Day in the Life: May 2020

Throughout 2020, I'm doing a series of day-in-the-life posts, looking at each day of the week! For May, I'm looking at a Thursday!

Date: Thursday, May 7, 2020
Ryan is 41 years old, Bekah is 41 years old, and Braeya is 14 years old.
(Both Ryan and Braeya have had birthdays since the last DITL documentation, and this is the one window in the year when Ryan and I are the same age! Side note: loving the matchy matchy numbers in our ages right now.)

Weather: High of 68, mostly sunny, with wind gusts of 20-30 mph expected. 

* Special note: We are currently in stage 2 of returning to regular life after the Coronavirus quarantine. This means in our state, people over age 65 are still encouraged to stay home. We're all supposed to wear face masks in public settings and continue to practice social distancing. We can now have up to 25 people at a social gathering, instead of a max of 10. Our essential travel ban has been lifted. People have been urged to work from home where possible, but businesses are slowly beginning to reopen. Ryan is working on a proning team at the hospital, and I am working for church from home. 

Midnight-6:00 a.m.

Both of us sleep hard, after a busy day yesterday. My alarm starts going off at five, but I ignore it until closer to six. I'm such a snoozer. I'm not sure what time Ryan gets up and starts getting ready, but I eventually stumble out of bed to do the same. I make the bed and get my water tumbler and first cup of coffee for the morning.

6:00 a.m.-noon

I turn on "Big Beach Builds" on TV to play in the background while I sit to check email and blogs and do a little journaling. Ryan's still getting ready for work. (He has to fully shave his face for his work gear to seal correctly, and I still haven't gotten used to the look.)  He eventually emerges to pack  some snacks and everything he'll need for his shift and gets another cup of of coffee. The sun is rising beautifully when he leaves for work, and I get my own second cup of coffee. I hunker down to do some Bible study.

I'm still working my way through Psalms and today I'm focusing on the second half of Psalm 74. I'm also doing a really wonderful study from The Daily Grace Company (called Amen) that walks me through "The Story of Scripture from Eden to Eternity." I am loving it.

I have a little extra time before I have to get ready, so I take a few minutes to wander around Pinterest and blogs and let my mind slowly wake up. I disturb Braeya's slumber (at my feet) to go take a shower. My stomach was growling when I went to bed last night, so it's REALLY growling now. After my shower, I make some yogurt with honey and granola, which most of you probably know is my go-to breakfast almost every day.

Before I get started on the work day, I put a load of clothes in the washer and throw some gel in my hair. (I decide to make it a curly-hair day since wind gusts of up to 30 miles an hour would negate any prolonged work on said hair.) I don't have any Zoom meetings today, and the only place I plan to go is to Lowe's later to pick out flowers, so it can be a t-shirt and comfy pants kind of day. (Taking full advantage of those while I still can!) And in my effort to conserve makeup for work-outside-the-home days, I just put on foundation, eyeliner, and mascara.

Since the church office is still officially closed, Abagail (the administrative assistant whose place I filled while she was on maternity leave earlier this year) and I share the responsibility of answering the forwarded office phone. I'm on duty today, so I make sure to turn the ringer volume on and all the way up to avoid missing any calls! (Why do phones only ring when you walk away from them?) My coffee cup is half empty and fully cold, so I top it off, warm it up, and settle in at the desk to work!

At our staff meeting earlier this week, we began making plans to meet together as a congregation (live and in person) soon. So my first order of business today is to contact our greeters to see which of them are planning to start attending right away and which ones feel they need more time at home to be safe. I need to put together a greeter rotation for those first few Sundays back!

I also start making a list of things to put in an FAQ document to send to these greeters a bit closer to time so they remember all the little details that come with reopening a church during a pandemic. (There are so many pieces and parts to that! I didn't even realize how complicated it was going to be until our staff meeting!)

After leaving several messages and taking a few calls, I pause to get some steps in around the house and see if any of my greeters call me back! They begin to do just that, so I walk and talk. Ahhh, the perks of a portable office phone! The calls come in so fast, that for a while, I have a new voicemail after every call. (That never happens.)

I catch a fast enough break to move the clothes to the dryer and throw in a load of towels, and then I resume returning messages. As I walk and talk, I notice some of our neighbors are putting in a fence and find Braeya hanging out on the sun porch supervising the work. I've done so much talking for the past two hours that it's time to refill the water tumbler and hydrate! Probably should have a snack, too. :) Peanut butter and dark chocolate chips for the win!

More phone calls come in, and I multi-task folding and putting away the clothes while I answer questions. I move the wet towels over into the dryer - while still answering questions. In between calls, I text with Ryan to see how he's faring at work. Our county's virus cases are actually on the rise (ironic and unfortunate for the week of attempting to reopen, but still our reality) so he lets me know that it's busier than it had been, but he's doing just fine.

Noon-6:00 p.m.

I have no idea if the phone will stop ringing just because it's lunchtime, but you know how I do love to eat on a schedule, so I head to the kitchen to warm up my leftovers. I have sauteed zucchini and summer squash and a turkey burger with cheese left from various previous meals. It might be a weird combo, but I'm too hungry to care. I start to surf for something to watch while I eat before remembering that I am about 3 episodes behind on Bringing Up Bates. I pull up the oldest one I can find in the DVR and watch while I eat.

I really want ice cream for dessert but remember that we finished it last night. Just to remind myself of this misfortune, I open the freezer to stare longingly at the hole where the carton should be - AND THERE IS A CARTON IN THERE!! Ryan didn't take a full serving last night so I could have a tiny mini-serving today. That is love, right there!

Ryan sends me a picture of his lunch at the hospital. He gets a free buffalo chicken wrap from the cafeteria and says it's very good. He calls partway through lunch to talk to me for a little bit and mostly laughs at how excited I am about this fence going up at the neighbors' house. When he hangs up to go make some coffee (because he heard me make some for myself), I fold and put away the towels.

Phones start ringing again promptly at 1:00. It's a busy one today. My sisters and I do a weekly 1/2 hour phone call/Bible study, and it's scheduled for 1:30 today. I've already notified them that I might disappear frequently.

I do have to disappear - but only once. And when we finish up our call, I work on returning emails and eat a Clif Bar for my afternoon snack. (I'm on my third 20-ounce round of water too, so I'm pretty happy with my daily consumption.) Braeya sleeps through it all. Because that's EVERY day in her life. ;)

Ryan comes home from work, and we gather up our masks and hand sanitizer and get in the truck to go to the store. It will be my first time to be in a store in almost two solid months. On the way, we stop for a Coke at McDonald's. We don't often drink Cokes, but this seems like an auspicious occasion that calls for a celebration! We arrive at Lowe's, determined to scurry through the outdoor flower section, pick out what we need, and get out. I've made a list of all the little pots and baskets we need to fill. Normally we take quite a bit of time to pick different mixes and matches of colors and heights of flowers, but not today.

Prices are higher than last year, and selection is way down. Everything they have looks really beautiful and healthy, though, so we're excited for that. We grab a four flat-selection that is on the biggest sale we can find, add a couple of fillers, and check out. And of course it rings up incorrectly, so we have to go to the customer service desk to get our $12 overcharge back. Once we're done with that, we load the flowers in the back of the truck, and I stay with them while Ryan runs into the regular part of the store to pick up a couple of things he needs. I disinfect myself and everything in my hands. :)

We stop at the grocery (the extra one...not the one on our normal rotation...) because we have coupons for freebies, and I stay in the truck while Ryan gets them. We come home, unload the flowers into the garage, because it's too cold to safely plant them yet, and disinfect the few groceries we've purchased.

6:00 p.m.-Midnight

I make a big batch of homemade marinara sauce to portion out and freeze - which I intended to do about a week ago, but I forgot until today. Ryan makes the evening pot of coffee and refills the K-cup stash underneath the Keurig while I brown some ground turkey and cook spaghetti for our dinner. I transfer some of the marinara sauce into the meat; it smells SO GOOD!

We eat dinner in the living room while we watch an episode of Matlock (because we are so cool like that). It was classic 80s big hair and alllllll cheesiness. We pour our first evening cups of coffee and immediately fall over to take a quick nap. Again with the coolness...

One of my friends texts to ask if she can send me some house listings to view. I'm such a house hunting junkie and her son is in the process of buying a house. Don't have to ask me twice to weigh in with opinions!! YES, PLEASE!!! I scroll through all the pictures, prices, and locations and send her my thoughts.

It's a nice evening, and the weekend forecast isn't overly delightful, so Ryan asks if I want to go for a walk around the neighborhood. YES, PLEASE! We walk about two miles, and enjoy the sunset. When we come home, we pour our second cups of coffee, and Ryan hangs the spice rack shelves we have owned for over a full year. How embarrassing is that? We bought them at IKEA and needed to spray paint them to match our kitchen cabinets. It became one of those projects we never got around to doing, so earlier this week, he painted them. He hangs them up and I alphabetize the spices so I can place them in their new home. (We have cute labels for the jars en route to us. I can't WAIT for them to arrive!) Of course the hanging of the shelves doesn't go nearly as seamlessly as we plan, so that project takes a while. We love the way it turns out, though, and it's so nice to finally have all these little jars in their proper home. We do have a few more empty jars, but we need to wash them so they're ready to fill.

About 9:30 I realize I really need to work out before it gets too much later. I've been doing some sample workouts from Revelation Wellness, so I do the "No Treasures on Earth" circuit workout. Ryan often works out with me but wants to do some strength training today, so we divide and conquer on the  exercise. (And I work on my fourth and final tumbler of water for the day.)

When I'm done working out, I return to the kitchen to portion out the marinara for freezing and to cook more spaghetti so I can make our lunches for tomorrow. I box up our lunches in containers so Ryan can just grab his on his way to work tomorrow and all I'll have to do is reheat mine. I wash all the pots and pans, which is something Ryan normally does, but I want to surprise him. :)

We hunker down on the couch at long last, have a little mug of cereal, and I work on the finishing touches for the blog. We have the perfect amount of time to unwind before heading to bed!

And that's a Stage 2 Quarantine Thursday in 2020 in Shafferland!