Today marks the 80th day since I’ve started my own quarantine/lockdown/social distancing measures by staying at home wherever possible. This will be a follow-up to my previous post about locking down for COVID-19.
I have experimented with lots of ways to entertain and distract myself and to cope with the incredible amount of stress that everyone is experiencing in some way or another.
After the big transition from working in my office on campus to working at home during our final exam week, I needed the break and found it helpful to do a bunch of non-academic things. Since starting to work full-time again after spring break, which roughly coincided with the beginning of lockdown, I haven’t had as much time for these things. But in general these things, which I’m going to talk about below have really helped me get through the lockdown. If you’re in a lockdown funk, maybe some of these activities could help.
Coloring
I have been doing coloring some – with colored pencils and with watercolors. Several artists have put up coloring sheets that can be downloaded for free. I’ve been painting in Amberstextiles’ coloring sheets, and I have just found this amazing project called the Together Gallery, which has tons of pages from a bunch of different artists. And here’s another collaborative one I found called Picture Hope.
Fermentation Station
Inspired by Brad Leone of Bon Appetit, we have been all about the fermentation. At the beginning of lockdown, we got a kombucha scoby and a sourdough starter from some friends and we have been doing kombucha and sourdough a lot. We’ve also been pickling and faux-pickling some things – mostly refrigerator pickles. We’ve particularly enjoyed pickled red onions and we’ve got pickled radishes, carrots, and garlic cloves that are currently in the works.
Film Club
I’ve been hosting regular movie watching with friends on Zoom or Netflix Party. We’ve been using this as an opportunity to catch up with classic movies that we’ve never seen like the Godfather, which was the last one we watched.
Art Projects and Crocheting
Art supplies are actually a bit hard to come by on the internet, especially at the beginning of the lockdown. I managed to pick up some acrylic paint, which I used to repaint this headphones case that James was basically about to throw away. I spent a few days doing several coats and made it super vibrant and it looks basically new now!
I also have been continuing to crochet. I’ve started two blankets. The first one I ran out of yarn and couldn’t find more. I bought three times as much yarn and I’m about halfway through that and I’m definitely not going to have enough to finish it. I have bought some more yarn to start some small projects, which I feel confident I can get enough yarn to finish. I also usually use this one brand of yarn, but it’s made of 100% acrylic. I’m going to order some different kinds, trying to find yarn that’s made from different materials. I’m going to make an effort to move away from acrylic and polyester, actually, but that’s beside the point. Crocheting has been really nice, especially to help keep me focused while on long Zoom meetings or while watching TV and keeps me from checking my phone as much.
Reading
I had fallen way behind on my reading goals, which I set on Goodreads. I reduced my reading goal from last year because I figured I wouldn’t have as much time to read, since this will be my first full year in grad school. Ever since lockdown, I’ve had so much more time and I’ve used a lot of that time to read. I started off lockdown by powering through the second two books in the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, since I really wanted to know what happened in the story! Some of the other books I’ve read so far that I’ve really enjoyed were Where the Crawdads Sing, Traitor by Jonathan de Shalit, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, and Educated by Tara Westover. I normally don’t read a lot of fiction, but I’ve really been enjoying it recently!
Cleaning and Organizing
At first, we spent a lot of time cleaning, organizing, and re-organizing. I went through all my clothes, we moved around all the furniture in the living room, and we set up the spare bedroom as our home office for the duration of the pandemic. We hung up pictures that had been on the floor since we moved in and did a ton of little tasks that we had been putting off. I hope to do more of this in the summer. We only moved in like a month before the pandemic, so there’s still a lot to do.
Exercise
I have also been making a lot more time for exercise. Normally between classes, teaching, and research, I don’t have that much time to take care of myself. I’ve been working less and trying to make more time for self-care and staying healthy. James and I started running and we’re both now able to go out on a run for 45 minutes and run at least 5k, which we really couldn’t before this.
I’ve also been trying to work on my flexibility. I don’t have any time frame, but I’m doing some yoga-style exercises to work towards being able to do the splits. I’ve always wanted to see if I could do it and there’s never been a better time.
I’ve also spent a lot of time walking around my area. I’ve been in a pretty good habit of going on long walks on my off-days from running. I usually put on an audiobook or podcast and happily soak up some sunshine and breathe fresh air for an hour. I never really made time to do that before this.
Plants
I already had a lot of plants before the pandemic broke out, but I’ve been taking care of them a little extra recently. We’ve also grown some chili plants, wildflowers, and herbs from seeds, which has been rewarding. We’re also on the waitlist for a garden plot in the community garden in our housing complex, which we’re hoping will come through during the summer.
Blogging
As you may have noticed, there have been a lot more blog posts! I finally finished a series from our family road trip around Scotland two summers ago and started the series about me and James’ road trip around the Western US last summer. I’m still only about halfway through that one and I’m going to try to space out the blog posts over the next month or two.
Planning Future Trips
I also spent one weekend planning our next road trip. It was really great escapism. It was so exciting thinking about all the great places we’re going to try to visit once travel is possible again. I think I’m going to also plan some more dream trips this summer, since my wanderlust will be going crazy while we’re stuck here.
Generally, I think we’re slowly getting used to life lived (almost) entirely inside. On the other hand, I think we’re kind of going crazy. We’re still working out routines and it’s so easy to get into a slump of sleeping in, watching too much TV, slacking off work, and feeling really low. These activities have really helped me to come back. For example, I was sick last week and haven’t been able to do any exercise or work. Just going on a walk today and working on a blog post make me feel more “productive”. We’re almost done with our last quarter of the academic year here. When that’s over, I hope I can relax and set my own schedule without so many classes and meetings and find a nice equilibrium for the next few months.
