I feel like life needs new rules right now. We are living in an unprecedented time and it seems like the previous guidelines for healthy and normal living don’t apply any longer.
So I’m working on coming up with a few new guidelines to help us all keep our sanity. (I’m sure there will be more the longer this goes, but these will get us started.)
We No Longer Do Formal School on Fridays.
Homeschool has gotten more difficult without the ability to go to the museum, the library, the zoo or the local state park. We can’t meet up with friends or family. Suddenly, it’s just me and them and the books. Then this week, their hybrid school (the one we sent them to specifically for the outdoor time and non-tech based learning) has added video lessons and live weekly chats. It’s exhausting. The kids fight with me, even more than usual.
So Friday is our day off. We won’t do school that day. I can stay in bed later if I want. (I would say dinner would be easy but unfortunately there are no easy meals for our family right now. ) This will be the reward for surviving another week of quarantine in the pandemic world.
The kids will play outside, play games and generally do what they like. I’ll linger over a cup of coffee. Take extra time to read, do personal projects, knit, write and even do my nails if I want.
This may sound like a small thing, but right now it’s a huge one.
I Eat Dessert Again.
I do need to get a handle on my current stress eating, but I also know how much willpower it has taken every time I have cut out dessert or sugar for an extended period of time. I don’t have the strength for that right now. I will try to focus on healthy eating as much as possible at other times and meals, but after the kids go to bed, I get some kind of reasonably portioned dessert.
I Will Move My Body Every Day
I will do Fit2B workouts as often as I can. But I will also work in the garden, or deep clean a room of the house or do something else that requires me to use my body. I’ve been having some pretty serious upper back pain so once I figure out the proper stretches, I’ll be doing that daily. The important thing is to get my body moving instead of remaining crouched around my laptop all day.
I’m sure more things will change. Each week is painfully similar to the last and yet I’m continuing to switch up routines the longer this quarantine goes on. We’re all getting on each others nerves over here but we’re going to have to find a way to get along and enjoy each other because it looks like we’ll all be at this for a while longer than we thought.
What new rules and ways of living are you implementing during this time? It’s Ok to make temporary changes for the sake of your sanity.
Bethany,
Beautiful and relatable post. I am your next door neighbor on the linkup today (#33)
I will be praying for you. I am a fellow stress eating coper of life and disappointment and am trying to be patient with my lack of consistency with my gym closed.
Thank you for sharing from your heart!
💕
Tammy
(Tammysincerity)
Sounds good.
Joining you from FMF. I definitely need to set some rules for my body. Being off my normal routine has not helped at all with my lack of self discipline.
In this time of bland inanity
as time drags slowly on,
I tried to keep my sanity,
but it’s already gone.
It fluttered off, a butterfly
awake now to the spring,
and I will have to keep an eye
alert to what it brings
if when and it it might return
(but then again, it may’nt)
and perforce I’ll have to learn
without that flighty vagrant
fragment left of common sense
(oh where, oh where, could it have wents?).