Everyday, I have a new blog post I want to write about … and then I get to my computer and a million and one things that I need to do pop into my mind and there goes my writing time. I’ve had this post on top of mind for a long time now and I am finally getting around to putting my words to paper. I apologize in advance, but this is going to be a long one!

how i really feel about quarantine

So here we are, almost 10 weeks into quarantine and I still don’t really know how I feel about it. It’s funny because I remember the exact day that things changed. Wes and I had dinner reservations for Friday March 13th, the week that COVID-19 really started to rear its ugly head in the states. Most people were already staying clear of restaurants at that point, but something in me told me we still needed to go and enjoy a date night. Man, am I glad we did. Not only did we have the best meal, but little did we know, it would be the last time we would dine out (or have ANY sort of alone time) for quite some time. That Sunday, the governor announced that all restaurants and bars were closing effective immediately. I honestly couldn’t believe it. Then the salons (man I really wish I had gotten a pedicure before they closed), retail shops, and basically everything else starting to shut down. Was this really happening? Surely we were living in an alternate reality.

A week later, it was Wes’s birthday so we decided to go down to the beach and enjoy the nice weather. We had a few friends over for drinks and cake, the kids played in the front yard and I felt a glimmer of hope that things would go back to normal rather quickly. I was wrong in so many ways. At first, when we were told that we had to stay home, the governor put a two week timeline on it and said they would re-evaluate on April 1. My first reaction? I was utterly annoyed. The enneagram 8 in me wanted to do everything in my power to retaliate because, well, no one tells me what to do! Every day that went by was more and more surreal. I was even holding onto the fact that we had our trip to Mexico scheduled at the end of March and we still had every intention of going. But then the borders were shutting down, citizens were being stranded in other countries and quite frankly, s**t started to hit the fan. So we cancelled our trip and were hopeful we would be able to reschedule for a couple months down the road. WRONG. AGAIN.

The first few weeks of quarantine were rough. I had a freak out one day when Wes left to go help a friend with something in his yard. I was home alone all day with the girls and it was pouring rain outside so we couldn’t go do anything. The minute he got home I decided to go for a run in the dark, getting soaking wet and I remember thinking to myself, “this is the best I’ve felt in weeks”. The quarantine must have been really getting to me because you couldn’t pay me to go running in the cold before. The next day, I demanded we get out of the house. So we packed up the girls, stopped to grab our favorite deli sandwiches and headed up north to get a peak of the infamous tulips and take in the beauty that is the Pacific Northwest. We stopped along the water to eat lunch in the car and I have to say, it dawned on me that this simple pleasure was something we would have never done had we not been in this situation - the sliver lining that is quarentine.

Then comes April and we find out we have another 30 days of this. What in the actual F**K!? Another trip we had planned was cancelled. People we spent time with started to awkwardly distance themselves. Lines started forming at the grocery store. Different information was coming out every single day. Don’t wear a mask. No, wear a mask. Don’t send your kids to school. But childcare is okay. It was all so overwhelming. We made the decision to keep Tayler in pre-school after all public schools were shut down because childcare was deemed essential. I had all the feels about deciding to keep her in or not, but after learning the new protocol, we felt comfortable with it. We wanted to keep life as normal as possible for the kids (and for our sanity).

Did you know it takes 21 days for your brain to form a new habit? That’s when quarantine started to feel a bit “normal”. But, I was getting down on myself for not being as productive with the blog and my design business that had come to a sudden halt in lieu of COVID. Luckily, before this all started, I had made a pact with myself to move my body every single day for 30 days. Now that quarantine was here, I really had no excuse not to make exercise a priority. I remembered that I had access to an on demand workout program that I hadn’t used in almost a year. A friend of mine who turned me onto it told me about this program called 80 day obsession that really helped her get her body back after baby #3. I decided to give it a try and after day one my mindset completely changed. I literally woke up the next day and decided that it was time to stop trying to control the uncontrollable and focus on what I had control of. For someone like me who is extremely independent and a self-starter, I need to be in control. And guess what? My body was one of the things I had 100% control over. I could either choose to come out of quarantine 10 lbs heavier with a unhealthy mindset or as the best version of myself physically. This mindset changed my entire outlook on quarantine and things slowly started to get better. I’m now on day 40 of 80 days and working out 6 times a week! I haven’t been this into my fitness for a long time and it feels so good! Again, the silver lining that is quarantine.

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Some things I’ve learned about myself, my family and our society in general.

Do you own research. For me, I try to keep the news off the TV as much as possible. It’s negative and twisted and really sends me in a downward spiral. I try to only watch when I need to know something imperative about our state from the governor. Other than that, all my research comes from scientific studies (mostly out of Europe) and it’s actually alarming how little information there is out there about how this disease and how it truly affects people. I think that’s what makes this so scary is we just don’t know. But what I do know is that this is bigger than any of us can ever imagine, and at a certain point, you just have to let it go and make decisions that are best for you and your family.

There is so much shaming. One of the hardest things for me throughout this entire thing has been my disappointment in people in general. There is so much judgement and entitlement that you feel as if you can’t do anything right. You can’t please everyone (and you never will) and that’s hard for me. But what I’ve learned is that the people who are truly your people will respect your decisions and outlook no matter if they agree with it or not. I try to drown out the negative nellies and focus on the good ones. That ones that always wave and say hi when you’re passing by in the grocery store or who spark a conversion while we sit out on our porch because they were just walking in our neighborhood for the first time and wanted to ask how old our baby was. I’m really enjoying that people are friendlier and more open to conversation than they were before. I hope that continues. But the shaming has got to go!

We are closer as a family. Although it’s been hard for us to stay home because we are such social people, we really have become closer as a family. We started going for walks after dinner around the neighborhood instead of sitting in front of the TV. We’ve also been spending every minute we can outside when the weather is nice, either on our front porch or down at the beach (the beach has been our safe haven these last couple months). We also cook more meals together and rarely spend money on take out anymore.

I hope people start caring about their health. We know this disease affects those who are immune compromised and over 60, but what about all the people who are getting it who don’t fall into those categories? We are very unhealthy as a society in general. So instead of talking about trying to find a vaccine, why aren’t we talking about things we can all be doing to improve our immune systems? Like reducing our stress levels. Eating cleaner. Sleeping more. Etc. I hope this changes everyones mindsets in terms of health - mental and physical.

This was really good for our earth and people’s ability to work from home. We have less pollution with less people on the road and hopefully a lot happier family members who realize they don’t have to spend 50 hours a week in the office. It’s clear now, that we can do a great job of balancing work and family life when given the opportunity. We have to see the good in all of this and I try to do that every day.

Things I will never take for granted again.

Seeing my friends and family whenever I want.

Getting on a plane and traveling. I’m really jonesing for a San Diego trip right now - hopefully soon!

Spending an hour by myself at Target, the nail salon…anywhere really! Cuz Mama needs her alone time!

Date nights connecting with the hubby.

No line to get into Trader Joe’s.

Not having to wear a mask to go shopping.

Taking the girls to the park - can you believe Joey has never been on the swings!?

Working from a coffee shop.

Brunch with my girls.

Now tell me, how have you survived quarantine? We have actually gotten ourselves into a pretty good rhythm so I’ll be sharing our quarantine schedule with you very soon! Until then, stay safe and stay sane!