Hi everyone!! I hope everyone is doing well, or as well as can be expected. I am having a hard time, much like many of you. This wasn’t a planned post, but I wanted to share some quick thoughts with you guys. I am still working on adding some categories to my blog to include recipes, but it is a slow work in progress. Keep reading, you will see why very soon!

In my last post I mentioned that everything has been rapidly changing because of the coronavirus. Everything is still rapidly changing, and I don’t like it. (Not that any of us do). I never in a million years thought I would ever witness something like this. It seems like overnight we went from a thriving economy to everything shut down – like everything is on pause. Here, our governor has not mandated a lockdown. He has mandated the closure of certain things like no dine in restaurants, bars, theaters or really any place that would welcome large groups of people to congregate. Our place of business is somewhat essential. In terms of towing we support the local emergency and law enforcement with vehicle recovery and such (accidents, fires, vehicles in lakes etc…). We also do service, so we still go to work, but with shorter hours.

When I wrote about how we were handling this worldwide pandemic, I didn’t realize at the time that those things I listed were more measures of preparation rather than how we are actually doing. With all of these changes that are taking place, my routine has completely changed. To be completely honest, I haven’t even nailed a new routine yet. I don’t even know if this is possible in the near future.

The Kids Are Home All Of The Time

Schools are closed due to COVID-19. This was the very first major change that affected us. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining that the schools are closed for the safety of our community. I am glad we are taking measures to ensure everyone’s health (as best we can anyway). It’s just different, and we are all learning and taking it day by day.

On the bright side, one of Khalubs assignments was to make a music video in spanish with one family member. I was the family member… HAHA!! That was interesting, and very creative!

Cassidy is also babysitting two of her younger cousins. Bubs’ sister is a healthcare professional, and her husband is a coworker of mine here in the office. (See! Literally one big family in our office!) The kids are loud in the morning, and I find myself shouting for them to settle down so we could please get ready for work.

We also have Joselyn for the week! I am excited about this, because we do a lot together. It is also one more child to home school with. Ooooffffff. Other than homeschooling with her, we will do fun things like bake bread (great thing to learn!), and we plan on doing the #aworldofhearts display in our living room windows this weekend!

Shorter Work Hours

As I mentioned earlier, our business is considered essential. We provide support to the local emergency, law enforcement, and even the truckers. We have cut our hours, though. One hour in the morning, and one hour in the evening. I know that many people are without a job at all right now, and some places are on a complete lockdown. In our state, this is a very controversial thing. As much as I would like to share my thoughts on this, I will not. I am not here for politics. (Eeekkkkk)

I will say that while I feel lucky to still have a job, I am always cautious and concerned. Our county doesn’t have many cases yet at all, but that is always subject to change. Regardless of the politics behind the business and the virus our routine is still uprooted. This has been throwing off the times of the day that I take my vitamins, getting ready for work in the morning and such. With three additional kids in the house in the morning, it’s not always easy.

I Don’t Have As Much Down Time As I Thought I would

Since we are pretty much avoiding the stores like the bubonic plague, and have shorter work hours, I honestly thought I would have more down time. I was really looking forward to working on my blog a bit more. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

Not only am I still working full time (yes, even with cut hours), but now I am home schooling and in full on homemaker mode. Since we can’t find any damn bread anywhere, I have been baking all of that, well most of it, from scratch. Have you ever made homemade bread before? It is time consuming! Also, now I have had to make more body and face washes because said kids are home all day. I have continued to make our chemical free cleaners, because it is recommended that you still clean your surfaces before sanitizing. So… no down time, and this mama is OVERWHELMED.

Having a Routine is Important

I am a huge supporter of having a regular routine. It helps keep me at peace, and not have so much anxiety. Basically it keeps the crazy away. And believe me, the crazies are out! The other day someone was running around town in nothing but a duffel bag! Yikers!! I joke that it is due to a lack of routine, and people assuming there are no longer any rules. In reality there were more likely a lot more issues.

I am starting to take note of what things work, and what doesn’t within my / our routine. For example: during my lunch hour it was not ideal to try and eat and then rush to go over what schoolwork our youngest had to do, then rush back to work… I didn’t have much time, and kids have lots of questions and zero patience. Anxiety overload! When we got home last night, I sat down and figured out what should be done for today. We shall see if that helped at all.

Soon enough I will nail a routine, hopefully!

What have your biggest struggles been during this outbreak? What have been your biggest successes? I am totally open to new ideas!! Let me know in the comments.

Feature Photo by Luan Oosthuizen from Pexels