Life in semi - lock down

Wow. What a week. So much has happened globally and in every home in our country. 

It seems like ages ago we were having to make difficult decisions about whether or not to pull our daughter out of school, whether to visit elderly parents, or to cancel our Easter holidays yet all this happened just one week ago.

A week ago, the lack of decisive direction from our Federal Government and contradictions between State and Federal Goverment, especially around school attendance, was not great.  We've had to come to our own conclusions, with the Government lagging behind.

But as I write, we’re not yet in full lock down but getting there and rightly so. We are seeing the gradual tightening up of orders around self- isolation and social distancing with increasing restrictions around the number of people that can gather and limited reasons we are permitted to be outside of our homes. Only two can congregate outside, travellers must quarantine in hotels immediately upon arrival, with police enforcement now occuring for those who don't comply. The message is simpler and clearer. About time too.

Our Family in Self isolation

Our little family of 3 has been at home continuously for 11 days now.  Hubby is working from home, our 12 year old is doing home schooling (Year 7) and I’ve decided to put job seeking on hold.We have gone out for groceries, petrol, vet, pharmacy, Post Office and walking the dog. 

We’re operating as a traditional family. It’s weird as I like to think I’m a feminist and hate being financially dependent on someone else, but right now, it's working for us. Everyone knows what they need to do and they just get on with it.  

Schedules, Time tables and Routine

Surprisingly, the first week of home schooling has gone extremely well.  I’m working on a schedule of sorts and am basing it loosely around  my daughter’s school time table.  Basically, the day is divided into segments. All the necessary routine stuff before the working/school day begins at 9am, then the blocks of time before lunch and after lunch. I try and alternate passive with active activities, indoors with outdoor activities. ( see my Tips To stay sane post 20/3/20).
The evening activities are pretty much the same as before but we are playing games most days in the afternoon. We love Catan.  

The relationship between my daughter and I has been better than it has in a  long time this past week. I’ve barely had to do a thing in terms of supervision and she appreciates the trust I have shown in her.

Creative things I did

I cleaned the fridge, whipper snipped the yard, made cheesecake, got back into learning Spanish, started aerobics by You Tube ( I watch Jenny Mc Cleland for low impact aerobics for beginners and seniors as I'm pretty unfit). I am using Face time and group face time for courses and contact with family and friends which is new for me. 

What needs work

My daughter isn’t doing any exercise. She isn’t interested in You Tube exercises by Jo from the UK or anyone else.  I also need to check on her snack intake.  

The other thing that maybe needs a bit more planning and thought are the weekends. We don’t want to be doing the same things that we do during the week. We really don’t want that ground hog day feeling. Weekends needs to be different.  This is difficult when you can no longer go out. I'm working towards physical games outdoors in our back yard. It's a tiered yard, so that rules out some activities.
  

We tried playing Boule in the yard, but I found that boring. We may get a backyard tennis set ( rope with ball tied to a pole) and try French Cricket next weekend. We have been playing Board games almost every day but I need to mix it up a bit as I get bored with the same activity every day.  One idea is to leave the board games to the weekend or rainy days only, don't play them during the week.  Hmmm room for thought.

What irritates me

I haven’t been impressed with the over sensationalism by news media. This morning I turn on the TV and see a red screen with the corona virus cells bobbing around menacingly and great big letters CORONAVIRUS CRISIS. They did the same during the bush fires and every other disaster event. It really is not helping the amount of angst that exists. Yes we need to keep informed but you don’t need to frighten people into panicking. We've seen how counter productive that is with shop hoarding.   And people need to limit how much news they absorb – no need to see the same reports on the hour, just once in the morning and end of day is plenty. 

I worry about the Government boasting about our stats. eg the numbers of newly infected cases were down for 3 days in a row. Whilst we don't want people to panic, we certainly don't want complacency. That is dangerous. 

What makes me smile

Face book and social media has been a great friend. It really puts a smile on my face to read about all the creative ways people are coping. Some of my favourites include the drive by birthdays and acts of kindness like the good Samaritan handing out $100 notes to those in Centrelink queues in Melbourne.  There’s an avalanche of humour too which we need more than ever at this time. As mentioned previously, I love The Shovel.