Quarantine Diary, Entry #1

So far during this quaratine, I've basically just been trying to keep my sanity.  A teacher without students... it all feels pretty useless.  I made a schedule for myself which was overly ambitious.  I haven't stuck to it even once:

8:00: Get up, walk, shower
9:00: Meditate, then breakfast
9:30: Send cards to students
10:00: Crochet and watch TV
11:00: Read
11:30: ??? Unexpected adventure (Andrew suggested this... the truth is every day so far has been an unexpected adventure!)
12:00: Lunch
1:00: Clean garage
2:00: Find a pile for the Bargain Box
2:30: Clean something/cook or bake something
3:00: Quiet time: nap/stretch/yoga/be in nature
4:00: Blog
4:30: Read/video something for Alice
5:00: Work on vacation books
6:00: Walk with Andrew
6:30: Dinner
7:30: School work/e-mail/correspondence
8:30: Time with Andrew
9:30: Read
10:30: Lights out

Hm.  Sounds great, eh?  Yeah.  It hasn't happened.  Lots of things on the schedule HAVE happened, but rarely (if ever ) at their assigned time or every day.

But, I'm glad I have this schedule and an idea of things I want to accomplish in this unprecedented time away from work.

One thing I have discovered so far that is really weird is that I need to walk to keep sane.  I've always known that I needed to walk.  But I've always treated it more like a chore or something to get through.  I've had one day that I didn't walk so far, and I was so depressed.  I cried and felt hopeless and was so so low.  I think that was The next day, I got up and walked first thing, a longer walk than I usually take.  I didn't really enjoy it, but I was doing it because I knew it would make me feel better.  Since then, I've walked about 3 miles a day.  I know that it's going to help my state of mind.  I guess before I was only walking because I knew it was good for my body.  Now, during this quarantine, I've discovered that exercise is VITAL for my mind.  If I'm going to make it through this mess without going crazy I've got to keep moving.

Another really fun thing I did was convince Andrew to help me make a snowman.  On Sunday, we had the perfect wet, packing, snowman snow.  It was one of those late winter/early spring snows that you know won't last long, so you have to make it count.  I made the snowballs, and Andrew helped me put it together, and he gathered the props to decorate it too.  We needed planks to roll the middle section up because it was so darned heavy!  Anyway, it was a blast.  And the poor thing lasted about one whole hour before it got too warm and toppled over.  Ah, well.  Such is the life of a March 22 snowman in Iowa!