10 Exciting Things I’ve Accomplished at Home

Two-and-a-half weeks and change at home, no change whatsoever.  (See what I did there?)

Yesterday was the day I started really feeling it, by which I mean the sense that time is stretching out in front of me like a vast,  hostile desert a la Mad Max (one of the few post-apocalyptic movies I haven’t seen in my lifetime) except with no weird tricked out vehicles and people in freaky-ass outfits — unless you count the fabulous ensemble I threw together yesterday: My shlubbiest jeans, a saggy, comfy moss green sweater and a dark turquoise crocheted infinity scarf I made last year, which has no business being paired with a moss green anything. The pièce de resistance: my bright-pink, falling-apart running shoes. (Bonus: The pirate-esque slash down my cheek, which I gave myself over the weekend while pruning a rhododendron bush.)

Apparently some people have been using this time of social distancing and lockdowns to “accomplish” things—read Moby Dick and plant victory gardens and bake soufflés and whatnot.   Some a**hole in France apparently ran a marathon on his balcony.

To all of you who are being gloriously productive, I salute you. (Except for that French guy. Seriously, dude.) As for me, I have accomplished a sprinkling of actually productive things, I guess: The aforementioned yard work, some cleaning and sorting through the kids’ old and outgrown things, and doing the annual sealing of the granite counters, which I think we were supposed to do about eight months ago. But most of my accomplishments have been of a more humble nature. Here’s just a sampling:

1. Breakfast. I have eaten it every day, along with lunch and dinner. Hooray!

2. Dessert. I have eaten this pretty much every day, too, at least once, sometimes twice, which isn’t my usual MO. The thing is, I’m working on achieving a nice little extra layer around my mid-section, just in case this pandemic thing leads to food shortages, and I’m forced to live off my fat stores.

3. Walking or running every day it’s not raining. This accomplishment, while enjoyable and crucial for my mental health, threatens to undermine my accomplishments in #2, so I’m trying not to overdo it.

4. Sleeping. I’m really good at this!! I’ve been sleeping until the indulgent hour of 7:30 or 8:00 most weekdays, and a previous unheard of 9:00/9:30 on weekends. I think this is one area where I can continue to make strides. Go, me!

5. Working. This isn’t so much a Pandemic accomplishment as something I do on a regular basis anyway, being someone who has worked at home, as my own boss, for ten years and counting. But I’m particularly grateful to still be able to do it, given that so many people right now can’t, or have lost their livelihood altogether. (That was the requisite “serious” item.)

6. “Home schooling.” I use this term extremely lightly, out of respect for people who ACTUALLY home school their children, in the sense that they “teach them things.” But to our credit, we do force our children to do the assignments their teachers give them (or, other learning-ish things, in the case of subjects where assignments aren’t provided) even though there aren’t any grades and nothing counts. I’m pretty sure they’re not going backward in their progress, anyway.

7. Remembering how to use my sewing machine. This weekend, Clio asked if I could teach her how to use my sewing machine. Two YouTube tutorials and forty-two checks of the manual later, I was able to show her how to thread the machine (kind of?) and sew forward and backward in a relatively straight line. Go, us! This skill will, no doubt, come in handy when we need to start fashioning winter coats out of coyote and raccoon skins to make it through the long, quarantined winter.

8. Made a lot of headway on a 500-piece puzzle (with help from Clio). Puzzles sharpen the senses and exercise the fingers. This is an incredibly productive way to spend time, and frankly, I doubt the French balcony marathon guy could hack it.

9. Bathing. I’ve been keeping this up fairly well, and I hear that some people haven’t, so I’m pretty proud of myself.

10. Drinking wine while talking to friends via Zoom.

I’m getting really good at this. I bet you are, too.

Looking at the week(s) ahead, I’m looking forward to  other grand achievements: Finishing The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Crown, getting rid of old files on my computer, upping my average per-word score on Words With Friends, and continuing to avoid (knock on wood) getting COVID-19 to the best of my ability. And should I watch Tiger King? People keep talking about this thing.

Maybe at some point I’ll get more ambitious and try to start on the new novel idea that’s been brewing in my brain for some time. Or read one of the classics that has sat on the shelf for years, waiting for the opportune moment to be read. (Funny how those moments never seem to come along anymore, like they did back when I was in my 20s.) Maybe I’ll get around to sorting through the jumbled mess that is our attic, too.

But in the meantime, I’m going to go easy on myself and take the advice of this writer—someone who has survived war and violence and scarcity—who urges us to ignore the productivity porn online and focus on the more immediate needs of security and comfort, psychological, physical and otherwise. ‘Cause it’s gonna be a long haul, people. Pass the brownies.