Week 1 Survived

Well I am one week down from our latest state shutdown. But unfortunately this virus is still growing and at a rampant pace. We have had so many deaths and positive tests in the state of VA. Just in our nation alone we doubled in positive virus tests just yesterday. This caused our President to make an extension to his 15-day to end the spread. So He is now wanting everyone to remained quarantined and social distanced until April 30th. Today the Governor will speak in less than an hour and I foresee him making the same extensions for our state. I am most likely not going back to work until May. This is really scary for so many people in our world right now. I may even be at a place where claiming unemployment is necessary. But instead of keeping this particular post negative Nancy, I want to focus on the positive. I have obviously had plenty of time to focus on my home; reorganizing, cleaning, etc. I feel so incredibly blessed by our home. It is definitely probably more house than we really need, but I do really love it. I do wish I had a few more paintings, more pretty things, but overall we have a really beautiful place to live. I love our neighborhood and how safe I feel living here. It's funny, I feel more safe being here alone than I ever did in our townhouse. And I really loved that townhouse and if I were to scream my neighbors would hear. This place is different but I still feel very secure and have such lovely neighbors. I am thankful for a wonderful job and friends that I work with. Even though I am not there now, we are still keeping up with one another and it's been really awesome. My boss has become one of my closest friends here and I could not be more thankful for her and just everything that she has done and continues to do for all of us. She is such an amazing leader and I feel so blessed how things fell into place for me to have this job. I guess my whole point to surviving week 1 is that I did it and can still come away from it feeling grateful. I think that's the best takeaway we can all ask for during this time. Here's hoping after 2 weeks I can still feel the same!

Global Pandemic

I felt the need to document what is happening in our world right now as it is an event that no one has ever seen before. 3 weeks ago a nasty enemy named Coronavirus struck our nation. 3 weeks ago I was at work gearing up for vacation to FL. Life was for the most part normal; however, some started to act as if a snow storm were coming. People were stocking up on toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and Clorox wipes on a level where grocery stores were running out of these supplies. It became humorous and no one really knew what was happening. 2 weeks ago we still left for FL as planned thinking our vacation maybe would be affected but at least we would be together and in warmer weather. Little did we know what was about to happen. A few days before we left, our cruise planned for May was cancelled to which I was devastated. I had been looking forward to this trip for some time. But this virus was starting to effect cruise ships and current voyages rampantly. People were getting really sick and even dying. On our way down to FL (we drove, thank goodness) the interstate seemed a little bare heading south. Once we got to FL it seemed the pandemic really started to spread. Restaurants and bars were closing early and were being limited to 10 people or less. So our outings to our usual places became slim. Malls and outlets were closing their doors, so shopping was out of the question. And of course the concern of getting sick and passing that along to my older mom was a concern. Needless to say, we said good-bye to our vacation 3 days early. All plans were pretty much ruined and that vacation has now gone down as the worst we've had. Upon returning home, our governor shut down all non-essential businesses for 30 days so now I have found my "vacation" time lengthened. I just finish my second week of not working. And at the moment we are closed until the end of April. Many other states have mandated the same thing. My husband is under the impression that it could be longer than late April when I will return to work. Finding meats, cleaning supplies, and toiletries at the moment is hard. Simply finding a pick-up order time from Wal-Mart or Food Lion is a gamble. All restaurants are now only doing take-out or curbside pick-ups. No one is going inside restaurants anymore. It is truly the most bizarre time in our history. Numbers of people effective are growing everyday. As of today, over 100,000 have been diagnosed with this virus. There have been hundreds that have died from it. So many people have lost their job and have had to claim unemployment. Thankfully, we are fine. My husband has had to keep working as UPS is never closed. But I am thankful that he still is receiving a paycheck or else we would be in such a mess. I am just trying to remain sane during this time period. I don't know of any other time where I have been cooped up at home for this long and not be sick. There is no where to go, nothing to do, and social distancing has been encouraged by all governments. There is the occasional walk with a friend you can do, but overall quarantine and seclusion are what everyone is trying to do. I will most likely be blogging more during this time so as not to get into such a funk. Yesterday I already had one of those days where I think it finally hit me. Being home alone all day with not a whole lot to do is hard. Having no one to really talk to the whole day is crazy. One can clean their house but so much, do laundry but so much, or re-organize but so much. I've started a puzzle, I'm blogging, and binge watching shows like crazy. Just trying to fill my time but also wanting to be intentional about filling it with the right stuff. I am even doing my first Zoom meeting Crossfit class today. So that should be interesting. So here's to 2 weeks down of no working, 1 week down of my job being closed. Stay safe, stay healthy!