Making the Best of a Bad Situation

Like many of you, I find myself with an abundance of time essentially trapped at home. This is especially difficult because spring is finally here, meaning that after an entire winter of waiting, the zoo, farmer's markets, and even going out in comfortable weather to lunch at a restaurant are still elusive activities. This isn't so bad for my family during the week because we've got a toddler who keeps us on a pretty tight schedule that hasn't changed since the pandemic. The weekends, however, are another story.

We have a family zoo pass and a membership at the local children's museum, both of which we were looking forward to using as soon as spring arrived and the risk of catching the seasonal flu passed. Both are closed, along with—hold on let me just double check this fact—just about everything else that's fun. But even if they weren't closed, the fear of catching anything from anyone at this point is enough to keep us home.

Don't get me wrong, we're still going to find ways to get outside and have fun together—at least as soon as the rain clears up and the temperature rises to something more comfortable and safe for a toddler. We love hiking, walking around the neighborhood, and last year my partner and I started running together. I'm fairly certain that we can still do those things while maintaining a safe 6-foot distance from everyone around us.

But for the days we're trapped inside, we want to try to make the best out of a bad situation. Frankly, we also need a distraction from all the scary news around us. Put both of those concepts together in this is what you get:

The brainchild of my partner, the quarantine projects list includes just about everything we've been meaning to get around to doing for the last several months. While we didn't have time to get to these things before because we had other fun activities to participate in, it seems like our schedule has opened up quite a bit for the foreseeable future.

Some tasks are going to take a weekend or two while others can be done during breaks in our remote work. The point is to have goals. Purpose. Something to distract us that will be productive to our lives.

I hope to update you with our progress on all of these in the coming weeks.

What are you doing to make the best of this pandemic? Comment below!

Stay healthy and sane!

-Ryan

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