STAY-AT-HOME SURVIVAL TIPS: SUMMING IT UP

compiled from blog posts by Dana Costa

In the last two months our world has changed tremendously. Sixty days ago, most of us could not have imagined that our days would be filled with working from home, educating our children, and learning new phrases like “social distancing” and “stay-at-home orders.”

We have also learned the real meaning of the word essential. Essential means the front-line healthcare workers who are saving lives under extraordinary circumstances; it means the utility companies, truck drivers, delivery personnel, sanitation workers who keep us connect and fed and awash in stitching materials from our favorite LNS; essential means the grocery store workers who deal with toilet paper hoarders, handle dirty money, and restock the shelves so we can keep feeding our families; essential means quality time spent with people you love, and doing what you can to keep them safe and healthy.

Most days, the rest of it doesn’t seem to matter as much as it did before. But that doesn’t make it easy—physically or emotionally.

In five consecutive issues of StitchLife’s weekly e-newsletter, I put together Stay-at-Home Survival Tips, outlining how to cope, stay active, and help your family, your pets, and your neighbors.

If you missed all five articles, check out the StitchLife blog at www.stitchlifemag.com/stories, or continue reading for a summary.

Stay Active

Go outside—for a walk, start a garden, play with your dog in the yard. Get that vitamin D and get off the couch for a while. Give your home some TLC—clean out closets, wash those windows, move furniture around for a new perspective. Whatever it is, turn off the TV, turn on some music, and move around.

Get moving—find a great exercise program online, dance around your house to a guilty pleasure movie (may I suggest Mama Mia!), build a family obstacle course and have a Ninja Warrior competition...just put the phone down, walk away from your computer, and get that heart rate up!

Take Care of You

I’m a huge fan of the airplane safety information that instructs you to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others. Bottom line: You can’t help others if you aren’t taking care of yourself.

The National Institutes of Health put together a helpful reminder to cope during this incredibly stressful time.

If you need more help than just a few infographics, please find someone to talk to: a trusted friend, a professional therapist, a medical doctor, or spiritual advisor. Don’t bottle up your emotions. It’s OK to feel sadness, frustration, dispair...just try not to let those feelings control you.

Make the Most of Family Time

Families around the world are trying to figure out how to balance their homes being offices, schools, movie theaters, restaurants, dog parks, houses, and sometimes even doctors’ offices. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and even annoyed.

Make sure you have structure in your days so the day doesn’t become a blur of Netflix and Oreos. Create a family schedule that maps out when it’s time to do schoolwork or WFH, when it’s time to help around the house, when it’s time to have alone time, and when it’s time to go to bed (and get up!). Plan your weekly meals as a family and, if you are able, splurge with takeaway from your favorite local place. You won’t realize how much you all rely on routine until it is disrupted.

Help Others

There truly isn’t a better time to come together as a community to help each other. Sadly, we don’t often take the time to meet our neighbors so this may be a little awkward...and then

there’s the social distancing stuff. If you are comfortable doing so, why not leave a note on an older neighbor’s door offering to go to the grocery store or pharmacy for them so they don’t have to risk exposure. Drop fun gifts of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and a mask on someone’s doorstep with a note wishing them well. Don’t be creepy.

Not ready to be that people-y? Donate to a food bank, offer to foster a pet from your local shelter, volunteer to distribute meals to people in your town.

In the world we’re in now, the littlest things mean the most.

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