Observations on Day to Day Life

Teaching is continuing apace, so I thought I’d make some observations about how day to day life is going…

I’m getting a lot less physical mail than usual – largely due to the lack of junk mail and advertisements. It’s really refreshing. Some days I don’t get mail at all. I would be entirely happy to see this continue.

Procedures around grocery shopping continue to evolve – shifts in the open hours, limiting the number of people in the store at once, asking people not to use re-usable bags. It’s all fine and my local store’s website is doing a pretty good job keeping up with all of the changes. But on top of trying to limit trips to the store, it adds to the unsettled nature of the trips when you have to read up in advance on how shopping is going to work this time.

I’m guessing that people are actually being careful to go to the store less often, because I discovered on my trip today that all produce and meat (what I’m interpreting as anything perishable or with a strict shelf life) was a flat 10% off.

So far, the hardest thing about cloth mask making is discovering that my already fairly beat up sewing machine (it’s been held together by duct tape for a few years now) has finally decided to refuse to run in reverse and is moody about whether it will actually feed fabric under the foot or if you have to pull it along by hand. I picked up a few of my mom’s old sewing machines from my dad’s house to see if they would work any better and now I have three broken sewing machines at my house. Working on remedying that situation.

I’m doing pretty well maintaining a regular schedule – having a 9 AM class MWF is good for that. Even if the students aren’t required to be “in class”, I’ve committed to being at my computer ready to help them during official class time, and I think it’s been good structure. And, students are taking advantage of it. I suspect some of them are finding it is good structure for them as well. I never know if I’ll get pulled into a video chat, so I’m also making sure I’m up and presentable at the start of each day – my major concession to working from home is I’m usually barefoot.

I’ve also been able to talk a walk around my neighborhood almost every day, usually during a break between class and meetings and such since there are fewer people out on the street than after dinner. I am so grateful for the warm weather and being able to watch the flowers and leaves come in.