I've had cabin fever from about 2 weeks after the shut down began. This is what we currently do & don't do:
We currently do:
- wash hands before eating
- wash hands after coming back into the house from outside. Even if it's from getting the mail.
- wear masks when at Costco because they require it and you can't enter the store without one.
- use hand sanitizer in between stuff like touching a grocery cart and entering the car.
- use hand sanitizer before eating when dining in at a restaurant.
- both DH & I work from home 75-90% of the time. When DH goes into the office, he wears a mask.
- eat out IN a restaurant now about once a week.
- get take out once or twice a week (drive through fast food falls into this category)
- make plans for future travel. We're going to San Diego at the end of the month for 4 days to spend time with relatives. Will be staying in a hotel and basically hanging out the entire time at their house other than sleeping.
- make plans for visiting Disneyland this Thanksgiving. I've got hotel reservations booked. I am NOT worried one bit about this. I am confident that Disney is putting solid plans in place based on what I see in the WDW announcements.
- visit w/my sister every other week. She hugs my kids & they hug back. We do not stay 6' apart from each other. She joined us at Olive Garden yesterday to help us celebrate YDD's birthday.
- had my MIL stay with us for 2 nights over Memorial Day weekend. Just stayed home and didn't go anywhere. We didn't social distance from her. She's old, in a vulnerable population category, but got sick and tired of being at home alone for over 2 months and was desperate for real in person conversation. None of us regret doing this.
- been to Michael's a few times, Target once, Pier One last weekend because they're having a going out of business sale, Walmart a couple of times, 4-5 times to my favorite plant nursery (VERY easy to social distance there). By far, Target was the busiest and the most annoying because of that.
- DH has met a couple of friends at a restaurant a couple of times since dine-in started about 3 weeks ago.
- spend a lot of time outside (vitamin D!).
We do not:
- wipe down every grocery item with sanitizing wipes
- wipe down every piece of mail
- put non-perishable groceries in the garage for any length of time to disinfect them
- eat all meals at home
- wear masks every time we are at our local grocery store
- wear masks when walking outside
- let the kids hang out yet with their friends
- wear gloves
- disinfect all surfaces & door handles at home daily. This happens once a week.
- fear what will happen when our kids return to school in person in the fall. Our kids' school has a good handle on the situation, communicates well, and we're confident that they'll make wise and informed decisions on how to handle things in an ever-changing situation.
- fear anymore about what will happen to our elderly relatives all of whom have health problems. There's nothing we can really do about it. We've accepted that at SOME point, EACH of them WILL die....of SOMETHING. Each of them is elderly, so every day is basically a gift. We, and they, do what we can to try to protect them from getting exposed to pathogens while also respecting their wishes to spend time with other people in person occasionally.
Corona virus is not going away. It's here to stay. Eventually, we will ALL get it. I'm not afraid of dying every time we leave the house. I'm not consumed with anxiety and fear. I'm pretty much in the acceptance phase, I suppose.
This is very similar to what we are/are not doing. In our family of four, I am the worry wart. So when this all started I made the family lock down. I made my daughter take a furlough from her two restaurant jobs. The only places anyone was going was outside for runs or walks around the neighborhood for exercise. I was wiping down all groceries that were delivered. Boxes from
Amazon were being picked up with gloves and then left out in the garage for several days before they were broken down. All those precautions that were suggested in the beginning. I was fortunate enough to work from home. My wife, who is a hair stylist, was shut down. As things started to open up, my anxiety got really bad. But about 3 weeks ago, work asked for a small portion of us to start coming back in. The weekend before I made myself make a Target run to see what everything was looking like. Being back to work and going to Target that day helped out so much.
My kids, and my wife now also, do think I am OCD and crazy because of the amount of hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes we have. But it's all being put to use. I wash my hands or put on hand sanitizer anytime I go outside, touch a door nob that others may have touched, picked up packages, putting away groceries, etc. I also wipe down the counters very well anytime something from the outside comes in and is placed on a table or counter. I am also constantly reminding the kids to wash their hands before they eat and to stop touching their face.
Sports have started back up in our area. My son's baseball season is back into full gear. So we are back to seeing other families and my son interacting with other players. We try to keep our distance when possible. We remind my son to keep his distance when he is in the dugout and constantly wash his hands or use hand sanitizer each inning he gets back into the dugout. I have even bought us a portable hand washing station that we throw in the back of the truck and can wash our hands if we are eating between games or stopping to get something on the way home. My daughter has gone back to work at both jobs. When we started to ease up on things, her and her boyfriend would do social distance dates outside. Lawn chairs on the driveway spread out and I would set up a tv for them outside to watch some movies. They are now kind of back to hanging out normally. She has about 3 other really close friends that she also works with that she has been hanging out with for a few weeks now. My son has a couple of baseball friends who live nearby and they have been going to the park in the afternoons and shooting hoops. My wife has finally been given the green light to go back to work. Unfortunately where she has her salon is back where we used to live and has to fly back. At first this made me really nervous, but I have talked to some people who had to fly recently and they have said it was not really scary at all. They were distanced very well in the plane and everyone had their mask on the whole time for the most part. Even with that, I got some upgraded masks for my wife to wear on the plane. Knowing that N95 masks are scarce still and hospital staff need them, I went to the next best thing of a KN95 mask. Makes me feel a little safer that she has a little more protection than a standard cloth mask.
My wife and son have eaten in a restaurant. Obviously my daughter has been in them for work. I am still a little hesitant about eating inside. I did eat at my first restaurant since the shut down. Went and sat outside on the patio with my wife and son at a new place that recently opened up. That was very enjoyable. But I still had some OCD tendencies while eating. It will be a bit before those are all gone.
We are supposed to go to Florida mid July for two baseball events. The original plan was to fly, rent a car, and go to WDW on the 2 day break we had between the two events. But I don't think I am ready for the whole family to jump on a plane. So I think we will make the drive from Texas to Sanford, FL. We haven't made a decision about WDW yet. All signs are pointing towards no. Having to wear a mask in that heat sounds miserable. Wearing a mask in our work parking garage is bad enough. I can't imagine having to do that all day in the heat. And my daughter said it will be so gloomy seeing people in masks there and not people smiling and laughing. So we may end up just driving to West Palm Beach, FL for the second event and spending the day at the beach.
But as someone who was really scared in the beginning, life has started to take on some normalcy. We just got put into Phase III today so now mostly everything is open and restaurants are up to 75% capacity now. Definitely getting away from all of the tv and social media doom and gloom helped out also. There is a radio show from my old home city that I still listen to. The host has been very good in putting all the statistics and news into usable information, not just newspaper headings or click bait like the rest of the media likes to do. That has been a breath of fresh air when helping with these decisions to get life going again.