My Quarantine Cliché Checklist

The quarantine cliché checklist. We all have our own. I have officially become a quarantine cliché when I baked my own sourdough bread from scratch.

As shelter in place goes into its 10th week – or is it 100th? Who can tell anymore? We went from cool dreary weather to mid-August heat and back again. Husband and I are both working from home (or at least trying to) while the kids are pretty much left to their own devices. My new “office” is basically in the kitchen so I spend my day alternating between work work and house work all in the same 6 foot radius. Occasionally yell at the kids to clean something up or throw some snacks at them in between meetings.

But despite all the challenges and extra dishes and laundry, we have still managed to check many items on our quarantine cliché checklist:

• Make own sourdough starter
• Make own sourdough bread and pizza
• Make up a quarantini recipe.
• Go for endless walks until the kids revolt
• Bake. Bake. And bake some more.
• Put on the Quarantine Fifteen
• Pick up a new hobby (besides baking). Is Minecraft a hobby?
• Do the walking rainbow experiment. I’m pretty sure half my daughters 1st grade class did it that first week
• Draw chalk rainbows on the sidewalk
• Wear sweats to “work”. Husband still insists that I should keep to the same morning routine and clothing these days. But that’s not happening.
• Husband grew a quarantine beard
• Participate in an online dance class
• Try to get a preschooler to actually participate in her online zoom dance class
• Send a letter via snail mail
• Gave myself a haircut (it turned out ok!)

Last but not least checklist item: Reminding myself how lucky we are in these tough times.

And we really are lucky. We’re lucky that we can do our jobs from home. We’re lucky that the kids can play independently for a bit and seem to get along better than I expected. We’re lucky that it’s warm enough in California for the kids to play outside. We’re lucky that Lulu’s teacher is doing live meetings to minimize the homeschooling that WE need to do. We’re spending our weekends baking, making art and craft and science projects, playing video games and watching old movies (so far I introduced the kids to Space Jam and The Mighty Ducks. Back to the Future is up next).

We miss our friends and our family. We’re lucky for the technology that still lets us see their loving faces. We’re lucky that we have each other. I miss having quiet alone time (not that I was getting so much of that before). It’s been hard and loud and messy. But also so much fun. As difficult as the shelter in place has been, I’m finding myself being a total mom cliché and already missing the togetherness.

What quarantine cliché checklist items have you checked off in the past 2 months? Leave a comment below and let me know!