Some Stay-at-Home Life Hacks are worth keeping in our new normal
- All Cousins Zoom
This is one of those things we now wonder why we did not think of before.
When stay-at-home orders hit most of our communities, we all realized how much we miss human interaction.
My family is small on each nuclear level, but extends for 3 generations with a 60 year age span. Some of us have no children, some of us have 5, some are single, some married. We live in the four corners of North America (the Northeast, Victoria, B.C., southern California, and central Florida, with a smattering in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Virginia, and Arizona). We cover 4 different time zones.
We usually saw most of the cousins sometime over the course of each summer at the lake in northern Wisconsin where we gather (my mom and aunt spent their childhood summers there, and as many of us who have the time continue to visit for as long each summer as we can).
But 2020 did not allow that. So we had our first cousins zoom from the lake this summer. We sat on the porch and zoomed with my cousin Bill who is trapped in Victoria, British Columbia (not a bad place to be trapped at all).
Then we decided to expand it to include all the cousins (all three generations) and have it once a month.
Its been a fabulous opportunity to connect with people I love but don’t see often enough.
Why didn’t we think of this sooner? This is definitely a stay-at-home life hack I’m making part of my new normal.
- Thirsty Thursdays
Since I’ve always had a fabulous group (or groups) of friends, I’ve always had plenty of chances to go out for dinner, or drinks, or over to someone’s house, or have someone over. Needless to say, COVID-19 and the stay-at-home directives which followed stopped all that.
At first, I, along with everyone else I knew, hunkered down in my own house, and stayed there to be safe. Then I started to realize that in person contact was the only option. If we couldn’t go out for happy hour, why not have happy hour in?
At the time, May, one of my core group of friends from the neighborhood had moved to Kentucky, one to Texas, and another was vacationing in Florida for spring break with her son when the lockdown started, so she stayed there. My other friends were pretty much stuck in their homes.
And Thirsty Thursdays was born. We all get on a videoconference platform at the scheduled time (we cross 2 time zones, and have one child bedtime to consider, so it’s a tad on the early side for some of us). We all have a glass of wine or a cocktail. We all talk about our week.
Sometimes the get togethers are uplifting. Sometimes they are sorrowful (when the sister of one of us passed away). Sometimes they are just gossip. Sometimes we talk about what we are doing to keep fit or sane.
Always they are moral boosting. Always they are life affirming. Always I leave them recharged.
Even after those of who live near each other can go out or stay in together, we will keep Thirsty Thursdays as part of our new normal, so we can include those who have moved away, live in another time zone, or have circumstances that keep them from physically joining us.
- Virtual Sunday Supper Club
Back 10 years or more ago, my friend Amy had a wine store in the neighborhood—that’s actually how I met her, and a bunch of other fabulous women in the neighborhood.
She was open late every night except Sunday. She had wine tastings on Friday nights, and often would open something on Saturday for tasting as well.
We started having Sunday Supper Club on Sundays when she closed early, as an excuse to finish up all of the open bottles. It was potluck, and often themed around the season, a type of food, or a particular food item (one everything pumpkin dinner comes to mind, Dorie Greenspan’s everything in a pumpkin was a perfect dish).
We did this at least once a month, often more.
Eventually, some of us had children, some of us moved away, Amy left the wine store business, and we had fewer and fewer of the suppers, and fewer of us were able to attend. Finally, they dwindled down to maybe 2 a year.
Then Covid hit, we all stayed at home, and we learned new technology. By now, we were scattered from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Chicago (several neighborhoods), to Springfield, Illinois, to Louisville, Kentucky, to Dallas, Texas.
One of us had the genius idea to reinstitute Sunday Supper Club—virtually. We picked a recipe and everyone made it at their own home. We then ate together—joined by whatever family members were home at everyone’s respective homes.
It was almost as good as the original Sunday Supper Club—although totally different. It gave us a chance to catch up with each other. It gave us a chance to see each other’s growing families. It gave us a chance to break bread together (literally since most of us were making sourdough bread along with the rest of America).
Again, why didn’t we think of this before? We will continue it as part of our new normal.
- Armchair Travel
With the loss of the ability to actually travel, I longed to travel even more than I usually do. I continued to plan trips I knew I couldn’t take right away. I continued to plan for my eventual retirement and long trips with extended visits to friends and family members all over the world.
I used my tried and true research methods—online reviews of sites, official government tourism pages, other blogs, my favorite travelers, movies and books written in, or set in, the places I wanted to visit, all the tried and true methods of learning about the places in my dreams.
Then I discovered that one of the responses of many places was to put those places online—virtual tours unlike that were common before. Drones obviously made this much easier, but it has opened up a whole new world for those who are unable, unwilling, or uninterested in actual travel—armchair travel.
I remember the first experience I had of the sort of thing I am talking about—Andrea Bocelli performing an Easter concert at the empty Cathedral in Milan. I’ve visited the Duomo, so I was able to look back inside my memory for my own visceral reactions to the place.
And then the empty Milan streets, the quiet parks. It touched my soul. I realized that those types of virtual experiences could offer us some relief from our isolation, could offer us some glimpse into other worlds, could offer us a means of experiencing the outside world—from the safety of our own homes.
Since that experience, I’ve found dozens, if not hundreds, of virtual tours of cities, countries, neighborhoods, and wildernesses. They are inspiring me even in this time of enforced isolation.
I will not replace actual travel with armchair travel, but I will keep armchair travel as one of my life hacks in my new normal. Closely related to armchair travel, and often part of the same experience, is virtual museum visits and streaming productions.
- Sharing virtual museum visits and streaming productions
Like the armchair travel, virtual museum visits don’t replace the real thing for me, but they do give me a chance to get inspired, to research, and to explore during this time of no travel. Similarly, virtual concerts and productions won’t replace live events, but they offered a way to share experiences with family and friends when we couldn’t be together.
Since my family is literally scattered all over North America, and my friends live all over the world, the opportunity to go see exhibitions at museums they are seeing, or attend events ‘with’ them is a fun way to share.
For Christmas, one of the gifts I gave my mom and brother was tickets to Trans-siberian Orchestra’s Livestream holiday concert. We all logged in (in our 3 time zones) on the Friday night before Christmas, and watched the show together. We texted our comments, like we might have whispered them to each other if we were together. It was a great chance to start the holiday season off ‘together’.
My brother and I are also Lookkingglass Theater subscribers, and they streamed numerous events during the shutdown, so we didn’t have to go completely dark for the whole season.
With a far flung family and friend network, the chance to share concerts and virtual experiences will remain part of our new normal.
What stay-at-home life hacks will you be keeping in your new normal?