In Two Hour Increments

It's Friday today, right? 

Time is a construct.  I have never felt that concept more than Right Now.

I am trying to keep a schedule of some sort during this adventure.  The issue with this is that not only am I dependent upon having structure, my brain fights it.  I know that I NEED structure but unfortunately I tend to REBEL against it.

So it's with great humor and irony that I realized I have finally settled upon a loose schedule Just In Time for the weekend.  This means I am starting not quite at square one on Monday but a little bit.  Like Square Two.Five.  It seems to break down in approximately two-hour increments, strangely.

I send Kevin off to work at 5:30 each morning.  I am a Very Good Wife.
I immediately go back to sleep.  Sometimes I will watch television but usually I am sound asleep again easily.
Lucy wakes me up by 8:30 usually.  I don't know how she developed this schedule but here we are.
I shower, dress, and get coffee.  This week I am still going to our friends coffee stand but next week, I will be making my own. 
I wake up the house: turn on the lights, make the bed, start laundry, put dishes away.

Then I sit down at my desk. This goes a few different ways:
If I haven't checked social media on my phone, I will usually do a deep dive on the computer.  Answer/write emails, respond to the facebook, and browse the dumpster fire that twitter can be.

My "work" days is no less than 20 minutes to 2 hours daily.  Once I get settled and started, I've found that those two hours go by really quickly.  This is a good thing and I hope it continues. I was worried that the novelty would wear off. To be fair, it still might.

Once work is finished, I tend to try to write on the bloggity or just in general while I am in that work mindset.

Today I decided to act on something I've intended to do since January.  I signed up for a class on Coursera: Intro to Philosophy.  I've been listening and reading about Stoicism so this felt like a good starter class to support it. So far, so good.  It's presented in easy, bite-sized classes so it feels very doable.

Now Lucy tends to want to nap around the 3:00 hour so I try to take that time to watch a movie or read a book or play a game.  Something other than just mindlessly watching whatever has stacked up on the dvr or scrolling through social media on my phone.

I've been walking to the mailbox so that fulfills time spent outside and exercise.  Next week, I am going to purposefully plan yoga instead of just fitting it in whenever or wherever the mood strikes. (11:30 at night while Kevin slept was the latest, just in case you wondered)

Finally, Kevin usually phones about 5:00 to say he's on his way home.  Usually this prompts me to clean up any mess I've created, shut down the computer in the office, and start dinner. 
Then once he gets home, life reverts back to normal: dinner, dishes, television, sleep.

We're trying to keep the weekends the same.  Chores, projects, relaxing.  Starting now there will be no trips into town for dinner or shopping so we'll see how that goes. 

They say that a habit is grown in thirty days.  I have at least four more weeks of this whole working from home situation. Frankly, I've been told to plan for longer but I am focusing on the initial six weeks so that I don't get overwhelmed.  The point being is that I've added the philosophy class to keep my brain engaged while I'm home and I have added the intention of scheduling yoga on the regular next week.

I'm trying to frame this as an opportunity to grow new habits and to make the most of this really weird, daunting situation of not being able to leave the house.  It would be so easy to just lay down on the couch and watch endless television and scroll through my phone apps.  But that is not going to do me any good, either physically or mentally.

So, the question being: what have you...are you...doing to spend this unusual time?  I find it helpful to hear how others are spending their time, not only culling ideas but also feeling a sense of solidarity.

AND, and, and it's perfectly okay to say "Lay on my couch and watch television and scroll through social media."  Everyone has their thing.