of a job and spending time doing chores, hanging out online with out of state friends, etc.

Living in each other’s pockets is stressful. I am finding out that I really am an introvert. I have no time alone and it’s exhausting. I love all the people I live with, thank the gods, so a lot of this togetherness is good and fun. Everyone is pitching in to keep things clean, everyone is cutting everyone else as much slack as possible knowing this confinement could last months. People are binging shows, both solo and in groups, playing video games, reading, painting, playing board games, chatting with friends, playing with pets. I wish we were musical though. I wish we all played instruments. That just seems like such a cool thing to be able to do right now. Regretting my life choices I guess, not too seriously, I mean I own a ukulele and you tube exists so I could theoretically learn to play now.

The future is such a question mark right now I don’t know what to plan for. We’re doing ok at the moment but… when will I get back to work? The last email I had from my boss she said she was preparing for everyone to work from home very soon. The library is closed to the public but everyone else is still working on site. They are helping patrons over the phone with all the virtual stuff they can access, working on projects, handling curbside pick-up of materials, and quarantining and sanitizing all returning items. I guess all that’s expected to end soon. It’s so surreal. Will my daughter get her degree? Will my other daughter be able to find employment any time soon? Will my son’s junior year end remotely? Will his senior year be all distance learning?

At least we’re together. As stressful as it is having so much time together, it’s also good, I know they are all here and as safe as they can be. I can walk a very short distance, don’t even have to put on shoes or change out of my pajamas, and I can look at them, speak to them, and know they are fine at that moment. It’s a great comfort.

I think I am going to try to post more often for a while, see if I can capture what daily life in isolation is like and post some tips for how to manage for anyone who might be struggling more than I am. I have ideas for how to cope after spending many years of my adult life in poverty. Also I have a great imagination and can’t help but think about worst case scenarios, you know, like running out of toilet paper. I’ll think about how to organize my ideas and post again soon. Stay safe and well, everyone, do what you can, and keep breathing.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Well, I forgot to get Guinness Extra Stout before we went into isolation so it’s a sad St. Paddy’s Day here on the homestead for my Irish hubby.

The world has gotten weird. Most places are only committing to closing for 1-3 weeks at this point and it seems like the experts on disease are saying much longer would be better. Yikes. We’re all tucked in at home right now. Hubby’s taking his 2nd breathing treatment of the day, I’m blogging, Girls are watching “Community,” and son is on group snapchat with his buddies from school. All the pets are sleeping, they are completely psyched about having all the humans home all the time. There is no end to the cuddles and companionship they are getting.

We’re considering setting up a TV and gaming station and some basic amenities in the empty apartment we’ve got just so people can take breaks from all the togetherness. I mean, we might start to get on each other’s nerves after a bit, right? I wish we still had some of the remote control cars and that sort of thing we had when the kids were young. We could have some epic races in the empty space down there! Or that plastic bowling set we had, or a million other things we thought we’d never have a sue for again. Oh well, I’m sure there are some cool things kicking around somewhere we could use to take advantage of the space.

Update from Isolation

Well, my work is now closed but we’re being asked to come in anyway which is a little weird. I don’t think my boss wants me there as she said in a previous email to stay away “if you or anyone in your household is sick in any way, shape, or form” so that’s good. I really hope she doesn’t want me to come in, I do not want to go out and be near any people at all. There are 5 of us here at the homestead and that’s plenty of exposure for now.

Our daily life is different but not shockingly so. We’ve always been rather indoorsy we just don’t leave for school or work now. We are going to bed a little later, sleeping a little later, not much though. Dinner is still between 5 and 6 pm and being eaten at the table as a family. We are completing regular chores, doing a lot of extra cleaning, and starting to add scheduled reading times, family meetings, and gaming times. We’re working on getting prescriptions and perishable groceries delivered too. The dear dog and the need for firewood keeps us from staying completely inside and we’re thinking of starting up a few more outside chores and just making sure we don’t have any outside contact.

We have friends who are still not taking this seriously and I cannot believe it. One friend told us he and his wife have had “zero exposure” they have 4 jobs between them, 2 office jobs and 2 public food service jobs. Um, Dude? You do not have “zero exposure.” My mother, 73 years old with a heart condition, is still visiting friends and attending church. She even showed up here to return a vase. WTF, Mom? If you don’t want to hang onto it throw it away! Recycle it! Don’t show up where people have been asked to self-quarantine because of potential exposure! I know this is disruptive, I know it sucks, but we have to stop the spread of this thing.