Emerald City Quarantine Diaries Week 2: The Stay-At-Home Order
Week 2 was when things took a turn for the well, I can’t say unexpected, because California issued the Stay-At-Home Order before Washington did, so it was expected, but nobody expected it to hit quite as hard as it did. I launched a couple of projects this week in order to keep my own spirits up and realized that I could actively help others who felt like their wings had been “clipped” by the Stay-At-Home Order.
The Stay-At-Home Order
Governer Islee announced the Stay-At-Home Order on March 23, 2020. It was rumored for the previous week, but after the rising number of COVID-19 cases here in Washington State, the move was beyond required. The only reasons we’re allowed to leave our homes are:
Grocery & Pharmacy Trips
Taking medical care of someone else
Exercise
Doesn’t sound like fun, huh?
The Quaran-Tea-In
Because it’s not. But that’s okay, I am a creative creature and since I am a remote employee, I know many ways to stay social while staying my backside at home. I joked on my side Twitter account that I would start a weekly chat that I jokingly called the Quaran-tea-in. It went live on Wednesday that week and is a weekly chat where a lot of friends can pop in, get their social spoons filled, and then leave at their leisure. My parent company may view it as a slight against their resources, but I’m slotting my use of the Professional Google Meet network as a way of helping out my community. Some days, the Quaran-tea-in is the only thing I look forward all day or week.
Which is another way I realized I could help others. Several friends reached out to ask me how to stay sane and level during the Stay-At-Home order and I hope this can help you also.
One Thing to Look Forward to That Day
Find One Thing to Look Forward to, Every Day. Just one thing. You can have several things you want to do that day, but just have one to look forward to. Then go do that one thing and relish the feeling when you do the thing. Why?
Some days, being at home, and seeing the same walls every day will mess with your head and even I’ve fallen into the trap of “I’m going to be alone forever” and other very dark thoughts. Or I can pivot and find one thing to look forward to each day. It could be as simple as a cup of coffee, or basking in a sunbeam, or the dance party I’ll have by myself at 2pm to an invisible audience of 30 thousand viewers. I didn’t say that it had to make sense. Just that it’s something you look forward to doing. That week, my one thing became planting trees. That week, Brandi J, over at Minimum Viable Marketing (Hey Brandi) introduced me to the Forest App.
Forest Focus App
I’ll admit I have a phone addiction. Born from Anxiety, my phone provides a distraction when I’m uncomfortable, bored, scared, or lonely. It’s an outlet to the outside world around me and a guard for when I need it. But I’m also reaching for said phone when I shouldn’t be. Brandi kept mentioning she was growing trees in our shared Slack channel and introduced me to Forest, a focus app that lets you “plant trees” and grow the trees for as long as you put your phone down. Pick it up, the app will tell you to put it back down so the tree can grow.
Your goal is to plant 25 trees a day to fill up your forest. You pick your tree, set your timer for however long you need to focus, and then go do something else. Once your tree has grown, you can collect coins to put toward:
New trees
Ambient noise
Or upgrade to the Pro edition where you can actually contribute to real trees being planted in exchange for you focusing for up to two hours at a time. Bonuses are baked into the app like:
Double coins if you watch ads (the longer the focus - the shorter the ad)
Double trees once you go above 60 minutes
4x the trees at 120 minutes of focus
The game has been a delight and helps me audit my phone time. This is great on days when Executive Dysfunction is running rampant, but also is a fun conversation starter for those who are bored at home. A trap I also fall into when I’m not crafting.
Crafting
I finished my massive wall art this week. The final product included cotton rope and two colors of wool roving, and incorporated two moon phase wall hangings that I purchased because retail therapy is one of my coping methods, and then had nowhere to actually hang them. The final product measures six feet wide by 4 ft tall and I pet it every day to marvel over how well it came together. But mainly because it kept me busy and focused. I’ll walk through the project in a separate post at a later time, but it finished my kitchen in a way I did not expect.
Wall Ledges
Up next on my “slow apartment makeover during Social-Distancing” were these bamboo picture ledges I acquired from IKEA. I had the White Mosslanda ones for about two years, but the bamboo sang its seductive song and I found my original color scheme for the past wasn’t quite “me” anymore.
Change is a constant, so I put up the first two to see if they’d even work for the space. If they didn’t, I’d have taken advantage of IKEA’s super generous return policy. Or I would have if the retail stores weren’t shut down with the Stay-At-Home Order. I’d finish putting the shelves up the following week, but , so far so good. I’m in love with how much warmth these ledges infuse into my flat.
Euro Shams
A few weeks prior, I helped someone reupholster their sofa. But then I realized I had 12 yards of hunter green velvet left, (2 sets of curtains), so I decided to make a set of Euro Shams and a Canadian Smocked Pillow. Those will also be written up in a different entry since they turned out pretty well. I’ve decided to make a few of my own while in lockdown. Except mine will have button closures. I do not have the patience to deal with three more sets of zipper closures. It doesn’t leave me with enough spoons to help others.
How I Coped This Week
Your mileage may vary. Some days, I’d be honest with whoever asks and admit that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Even my own patience with myself is tested. But I am the queen of distraction, so I like to host the occasional game on Twitter I call “WhatChaDrinkin?”
Maybe it’s because we knew someone who owned a teashop with a fairly rabid social network, but the game gains traction after a few retweets. Tea makes this lockdown business that much more easier to deal with. Another method I’ve been employing is a tried and true coping method.
I own an inflatable T-Rex Costume. Yes, one of those. They’re hilarious to watch on Youtube and in person and while they are a pain in the ass to wear if you’re 5’4” and the face seam is hitting you in the eyes and forehead, the sheer delight I see on others’ faces when I wear the damned costume makes the effort worth it.
They’re even funnier when a friend owns their own costume. Sarah and I decided to meet up at a socially accepted distance of six feet at her townhouse where we’d suit up and take advantage of dead streets to well, do a safety walk in the T-Rex Costumes.
We took our spectacle onto 45th Street and watched the cars go by, half of the drivers would drive super slow to get photos (of course they did) and the rest would honk their horns because there are two dinosaurs sitting on a bench and watching cars go by. It’s unexpected. It’s hilarious. Our neighborhood needed a laugh. I know I needed it, especially after how many times I uttered “what the hell” as the news of the week came in daily or in one case, hourly.
What the Hell?
Did you know FEMA uses Waffle House status’ to determine how badly a disaster affected an area? The 24/7 breakfast chain doesn’t close unless the store has been damn near demolished. If the Waffle House is closed, you keep driving because something awful has happened.
Waffle House closed 365 stores due to COVID-19. Just in case you didn’t take COVID-19 seriously, the corporation behind Waffle House certainly is.
I know staying home is hard, especially when it’s mandated, but come Week Four, our staying home will help flatten the curve. In the meantime, if you need to vent, talk, share what’s working for you to help you cope with Stay-At-Home Orders, my comments are open to you!
See you in Week Three!
