Keep a Routine

A month has went by since our lives have been altered by the pandemic. In many ways, this month has went much better than I expected. Most of the credit goes to my brother who has moved into our  house these weeks. Having another adult around has been a huge blessing.

When I learned that for a few weeks, at minimum, we would be spending most of our time at home, I made five personal goals. After a month, I can look back and see how much these five goals have been helpful to me.

In the next few days, I'll talk about each of these goals. And I hope you share with us what has been helping you stay sane in these weeks.

1. Keep a routine.

My life wasn't upended by this pandemic. I was already homeschooling; I spend most of my time at home. But we do have an active social life. Since the quarantine coincided with our return from a week in North Carolina, we had to re-find our routine. It was rougher than I expected. The weather was delightful, we were almost done with our school books, and all motivation was gone.

With all our social activities canceled, no longer could I say, "Let's finish our schoolwork, and then we'll go to the library." Or "Clean up your rooms quickly this afternoon, because friends are coming for pizza tonight." With no one coming over and nowhere to go, who feels like cleaning, or making special meals.

Like many of you, I feel the effect of quarantine brain. I struggle to concentrate or be motivated to tackle projects. I have more time than usual, but didn't feel like doing any of my projects. I could sew a new dress, but I don't have anywhere to wear it.

The tendency for me in time of uncertainties is to stay up late, sleep in, and react to each event of the day. I don't know what is going to happen next month, or next week, or tomorrow. When each day brings new announcements from government leaders, I can feel helpless to plan my day.

That is silly. Tomorrow I need to feed my children breakfast, and do laundry, and correct school work - regardless of the latest national news. My daily life is not affected by the news, at this point, except in my brain.

This in-limbo feeling was familiar to me from during Ed's treatment. I had learned then that I had to choose to make plans even when days felt uncertain.

So last month purposely considered our family routines. I assigned each day of the week to a child to help with meal planning and prep. I printed off a simple chart for the remaining school work so the children could see just how much they had to do these final weeks. We planned a simple church services to begin a new home-church routine. I forced myself to tackle projects like painting and sewing.

Four weeks later, we haven't kept our plans perfectly, but the fact that we had a plan, means that our days have flowed much better than they would have without a plan.

I'll be back with more of my goals. In the meantime, I'd love to hear how you are doing. Has quarantine brain been a problem for you? How have you pushed past it?