Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

I’ve got my Coconut Crunch coffee, I’m vaguely awake, and we’re gonna call that a win right out of the gate.

Hey – if you have student loans with Nelnet – check your account – they’ve pushed back the due dates on qualifying loans and automatically put them into “Forbearance Virus Pandemic” status. They’re still trying to get the rates to 0%, but that was a pleasant surprise this morning. (I’m still annoyed on the delay on 0%, because I feel that should not be a hard programming task, but I suspect my devs would disagree.)

I wasn’t having any issues paying my student loans – hell, I was putting extra to them every payday, but I’m not gonna lie, being able to throw some extra money to savings right now is definitely good for my mental health.

Between that and the enhanced unemployment, if I get shitcanned because of this virus, I’ll be OK for a while, and that’s not nothing.

Welp, time to go try and work so I *don’t* get shitcanned.

62 days, 15 hours, 19 minutes.

Please do not confuse any of this as replacing my constant incandescent rage at this administration and its handling of this pandemic and utter sadness at how many people will needlessly lose their lives in this time. I can multitask.

– Trying to do math in the morning. I have special beach coffee. I’ve been using it for cold brew and I have those ratios memorized – 1/4 c beans + 1 c water. But I have no cold brew this morning, so hot brew it is. Googled “beans to grounds” ratio, finally found rule of thumb, 3T beans = 2T ground = 1 coffee scoop = 8 oz coffee. Easy. Somehow I decided 6 coffee scoops of beans would equal 2 cups of coffee and well – at least I realized my mistake before I had sludge and added the right amount of water, but I have a LOT of brewed coffee this morning.

– Inside/outside clothes. Yep, that’s gotten in my head, and I’m doing it. But before leaving the house, I’m having to stop and think, “Do I want to ditch what I’m wearing *now* when I come back? Will I be sad when I realize I have to toss these super soft jeans?” and then changing *before* I leave and again when I get back.

– Masking up. I’m actually OK with it and have acquired a delightful collection of bandanas to supplement the two I had (thank you REI) – but just, fuuuuuuck.  I never saw myself deconstructing furnace filters for mask inserts, but here we are.

– Everything is just harder. Marketing. Working. Keeping my brain positively occupied. Oddly enough, sleep has been fairly easy, probably because I’m perpetually exhausted because everything is harder.

– My fuckin’ grocery bill. All the bucks I’ve saved on Starbucks and bar tabs seem to have just transferred to Giant food.

– My hands are a mess. I was washing my hands before, I swear!! But my lord, there isn’t enough hand lotion in the world it seems these days. When we’re on the backside of this, I’m gonna go to Red Door and order up a facial and tell them, “just do all that on my hands, please.”

And now I’m off to Michael’s curbside pickup to get pipe cleaners for masks, because that’s the weird fucking world we’re living in right now.  (And OK, some craft supplies, because I might as well make the trip worth it.)  Honestly, I have no idea how they are able to still be open, but I appreciate the fact that they are.

Hang tough, my friends.

Day 23. (I don’t know why I am counting the days, but it seems the thing to do.)

Ran up to the halal market on the off chance they had yeast (they ran out a couple days ago) and then I felt bad for treating them as a last resort, cause it’s a nice little market.

And that’s why we have a container of baklava on the counter. (It’s delicious!)

Also a good opportunity to do a no-sew mask test run. Conclusions:

– The top band of knee high pantyhose works nicely in place of hair elastics for the over the ear piece. (I will be trying my regular hair elastics, but I suspect they could be painful after a short period of time.)

– Going to try a second elastic to gather up the sides, we’ll see how that works.

– Ironing in the creases was a good idea. And an oddly soothing exercise.

– Need pipe cleaners along the top/bottom crease for fitting them a little better.

– Glasses are a problem…they fog up. I am hoping the pipe cleaners may help a bit.

Granted, given the conflicting advice we’re seeing on masks worldwide and within the country, it feels a bit like plague theatre, BUT – I’ll go along with it.

I hopped on Amazon to look for pipe cleaners – no delivery until mid to late April, which is completely understandable. But, Michael’s has curbside pickup and pipe cleaners in stock, so…

I’m just waiting to get the “come and get it” notification. I may have also tossed in some aida fabric and an assortment pack of embroidery floss – fuck, if I’m going out, might as well make it worthwhile.

WHOA – UNEXPECTED SUCCESS MID WRITING OF THIS – the local bakery posted on FB that they have flour for sale, so I called and they’re also selling YEAST! A pound block of live yeast for $6. I also got a loaf of cheddar garlic bread because I felt a little bad to go in going “Hey, can I just get ingredients to make what you sell??” It’s also just excellent bread.

So, this pandemic, we’re gonna learn how to use live yeast instead of dry. I suspect the googles will have advice.

I’m looking forward to not having to treat the world as a giant biohazard.

Day 22. And I realize Fridays are totally meaningless for a lot of folks right now. But here, it still has some meaning, and not gonna lie, I’m pretty fuckin’ tired and need the weekend more than I did a month ago, that’s for sure.

One thing I have discovered through all this – and I kinda knew it before – I am not one of those people that stress cleans. Don’t get me wrong, we are doing a bang up job of staying on top of the dishes, but yeah, the rest of the place looks like a tornado hit.

The weather looks to be nice today, so hopefully I’ll get my ass out for a walk at lunch/after work. However, that will require pants, so…

Welp, onwards and upwards and indoors.

67 days, 15 hours, 29 minutes.

Gonna sleep in, bake some cookies, make some face masks…

As one does.

Gonna take a swing at this no-sew option with some variations. Got multiple types of hair ties about to find what works best, and fabric supply arriving tomorrow. (If it’s a big fail, I will have a lovely assortment of bandannas, and hair ties never go to waste around here.)

Weird fuckin’ times.

Day 21 – THREE WEEKS AND I’VE NOT LOST MY MIND! Yet. :-D

Actually got a semi-decent nights sleep, which has done wonders for my mood, even if I did wake up at one point and had to tell myself, “You don’t have chills, the room is cold and you’re not using the heavy blanket. Put on socks, you moron.” And guess what? Socks took care of it.

Of course, we’re starting our day with a department wide COVID meeting, so my mood may deteriorate rapidly, LOL.

Hang in there, you glorious weirdos.

ETA: Meeting canceled and substituted with video message for time zone considerations. Much better than the last one, but there still seems to be some problems with admitting there is something really big and bad out there that is bigger than all of us. But, I didn’t want to throw my laptop out the window, so definite improvement.