Staying Home, Week 1

I’ve been furloughed for a week now, and I’m doing okay. I’m cognizant of how very lucky I am–I’m furloughed, not laid off or let go. I qualify for unemployment, and I have a computer and internet to get that ball rolling (now if they could toss that ball back to me, with money…) I have savings to cover the bumps until the state can catch up on that.

I have plenty of food, and the knowledge and energy to cook it. I have a house that I actually like rather a lot, with a fenced-in backyard where I can get outside with both privacy and safety. I have room to try a garden, though we’re starting with just containers this year. My housemate (AKA roommate, roomie, My Hunker-Down Pal) is pretty awesome to hang out with, and bakes DELICIOUS bread. She has undertaken the obligatory sourdough starter so I don’t have to. (Right? We only need one per household?) We have more than enough yeast to last until the starter is ready. We are both on the hermit end of the introvert/extrovert spectrum, so we’re not minding staying home.

We have toilet paper. We have…rather a lot of dried beans. We have a very cuddly kitty, who is also a fluffy murder beast, so there are frequent lion attacks in the living room to keep our wits sharp (and sometimes, our legs bleeding.)

The boy (AKA my informally adopted son, the current teenager, dammit child) doesn’t quite get the science of virus transmission, but he is definitely limiting his gallivanting, washing his hands, and likes wearing masks anyway, so I expect we’ll be all right.

My kid (the one I birthed, as opposed to all the other ones who call me mom) is doing okay. Staying safe and making smart choices, or so she tells me. Acting more grown up than before, so progress is definitely there.

Productivity…look. I am not judging anyone but me. I just figure, if I’ve got eight (nine, counting commute and unpaid lunch) more hours a day at home, I should be getting a liiiittlleee more done than I would in normal times. Not even a lot more! If I could write for an hour, and get an hour of house stuff done a day, I would be sooooooo much further ahead (okay, less behind) than usual! Why can’t I hit a goal of two out of nine hours actually being productive, dammit?

I mean, I did find a 27k-word document from NaNo 2015 which included (but was not limited to) a lot of words attempting to figure out my paranormal story (that’d be the one i’m working on now) so it looks like I’ve gotten stuff done though I really haven’t.

I told roomie I couldn’t believe I wrote 20k words on this and forgot they existed. Roomie pointed out that after 2015 came 2016, and it’s been a rough couple of decades since then.

She is not wrong.

Anyway. Have a picture of a cat. I’m going to go try (again!) to get some writing done.