So......

Things have changed just a bit since Saturday. Nationally as well as locally-and personally.

Locally schools have shut down. Most colleges have moved to distance models with students going home (I imagine this affects the ability to graduate for this who have degrees with hands on requirements such s interenships). Our sporting events have been cancelled and most events and concerts the same.

I've received emails from recreation centers and movies and local fast food places and restaurants as to how they are dealing with said virus. And yesterday, my church (and all the Episcopal churches in my diocese) closed all events and shut the doors until April first. There we be a video streamed service on Sunday, but the normal Lent activities including soup dinners and bible studies and ways of the cross are now eliminated. We are looking at ways to connect virtually and support each other.

My gals group has events (happy hours, lunches and brunches) through the end of the month. I sent out a mass message yesterday letting them know that I would not attend, so someone would need to act as hostess for each event. I'm not cancelling them because everyone gets to make their own choice, at least for now. As an aside, I also included a message about Texas and suggested that if people wanted the group to continue after I am gone, the time to slowly step up was now-I'll be cutting the events I host down to the minimum so that others can do so. 

If this has not happened in your community, it will. If your public health people are more proactive at the state level (along with your governor) than the feds you may be ahead of the game.  Some. While I am not a big believer in panic, I subscribe to the below philosophy.  And the US is so far reacting just about the way the Italians did-and look where they are. Our civilian leaders did not follow the advice of experts and now something radical needs to happen in my opinion. The president's speech was inaccurate (although he did not blame Democrats, who knew?) and he has not taken the issue seriously enough. And he sets a damned bad example to the rest of us by having been exposed to the virus and yet refusing to both self isolate and be tested.

ETA: I was impressed with today's state of emergency press conference IF everything is implemented immediately. But it should have happened a week ago.

Some of my readers think this is over reaction. I disagree. I think that the smart move is to shut down now, early, and that doing so will both lessen the time and the peak of that graph everyone is looking at. I encourage you to watch this linked video.

I've made the personal decision to remain at home and have done so now for almost a week. I did go to the grocery store for a pickup the other day, where I only cracked my window to get the receipt (I should have had her put it in the back) and sanitized after.  I need to go to a local lab and get an overdue a1c but right this minute I'm of the opinion that I'll put that off since last time I was well managed and I've been really good on the exercise and fairly good on the eating front but I have not decided. I tend to look at my diabetes as an inconvenience rather than an underlying condition, ya know?

I am not in a bubble. I live with a guy who is a kitchen manager for an (up to now) busy restaurant. He obviously washes his hands all day but I've been gently reminding him to do so when he walks in the door and have started doing a bit of sanitizing around the house. I also live with a gal who works in a normal office environment-so as I say, no bubble here, but definitely isolation from the rest of the world for now.

I have to tell you all: While this is the first week only, I have not minded it, nor missed the social intereaction as much as I thought I would. Having said that, between the lack of church socialization and human interaction (the primary reason besides meditation that I put aside my online social interactions), I have onced again joined all of my real and virtual friends on the web.

 I recently added another streaming platform. Between everything there is to watch, plus my subscription to the Great Courses, U-tube and my subscription to blueprint (a platform that offers quilting and art and cooking classes online), I could sit for three weeks and never repeat.  I'm not that person, but I also have a Kindle that can download whatever I want. I ordered some yarn so that I could make the top below (I'm not thrilled with the color of my kimono that Im working on so may change that to yellow and do something with the purple yarn). I am almost finished with the landscape quilt, and have two pieced quilts to work on and two to quilt.  Plus yarn supplies (I looked online for one skein patterns), art supplies, jewelry supplies, photos and memorabilia to sort through. And a book to work on. And a move to plan for and start drastically saving for. 

I also found the perfect online one hour aerobics program, which works me hard (my heart rate was over 140 which at my age is more than eighty five percent of my max so I should proabably modify it a bit), along with yoga, walking, and stretching. I suppose this is one of those times I am glad I still have a yard and my swing-although those apartments in Texas have all those patios and greenspace.

I don't have thirty rolls of TP. Actually I probably don't have enough for two to three weeks for two people. But creativity is the mother of invention. This is one of those times when I'm glad that I hung on to that small chest freezer (it will not move) and filled it up with meats and frozen vegetables. I started with all those meats and bought everything I needed to make meals out of everything in the freezer and then looked at breakfast substitutes and fresh substitutes (like frozen berry mixes). I know this is where many readers shake their heads-but if you are going into a grocery store you are going into a highly germ filled place-especially when it comes to the meat and produce areas not just the carts.  So in theory, I probably have enough meals for three weeks. And if I don't need them?  Well then I won't have to hit the grocery stores for quite some time.

Eventually I suppose, I'll be craving those happy hours and crafting times and I miss my church environment already. Meanwhile, the dog came and got in bed with me this morning and we stayed there until ten. I'll be walking forty minutes and and out of my house today. I have a knitting project, a sewing project, a book and a new TV show. And dogs that regularly drag me out into the sun and fresh air.  

All of which works for me. For now.