#2353 March is finally over, so now what?

It's the last day of the month. Normally I would recap what I've done, but honestly, I don't really remember the first two weeks of the month at all. It feels like those days were. Such. A. Long.Time. Ago.What I remember was that when March began I had plans to go to the gym 25 times so I wouldn't have to make a payment on my watch. I was looking forward to T's birthday and to seeing Post Malone in concert. I was thinking about going to visit my mom and sister in May. I remember that I took a tour of the water conservation garden at Red Butte and thinking how excited I was that it was almost time to start recording blooms there.

Then it was March 11 and the coronavirus was declared a pandemic. Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office. The NBA suspended the season. The next day many businesses started shutting down. You couldn't find toilet paper in the stores, and those shelves that were normally full of toilet paper were not the only empty shelves in our normally bursting-at-the-seams stores.

I went into work on Monday the 16th and we all gathered up our stuff so we could work from home. A couple of days after that, there was a 5.7 magnitude earthquake. The epicenter was less than 10 miles from my house. The aftershocks rattled us for a week. We still get tiny aftershocks every now and then, but they have thankfully tapered off.

Today is my 11th work from home day. I've taken to counting the number of times I leave the house - zero today. I don't count going outside to throw out the garbage or walking to the mailbox. I've gotten in the habit of leaving the house just once every other day if it is necessary. Yesterday I had to pick up Osi's meds from the vet. I called them and one of the assistants brought the pills out to me. She was wearing gloves and a mask.

It's kind of amazing to think of everything I took for granted just 20 days ago. I wouldn't have  thought that our grocery store shelves would be as empty as they were that first week. (I didn't get toilet paper until the 19th.) Before 3/11, I wouldn't have given a second thought to running to the store if I was even slightly low on something I might need. Now I think that we will be able to get by just fine with what we've got until we are completely out of something. I would go to the store every Sunday to buy groceries, whether I really needed them or not. Going out to eat was normal, and now you can call ahead and have it delivered or get take-out. It's just different.

The thing is, no one can predict or tell when things will get back to "normal". Maybe normal will look different at the end of the pandemic. There are over 863K cases in the world with over 42K deaths. I don't really like to watch the news. I tend to get my information in 140 character snippets from the BBC and CNN and the Guardian when I want to see them.

I watch movies and read books. I cook. I nap. I take a minute to sit outside, weather permitting, and I pet my dog. I work. It takes a little bit longer to do my work on the laptop, but it seems to be going okay. That first week of working from home was LOOOOONG. It feels like the days have kind of evened out as I've developed a new routine.

This weekend I was thinking that I like this slower pace. My days would be so packed from the commute to the office and back, then I'd go to the gym and have just a bit of time to read or practice French and write here or in my journal before it was time to go to bed and start over again. On weekends, I would be up early to get stuff done around the house before I was off to do whatever chores or errands I had for the day. Last weekend I didn't set an alarm on Saturday or Sunday at all. I slept as long as I wanted. My commute now consists of walking downstairs and setting up my workspace for the day. For breakfast and/or lunch, I can heat my meal on the stove instead of in the microwave and eat from my own plates with a glass of water and real silverware. I really, really appreciate getting outside for a breath of fresh air and a stretch in the middle of the afternoon. It's not that I couldn't do it before, I just didn't. I didn't take the time.

We are scheduled to work from home for at least another week and a half. The tentative return to the office date is April 13, but who knows? I saw on a news blip that Trump extended the social distancing guideline through the end of April. As of right now, Utah still has a fairly low number of cases, 887 cases with five deaths. That's 28th highest in the number of cases as of today. Maybe Utah will be one of those states that bounces out of this earlier than some other places. It's hard to say, and I'm certainly no medical expert. I will stay working from home as long as they let me and continue to limit my outings until the coast is clear, or at least clear enough to be safe.

In the meantime, keep washing those hands. Keep away from other people. Take care of yourselves. I will continue to enjoy the slower pace of my days.

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Hey! I finished six books in March. Check out the 2020 Reading List page to check out what I've read this year. I'm up to 17!