By Emily Woodbury
I suppose when we asked you this question on March 29th, we should have asked, “How many living things do you live with during ‘self-isolation’?” Right? Because, yes, of course, Fido and Fifi (or Darwin, who we mention below), the dog and cat, count too. Honestly, sometimes the dog and cat are better company than other humans anyway. Ha!
Anyway, we did say “people” in our original question. So we shall stick with that. How many people are you living with on a daily basis, which would include now, during self-isolation/quarantine times?
No need to run through every answer here, but let’s point out the obvious. The majority of you, 77 percent, are living with just one other person – it’s the two of you right now. For the 1 percent of you (38 voters) living with 6-10 people…um, wow…. You’re either having a ton of fun together (board game nights must be both extra fun and extra long), or you’re very ready to be like the 10 percent living on their own right now. (Is this a good time to mention these?)
Sally is living with her husband, son and nine animals, and Tom is living with his four demanding rescue cats. J. Gartner, give your pup, Darwin, a belly rub from me.
For those of you living alone right now, do you wish you were with another person/other people? And for those of you living with other people, do you wish you had more solitude?
Our son just went through a divorce and moved back into our home, with his two kids and dog. Yes we went from an empty nest to a wait in line for the bathroom family again. The schools are closed so the kids are here all day, when they are not with their mother. Am I complaining….nope…we are enjoying the grand kids but hoping the restrictions are lifted soon so we can get back out there on the camping scene. Stay safe everyone.
One other and than a dog, 3 cats and a parrot. Luckily we are rural so my husband had a lot of wide open walking space. It is a little to rough for my handicaps, but I have been putting together my sewing room that has been just a room filled with boxes, baskets and you name it. I have been able to order online shelving units. I need to get back on it today. My husband finished his project of re configuring our bedroom to include a walk in closet and bamboo flooring.
It has impacted my life, by me not being able to spend time with my 4 kids and 7 grandkids, except one, she lives with us and continues to work. All of my kids are still working. We have all stayed at home away from each other(we live in California). We missed spending Easter with each other, we usually have a big Easter egg hunt at our home. A couple of my grandkids have asthma so we are playing it safe. I have left the house only once to get cash from the bank at the drive thru atm. My husband who is 71 has gone to the store numerous times. He rarely gets sick and is fearless. We continue in our daily lives the same way, taking care of our two fur babies, gardening, fixing things, reading, cooking.I have been making masks for my family, the ones with the filters. I found a video on how to make the filters with hepa filters. I finally got my craft room reorganized. I am usually a recluse in general, however I realize I really miss being with my family whenever I want. I have been ordering the vast majority of things online for years now, with that ,it has become harder to obtain some things. Thankfully I have always been use to buying in bulk. My husband worked for the school district and got paid once a month, so I would buy the majority of our groceries once a month and that habit has stuck, so we haven’t had to worry about toilet paper, paper towels, Kleenex etc. I had plenty already. I even gave some Kleenex to a family member with allergies that couldn’t find any in the stores. The funny things is, the one product we at first had a hard time coming by was Green Beans. Our two fur babies are on the Green Bean Diet and doing quit well. I was ordering the beans from Amazon for about 12.00 for a case of twelve. Well all of a sudden the only ones on there are now 60.00 for 12, I reported it to Amazon since they stopped other price gouging. The grocery stores were limiting people to how many they could buy if they had them at all(I will add here, I hate green beans myself). We finally found a solution, Smart and Final sells those huge cans of Green Beans. They are even cheaper, so much the better! I order food from places like Schwan’s and Butcher Box so we won’t starve and the store seem to have a better supply of most things now. At first the shelves were bare much of the time, for many products, even milk! So those are my epidemic woo’s. Hopefully this will be over soon and we can all breath a sigh of relief!!!
The only 2 things that have changed do to this virus in my life during this shutdown is that I cannot go out to eat and SIT down at a restaurant and a business we want to buy a product from is closed. Other than that nothing has changed in my life. I actually wonder if I had the virus back in February after spending 2 weeks in Scottsdale at the car auctions. A week or so after returning I developed a bad cough for 2 weeks with one day where really felt like schidt and just sat on the couch with a slight fever. Felt a little better the next day and the day after and so forth. The cough lingered and then was gone a week plus later.
My wife is required to close her business as “Non-Essential” for the last month. Fortunately we are still able to pay our employees and we will git through this fiasco. One of the benefits of having her home all the time is she now reminds me of all the things I have done wrong in the last 40 years on a daily basis!
One child is home from college as on campus school was cancelled. She has already completed all her classwork through the online portal and now is sitting and waiting for the class finals which will be given to all students at a specific time. She is already registered for “MayMester” (4 classes for 4 weeks online) and will take one class during the summer while working. We expect everything to open back up May 1st.
My other daughter continues to work right through this mess at her welding/fabricating job that is considered essential.
My 94 year old mother who lives with us continues to do what she always does everyday. Walking several times a day, gardening and enjoying Jeopardy.
We have not had 1 item delivered to our home. Yes we go to the grocery store and other places that are open that we need to go.
Life goes on for all of us. Many have been impacted by the government reaction to this virus much more so than others!
We have 4 generations living together. Us 2, daughter 2, Grandson 2, and Great Grandson 2 year old