How I’m Staying Sane Summer 2020
Yes, the four-year-old cutie pie named Poppy pictured above is the main thing keeping me sane this crazy summer.
Here where I live in Nevada things opened up a bit and then shut down again when cases of the coronavirus went on the rise. Wearing masks is mandatory in Nevada, and from what I’ve seen most people are wearing their masks and keeping their distance. My brother’s friend made me a cute pink and white-flowered mask so I can be fashionable when I’m out and about.
The hardest part for me has been the anger that people are directing like bombs at each other. Some are angry at having to wear masks. Others are just angry. Last week at the grocery store I turned down the wrong lane and an older, retired man yelled at me for “not giving a shit!” I had my mask on; he did not. I passed him quickly and at a fair distance. I missed the direction sign on the floor noting which lanes were for up and which were for down. It was a mistake, that’s all. I’ve been shopping in grocery stores my whole life and I’m not used to having direction signs dictating the flow of traffic. But this man was angry. He didn’t say his peace and walk on. He gave me hell for some time, to the point where other shoppers stopped to watch. I didn’t respond because what do you say to someone that angry? I got the groceries I needed and moved on. And what do you know? When I turned down the correct aisle on the next side a woman came walking down the wrong way. In fact, throughout the store there were shoppers going the wrong way. I was the unlucky one who caught the wrath of the angry old man, who, again, was not wearing a mask when everyone else in the store—employee and shopper—was. So then who, sir, does not give a shit? I understand that people are anxious for themselves and their loved ones. I certainly am. But yelling at strangers in the grocery store is not the way to deal with that anxiety. Luckily, that’s the only time it happened to me but I’ve heard enough stories to know that it’s not an unusual occurrence these days.
I haven’t been much of anywhere except the grocery store and a quick coffee take-out since the middle of March. Usually, summers are spent working out at the gym and relaxing in the sunshine and swimming at the pool with occasional trips to the beach in California. This summer, with new cases of the virus breaking daily records, I’m sticking to the safety of my house. I’m a homebody anyway and like being home so the current conditions are easier for someone like me. My front yard is well-shaded so I can sit outside and enjoy the view into the Vegas valley below. I have an (almost) unobstructed panorama of the desert sunsets from my west-facing windows, and those sunsets are beautiful in their goldenrods, hot pinks, and deep blues.
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The upside in all this is I’ve rediscovered some joys that had fallen away over the years. I used to love to cook and bake. I have this cookie book from Mrs. Fields published in 1992 that is so well-used and so splattered with cookie baking ingredients that it’s falling apart at the seams, but I don’t care. I shove the pages back in and use it anyway. When I downsized before I moved I donated nearly every cookbook I had because I use Pinterest find recipes now, but I kept the Mrs. Fields cookie book. After the pandemic hit I began baking cookies again. I even baked bread from scratch and I just baked an amazing strawberry cake with homemade whipped cream and strawberry sauce. Yum! I’ve been cooking again too, using my slow cooker two or three times a week. I love my slow cooker because all I have to do is drop in the ingredients and the slow cooker does the work. I love to cook but I’m a lazy cook and the slow cooker is perfect for someone like me. The food is healthy, clean, and delicious.
Here are some of the meals I’ve been cooking and enjoying lately.
Slow cooker garlic Tuscan chicken
We loved both of these recipes, but the taco bowls were a particular hit.
In addtion to the fab recipes in the Mrs. Fields Cookie Book, here are some of the goodies I’ve been baking lately.
If you’d like to keep up with the slow cooker and baking recipes I’m discovering, you can follow me on Pinterest.
I’ve also started exercising again. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with exercise my whole life. When I’m into it I’m into it, but I’ve found it extremely easy to drop exercise and I won’t manage to work out for months at a time. When I’m stressed or anxious I stop exercising, which is wrong, I know. When I’m stressed or anxious is exactly when I should exercise. To help myself deal with the uncertainties that these times bring, I decided to make that extra effort to exercise. I’m glad I did because I do feel better than I was feeling before I started working out regularly. I won’t go to the gym because of the virus, and although I live near some beautiful parks it can be 110 degrees outside during a Vegas summer, so that’s a no go for me. I discovered Leslie Sansone’s Walk at Home videos and they’re awesome. She has you moving to a pace that equals walking two miles in 30 minutes. While you’re walking you’re also working your abs, legs, and arms, and she even has some videos that use weights so you can work out your muscles too. Whenever I’m feeling lazy, which is frequently these days, I say to myself, it’s only half an hour. What else am I going to do with this half-hour? That’s enough to get me off my bottom and moving. Thirty minutes may not sound like a lot, but I get a pretty good work out and I’ve been toning up even with the cooking and the baking!
I also do yoga a couple of nights a week. I pull out my yoga mat, turn on the yoga station on Pandora and follow the positions listed on a free yoga app. There’s no class and no teacher directing me so I do poses that feel good to me and I go at my own pace. I usually opt for the more calming floor exercises, and afterward I feel relaxed, stretched out, and definitely calmer.
Finally, I’ve become a productive writer again. For months, since the middle of March until June, I couldn’t concentrate on much of anything. I know other writers and creatives felt the same. In June, I decided I had to bite the bullet and get going again. I started the first draft of the new Hembry Castle installment, which is coming along nicely for you Edward, Daphne, and Richard fans who politely inquire about the status of the story. I’m also finishing my first nonfiction book, a guide for writing historical fiction—no great surprise there, right? As Anne Lamott suggests in Bird by Bird, I’ve been giving myself short assignments. For my first drafts, I have a 500 word a day goal to meet. Five hundred words may not sound like a lot, but it’s enough to move the story forward but not so much that it feels overwhelming. I can’t handle overwhelming right now. I need to make progress every day, and that 500-word goal is just right. Maybe as things settle down I can raise that, but for now that’s what I’m sticking to.
However you spend this crazy 2020 summer, I hope you stay safe. There’s nothing quite like living through a pandemic to make us prioritize what is truly important to us.
*By the way, the links above are not affiliate links. I’m simply sharing things that have been helping me through these crazy times.
