Quarantine week three, day fifteen

For several days I avoided the news. It made me too anxious, and my solution was the old adage, no news is good news. That lasted two days before I hopped back on to check sites for any information from the world, family, and friends of varying degrees.

Now, instead of checking in on Facebook every month, I'm logging in daily for the very reason I stopped using this site--post sharing. Suddenly I can't get enough of the information my "friends" want to share with me, and my husband and children will tell you they are suffering.

I watched a YouTube video of a doctor in Michigan who showed me how to clean groceries and how to unload take-out food properly. Immediately, I stopped my husband from bringing in the groceries and assembled a line from the front door to the kitchen where we washed and sanitized each product.

I read an article from The New York Times from a writer whose 56-year-old husband is home with the COVD 19 virus. She describes their day in assisting him, and I cried through the entire article. Then, I came up with a plan in case one of us falls victim to the virus, and added fever-reducing medications and hand soap to our Target carry-out order.

I've mourned the deaths of celebrities (some from the disease and others not). Alexa has played so much country music from Kenny Rogers and Joe Diffie that my daughter's boyfriend answered that genre as my favorite in one of those Facebook quizzes, and I can't tell you the last time I turned on a country station.

I listened to a Zoom cast of a doctor in New York who gave me tips on protecting myself and my family, and then I caved in and allowed my friend Jim to drop off a box of the masks he purchased two months ago when he first read about the virus in China. And by drop off, I mean, I told him to drive by my house and chuck the box out the window, where I then disinfected the entire thing as I learned from my YouTube doctor.

And don't even get me started on watching my stock market app!

What I have not done is all of the things people on social media suggest. I haven't played cards or board games. We haven't unpacked the puzzle we started when quarantined in our Wyndham, and we haven't binge-watched Netflix since The Circle. My kids have not set me up with Tik Tok, and I barely read. Yes, that's right. The woman who consumes at least ten books a week has not been reading for pleasure!

Last night while lying in bed staring at the ceiling because sleep only comes in patches now, I called it quits. Something had to change, and so, I dragged myself out of bed when the alarm went off this morning and added ten minutes to my walking route. I allowed myself an hour for a social media/news check-in with my iced coffee (the weather here is 85 degrees), and then I walked away, washed my hands, Cloroxed the kitchen, started laundry, and am now sitting down for office hours.

Here's to the third week of quarantine being rainbows and unicorns!