Ryan's COVID-19 Chronicles

I stopped updating this blog on a regular basis because, after months of hoping for the best,  nothing was really changing . Fortunately, that's not exactly the case several months later. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of COVID-19 cases, deaths, pandemic-deniers, and people just not taking things as seriously as they should. But hey, we've just had more vaccinations than cases in the US , which is such a freaking relief to see. Oh yeah, there are a few vaccines available since I last posted any pandemic updates and more on the way, and we now have a president who seems to take the pandemic seriously, and the last one instigated a failed coup d'état attempt, and in retrospect I really picked a bad time to stop blogging about these things. That said, I'll leave all of that stuff for the history books to explain, and keep this blog focused on my own experiences during the pandemic that has now overflowed into 2021. Through some combination of bein...

Sorry I haven't written here in a while. So much was happening in those first few months of the pandemic, and then it seemed like everything just kind of slowed to a crawl before it all went stale. Every day has been the same thing. People don't believe facts. People are getting sick. The pandemic isn't over yet. We need to stay home. We need a sense of normalcy. The numbers are down. The numbers are up. On and on and on in a never-ending loop. Like many people, I fell into a sort of numb depression without even realizing it. The pandemic and quarantine weren't great for my mental health, and I stagnated. I kept on going through the motions, but it was all in a sort of half-conscious way. Fortunately, a few months ago I became aware of this and made some changes to improve my mental health and overall lifestyle. It seemed like everything was going to be alright again. Then, after an incredibly stressful two months at work during which I worked and pushed myself harder t...

Despite the pandemic, I had a wonderful Father's Day weekend. On Saturday I took my daughter for a long morning walk and then grilled burgers for my family in the afternoon. Despite the forecast predicting thunderstorms all afternoon, the weather seemed to work around our plans by only raining for a bit after the morning walk, while we ate dinner under the protection of our outdoor umbrella, and while we spent some time inside the house to digest before going back outside for s'mores over our new fire pit. On Sunday my partner surprised me with my favorite breakfast (eggs benedict), a few gifts, and the fact that she'd reserved us a time to visit the zoo in the afternoon. As everyone who reads this blog is aware, the Milwaukee County Zoo was perhaps the thing I missed the most about the pandemic shutdown and I was really, really excited to hear that it would be opening up with new safety precautions . Not only was it a fun place to spend an hour or two last year, but our da...

After venting my anger at the man who thinks it's okay to gas peaceful protesters and a priest out of her own church to take a photo  last week and watching protests intensify, devolve into riots ( possibly perpetrated by far-right instigators  and otherwise opportunistic white folks , like this guy with a bow and arrow ), and be escalated by absolutely unnecessary police brutality , I thought it'd be good to focus on the positive stuff today. Uplifting Protest News Firstly, in positive protest news, it's important to note that most of the protests are, in fact, peaceful, and the majority of police are trying their best to keep the peace. Of particular note are several instances of police walking with protesters such as in Flint and  in New Jersey  (showcasing a proper example of deescalation and how to serve and protect). Likewise, there are examples cropping up of  peaceful protesters turning rioters over to police  to prevent escalation by outsiders. Se...

We had a pretty big weekend, by which I mean we had a pretty big Saturday and then it's been raining constantly ever since. On Saturday I made two trips to the dump for free mulch, my partner finished putting together our new flower garden (aside from a few touches we hope to add later). Then we planted vegetables in our newly expanded garden on the side of the house. Followed by similarly planting a few final vegetables and herbs in our repurposed garden beds in the back of the house. Somehow during all of this we also managed to have fun with our daughter, who herself managed to be productive by helping us do some digging. It was honestly one of the most fun days I've had in a while, which was definitely needed after all the crazy stuff going on right now. While Sunday wasn't quite as exciting, my partner did manage to paint another hallway of the house while I enjoyed some quality father-daughter time, which was great! Furt...

So after Texas loosened restrictions and allowed businesses to reopen in some capacity, they saw their biggest daily increase of positive cases of COVID-19 . Then, the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down our governor's stay-at-home order and now people are flocking back out to public places without being mindful of wearing masks or keeping a safe distance from each other. I wonder what this could possibly lead to, and what the trend as a whole says about us as a nation. On the bright side, I know I talk about the weather a lot, but it looks like it's FINALLY  going to be warming up for good. In fact, the last frost of the year has finally passed, so my partner and I celebrated by planting some stuff in our new corner flower garden in the front of the house. And you can bet your butt that we're looking forward to more walks, hikes, and everything else outdoors. In fact, we also purchased a child carrier backpack for us to take our daughter with us on hikes, whi...

It feels poetic that shortly after my previous post reiterated how bad an idea it is to relax self-isolation efforts, my home state of Wisconsin reported experiencing two weeks of sustained decline of new COVID-19 cases and subsequently the relaxation of restrictions on some businesses . For the most part nothing is changing, but small retail stores may now reopen for in-person shopping of up to five customers at a time with social distancing practices. Of course, the fact that newly-reported cases are back down to below 200 per day for the first time since April 27th is a good thing and evidence that efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 are working. I'm just personally not sold on the idea that loosening restrictions is the best response to this development. That said, the extent to which restrictions have been loosened is so incredibly small that I can't help but wonder if this is just our governor's way of trying to keep his political opponents and the folks protes...

My three-day weekend was full of dirt. Lots and lots of dirt. Free dirt, expensive dirt, and dirt from my own property. First on Saturday, I made three trips to the local dump to load up on free dirt to fill in the rest of our expanded garden beds. Then my partner and I went to the hardware store to pick up some nutrient-rich dirt to mix in with the free dirt, as well as pick up some other supplies like seeds, plants, and wood chunks for smoking meat. Personally, that was enough dirt and physical labor for a whole weekend, but then on Sunday I spent a big chunk of the day digging up the grass and dirt in a corner of our front yard that we want to transform into a flower garden. I then spent a part of my Monday off transplanting the sod I'd dug up onto a bare patch in our back yard. Unfortunately, none of this is actually listed on our Quarantine Projects list so I don't get the satisfaction of checking it off as complete. Oh well! I also went on the offense wit...

We had quite the busy weekend, such that it felt even more full than the three-day-weekend I took last week. The weather cooperated for the most part, which helped a lot. My partner and I, with the help of her father, were able to make some real progress on expanding our vegetable garden and even erect a brand new storage shed. Pictured: Our daughter, the foreman, inspects my father-in-law's progress on the shed. While I was in charge of watching our daughter, I was even able to take her out on a run using our running stroller for the first time! It was really rough on my arms and definitely more difficult without being able to actually use them to keep my momentum, but she kept shouting "WEEE!" during the run so I'd call that 100% worth it. Beyond that, there was a lot of playtime with our daughter, good food eaten, and many laughs had. There were several moments of the weekend where it was incredibly easy to forget that we're...

I've gotta say that the four-day work week feels just about perfectly balanced with the three-day weekend I just had. We should really consider switching to this kind of schedule as a society sometime. The weather still hasn't quite been cooperating, unless you count that I needed it to rain for my early spring weed & feed mix to be more effective. Of course fortunately my partner and I got a lot of our big springtime outdoor work done back when it was warm for a week and it's not like we can really go outside anyway. Aside from all the beautiful and adorable growth of our daughter, the biggest news of this week is that we (but mostly my partner) painted our big hallway in the color that will eventually cover the majority of our house. We really like how it turned out, which is good because we bought a five-gallon bucket of that paint so we're pretty committed at this point. Here's a before and after photo: As far as mental states during a...

So it turns out there's not much to blog about when nothing new happens. Go figure. Complacency is definitely setting in. Working from home, my partner not working, and not seeing people is feeling normal now. It snowed for a bit yesterday afternoon, then the sun came out and melted it all, and then it snowed again and stayed snowy overnight. So that was weird. I haven't been out for a run since my 5K in large part because the weather has decided not to cooperate. I know it's only temporary but it's a real bummer to have these cold days come back after getting a glimpse of what a beautiful spring week could be. The warm weather went a long way toward things feeling kind of okay. However, in good news: we've got a new brick fire pit on our patio to replace the store-bought metal one that rusted away over the winter! It was a gift from my in-laws, constructed by my father-in-law who's always eager for a project. He also finished constructing the ...

This week has been going pretty well so far. My partner is killing it as a full-time mom and she even used her free day yesterday (our daughter is still going to be cared for by her grandparents on Wednesday mornings) to do some room painting, cleaning, organizing, and other productive stuff. I try to check in with how she's doing mentally pretty frequently and it sounds like she's enjoying the extra time with our daughter and the opportunity to get some things done around the house. Our daughter herself seems to be growing so much and living her best life every single day. It's a real treat to be able to leave my home office for a minute to see her whenever I want to, because her joy is infectious and she makes me so proud. As for me, I've definitely had some rough moments mentally this week. In particular, I had a tough morning on Monday just worrying about everything, and yesterday's blog post was tough to write because the gravity of the situation–even this ...

As you might recall, one of the items on our quarantine projects list is to clean up the yard. Well, seeing as the sun was shining, the temperature got up to around 48F, and we don't have much else going on right now, that's the task we focused on this weekend. Basically that meant raking the lawn, clearing the patio, and looking up how to go about bringing our patchy back yard back to life this year so that it can be a safe and lush place for our daughter to play. While we were at it, I adjusted the outdoor lights I put up recently so that they hang more evenly and my partner cleaned the equipment on our jungle gym so that our daughter can enjoy it for the first time. Overall it's been another fun, productive, and mostly carefree weekend! I'm curious to see how the week goes now that my partner will be home parenting full-time. To try and make the prospect of not working sound more fun for her, I've started calling it "maternity leave part two...

Whether it's because things haven't peaked as quickly as I worried, or because I'm pretty good at adapting, or because the fear and uncertainty were just too much to handle, I've spent this whole week feeling pretty chill about the COVID-19 pandemic. I also feel kind of guilty about feeling chill about it. Of course, the whiplash of first getting back into our routine with sending our daughter to her grandparents' house for the mornings only to find out the very next day that my partner won't be working for a while has been stressful. However, as far as my fear of society breaking down and loved ones dying from a viral plague goes, I just haven't been thinking or worrying about it lately. As I said, this is probably because the pandemic hasn't come knocking on my door yet, or because it only took me two weeks to adjust to the new way of living, or because my brain just decided it couldn't handle the worry and decided to block whatever chemical c...

Last night I played Team Fortress 2 with two of my friends from the Vertigo Gaming Inc. team for two hours. We had been talking about doing this for a while as a way to hang out despite the distance between us, and while we were slow to pull the trigger at first, the pandemic obviously made that idea all the more appealing. As I learned, online gaming with friends is a great way to feel less isolated. Being able to talk and interact, even within the confines of a video game, felt very freeing compared to the last two weeks. Definitely give it a shot if you haven't yet. In keeping with our promise from yesterday, my partner and I still avoided the news today. We know things are bad, and reading about exactly how bad they are without being able to do anything about it isn't going to do any good. We did our best to make this just like any other weekend. My partner applied more plaster and painted the bathroom wall to finish that project, we blew bubbles for our daughter...

Today, in addition to vowing to stay away from the news, my partner and I decided to tackle some of our long-overdue house projects from the Quarantine Projects list . For my partner, that meant scraping the paint and plaster off the slightly water-damaged wall in our bathroom. Then, after cleaning up the mess on the floor, she applied the first coat of fresh plaster—the final steps will have to wait for another day. For me, that meant hanging up two strands of outdoor all-season lights over our back patio—but not before unwrapping and screwing in every individual light bulb, which was kind of annoying. Oh well, the end result looks nice, if a bit uneven (I'll fix that later, I swear). Our daughter, however, is fortunate enough to not have any house projects. She just got to enjoy some indoor bubbles. Overall it's been a pretty productive day. Plus, staying away from the news helped us keep focused and relatively sane. We'...

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...