And that is not nothing these days. I’m proud of you.

The VDOT NoVa account pointed out it has been a month this morning, and my first thought was “no, day 1 was March 13 and today is… oh shit, yeah, it has been a month”. Time is weird.

In some good news, the 4/8 update of the Covid19 Health Data site says Virginia will peak on 4/20 (insert weed joke here) – but even the absolute max beds is under our capacity, so it seems all this staying in may be working.

So, in this last month, I’ve developed some weird habits. Well, maybe not weird now, but if you’d asked me 2 months ago – I’d say they were weird. What I’m wondering now is how hard it’s going to be to shake some of these down the road or if some of these are going to be permanent dings to my mental state.

– Changing clothes to go to the market. Can’t wait to be able to ditch that one. Inside/outside clothes is just not for me. I’m doing way too much laundry these days. (Though if there was ever a time to have a broken water meter that won’t be replaced until the after times and billing based on prior use, this is it.)

– Treating every incoming package as a potential biohazard. I’ve been opening things outside and ditching the packaging immediately in the outside trash, and/or things go sit in the dining room with a towel plopped over it and they get added to my “decontamination time” Evernote list with dates of safe to mess with. Not sure how easy it’s going to be to stop that without getting itchy. (As it is, my brother brought a package in yesterday and put it in my spot on the couch. We did not come to blows or anything, but I was a bit “ACK! NO!” He graciously took the couch blanket to the laundry, LOL.) I’ve never wished more for a mudroom or garage. Or been happier that I’ve continued the “couch blanket for dog hair” even years after having a dog.

– Making my own coffee. I’ve gotten quite good at it, but the second my Starbucks is back open, I WILL BE THERE. It’s become a very nice way to get my day started over the years and I really miss my Starbucks folks and enjoyed seeing everyone and saying good morning every day.

– The moment I open a container of whatever in the kitchen, adding it to the grocery list so I always have an unopened backup of basically everything. That one is going to be a LOT harder to shake, I can tell already. That 3/13 trip to the market where everything was just WIPED OUT left has been a bigger whack to my psyche than anything else so far. I mean, we’re not talking hoarding levels or anything that extreme, but like last week when I made meatloaf and realized I didn’t have a unopened bottle of 57 sauce ready when the one in the fridge was finished, I got a little twitchy until I was able to make sure one was sitting in the pantry.

– Keeping track of where I’ve been & when. I started doing this at the beginning of March. I’m not totally sure what made me decide to do it, but I guess I thought we’d actually be doing contact tracing (HA!) and thought it would be good to be able to know where I’d been and when. It takes up all of maybe a minute of my day, and I don’t see myself stopping that one for quite a while.

– Crowded places. Yeah, that may take a while. I didn’t really love crowded places to start with, and now when I see people too close together on TV shows, I am very “HEY, SOCIAL DISTANCE!!” At least when I go to my little bar, it’s very late, and very not wall to wall people.

So yeah, there is a lot bouncing around my head this morning.