Our Quarantine Life

I figured I'd dust off the old blog to document our quarantine days during this weird/nightmare/yet somehow still wonderful time in all of our lives as a time capsule for our family to reflect on in the years to come. Unless the grid goes down then I guess we are SOL.

We have spent a lot of time in our immediate front yard (so grateful for some green space.) I jumped on the sidewalk/painters tape trend and decided to take it up to the fence for the enjoyment of walkers, riders, and drivers. It's been just as pleasurable for me to see every time we step outside.

We've also enjoyed rock scavenger hunts with neighbors. One family hides the rocks in a radius of our 'hood, sends us three clues, and then we go and retrieve, repeating the process for the next family. Unexpected happy accident--my son is really learning an immediate mapping of streets and directions in our neighborhood.

It felt like Christmas part two in early March with a game order. We've spent countless hours playing old favorites like Monopoly and Uno, and new ones including Battleship, Monopoly, Bananagrams, and Solitaire.

Lots of baking, cooking, creating in the kitchen is happening too. We've been gifted pounds of lemons and oranges and have made homemade lemonade a variety of ways (strawberry with mint is our favorite) as well as freshly squeezed orange juice--both of which I have never done before.

Art abounds every afternoon with an Instagram doodling session with my friend and her son where we've drawn a variety of cool pictures and images. We are also writing letters to friends and family near and far which is both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

I realized early on in the quarantining that it was someone's 6.5 birthday so we threw an impromptu birthday party to celebrate, complete with cake balls, pin the spider on the web, and the birthday boy's favorite games.

I've always enjoyed cooking and baking but I'm finally tackling sourdough-breads, including the loaf below and sourdough cinnamon rolls I'm making today for Easter Sunday. It's been an experiment in patience and failure but also so rewarding. We've also seen so many wonderful gifts and sharing and swapping from neighbors--avocados, eggs, flour, mint, citrus, yeast--I am so touched.

It will be interesting to see how the next month(s) unfold as we continue to school remotely and try to find fun projects within our 700 square feet. I'm so grateful for our amazing community, family, and friends who are healthy and doing their part, and the true healthcare heroes, grocery store workers, truckers, and first responders working so the rest of us can remain safe at home.