A New Normal: Establishing a Daily Routine

Yesterday turned out to be a terrific day, so I'm thinking cycle and repeat until life opens up a little more in, hopefully, the next few weeks.

For me currently, the formula to having a positive day is to get outside, and stay outside, for as long as I possibly can now that the heavy spring rains appeared to have moved out of our area. So our New Normal COVID-19 Shelter In Place (SIP) routine is roughly as follows:

5 AM - 8 AM  Wake up somewhere between 5 and 6 AM, enjoy coffee and Kindle internet reading (blogs, news, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
8 AM - 10 AM  Household chores
10 AM - 2 PM  Get outdoors, generally via a long walk to the beach and back. Bring or purchase a to go lunch, and shoot to eat it while sitting somewhere scenic.,
2 PM - 4 PM  Downtime. We generally recover from our walk or hike with sun tea out in the yard, then take showers, then nap and/or read.
4 PM - 6 PM  More household chores, sometimes outside in the yard, plus make dinner.
6 PM - 7 PM  Eat dinner, hopefully outside in the yard if the weather is pleasant, plus clean up from dinner.
7 PM - 8 PM  Play a game or work on a puzzle together.
8 PM - 9 PM  Turn on TV and stream something light.
9 PM - 9:30 PM  Get ready for bed, light Kindle reading until about 9:30 PM. With all  the exercise we are doing each day, it's impossible to stay awake any longer!

There are also a good number of scheduled things beginning to pop up during the day as well - video conferences, online learning classes, etc. - but in generally this is turning out to be our go to day-to-day routine.

We are also trying to vary things on the weekends to keep them exciting to look forward to. For example, in general we refrain from drinking alcohol during week days, so Friday night is always anticipated because we get to open a new bottle of wine, or a new can of craft beer. We are also continuing to schedule weekend Zoom video dates with friends and family, giving us reason to get a little dressed up - from the waist up at least!

This weekend we have an eight person Happy Hour video conference, another 'normal' Zoom video-date with different friends, and a family Zoom video date where we'll be playing a robust game of Outburst. Outburst, BTW, is great for video conferencing. My husband and I will be on separate teams, and since we have the game here in our home, we will be the lead team members reading the cards to each of our video teams. So easy, and so fun. Another ideas we're going to try out going forward will be video conferencing Trivial Pursuit.

Starting this week, our daily walks have been positively glorious due to the weather here - mid 70's. And because we have no pressing need to get home by a certain time, we are discovering lots of wonderful new things during our walks. Yesterday, for example, we stumbled across a butterfly garden we hadn't known existed, a night heron nesting tree absolutely replete with heron, nests, and babies, and a gorgeous pocket park overlooking the ocean that is just begging to be returned to at sunset with a picnic dinner. We've also discovered new eateries open for takeout, random farmer's market produce stalls, hidden picnic tables, a variety of open restrooms (so important when determining where and how far to walk and/or bike), which beaches are currently permitting walk through and bike through traffic, which markets do not appear to have lines (and which do), where to buy to-go coffee, and where wild spring flowers are beginning to bloom.

Night heron nests aplenty. Next time we walk here we'll bring binoculars so we
can try and catch sight of the baby heron now in the nests.

And to repeat what I've stated many times before here - all of this activity is being done on foot and with proper social distancing, including the pulling up of our face masks as we walk past other people, most of whom are doing same. There is a balancing act between staying healthy while remaining socially distant, which I think my husband and I have found. Already we are considerably stronger than when we began our daily walks a few weeks back. We can now knock off eight to ten miles, including lots of hills, without feeling tired.

My husband and I are in agreement that once our current restrictions begin to lift, we will work hard to maintain the wonderful aspects of walking outdoors for hours each day. One of the silver linings of the current situation for sure.