leisure

Quarantine Boredom Busters – for adults!

Juli

Social media is being inundated with ideas of how to occupy your children while they’re out of school/in quarantine this spring. But what about you? You might be juggling working from home and trying to help your kids with their distance learning, but in the event you have free time and can no longer socialize or go out on errands, what could you do?

Here are some ideas for beating quarantine boredom.

I’m an introvert – I’m essentially an expert on staying home and occupying myself!

Learn a language
Or brush up on the one you learned in high school. Many local libraries have free access to https://www.duolingo.com/ or other language learning websites/apps. Maybe you even still have your old workbooks gathering dust in the basement. Now’s the time! (Double down and teach it to your kids or spouse or pet, too.)

Declutter
If you’ve been meaning to get on this minimalism bandwagon (or you did so several years ago and the clutter has crept back in…. hahem…) now is a great time. Plus you’ll be sitting in your house looking at all this STUFF that makes you irritated – great time to get rid of it!
I have a dedicated “purge” closet where I toss anything I find on a given day that I want to declutter. It’s probably best in the event of a multi-week quarantine declutter to have a dedicated space. I guarantee you’ll find more than a tote full of stuff!

Little home improvement projects
Have painting you’ve been neglecting? New hardware to put up in the kitchen? A piece of trim that’s come loose? Outlet covers to replace?

Catch up on memory keeping
Whatever it is that you do – order printed photos online? Scrapbook? Baby books that are years past current (raises hand!)

Cook/bake
I think a lot of us secretly enjoy cooking or baking, but not in the “just got home from work and have to make dinner” kind of way. Take the opportunity to try fun recipes if you can find the ingredients. Or start some sourdough bread (takes hardly any ingredients!) Get creative with weird pantry items you find way in the back.

Work on that TBR list
What?! You don’t HAVE a TBR (too be read) list??? Time to get one, I guess.
I have a TBR shelf. Bookshelf. Two 6-foot-tall bookshelves. =)

Start your garden
Every year, we pledge to start our garden earlier. We never find the time until late May, so our veggies never really get a good start and never produce much. If you’re finding yourself at home for the majority of spring, order some seeds and get them started indoors! (You can garden in flowerpots if you’re an apartment dweller.)

Spring Cleaning
I know, I know, that doesn’t sound fun. But might as well pick one small thing a day and get it done. Baseboards one day? Dust ceiling fans one day? Scrub off kitchen cabinets, clean the inside of your washing machine, vacuum under the couch cushions… you get the idea. It should take 10-15 minutes to do one of those, and by the end of three weeks your house will be SO. CLEAN.

Any more adult boredom-busters to share? Leave a comment! We’re all in this together.

Unusual Sanity-Savers for Mom

Juli

I don’t do much in the “usual” fashion – mothering, or the rest of my life.

So “normal” moms might do things like spa days, girls’ nights, color-coding… that’s not my jam.  Here are some sanity-savers I use in my house that might be more eccentric.

tea and lavender - unusual sanity savers for moms

I don’t fold half the laundry.

Seriously, why?  Have you ever stopped to consider WHY you fold laundry?
Some things get wrinkly if they’re not folded – fine.  But my underwear?  My toddler’s socks?  The washcloths? None of that needs folding, truly, and it saves so much time not to!  I don’t fold my pants and shirts, either; I hang them up.

Afternoon coffee.

My 4-year-old is an early bird, and I am definitely NOT.  So a peaceful cup of morning coffee sans-kiddos is not ever going to happen in my life.
Instead, I take my big huge mug of coffee during nap time in the afternoon.  Then I can truly sit down and unwind without any crazy background antics going on.  For maximum effect, take with a healthy portion of chocolate.

Dum Dums

Yes, I dare to give my kids artificial colors and flavors and sugars, in the middle of 2018 parenting.  If I have an important errand to run, or something goes long, or it would be very inappropriate to deal with a meltdown (Good Friday church, for example) I hand my little boys Dum Dum suckers and say a little prayer for the health of their teeth.  It keeps them quiet for about ten minutes, so maybe I can use my brain to figure out something in a store, or can deal with a car repair, or can make a phone call.

Subscriptions

I can’t be bothered to remember things like razors and shaving cream so I use Dollar Shave Club.

I can’t remember diapers and wipes, either (nor can I fit them in a cart with three small children!) so I have them automatically shipped from Target and Amazon, respectively.  Also on my Amazon subscriptions are such gems as pee mats for the dog, dishwasher tabs, my tea, mascara, and M&Ms.  Not kidding.

There are subscription services for so many things these days – even clothing and shoes, if you find you don’t have time or desire to keep up with clothing yourself.  Whatever you can take off your plate for no or small additional cost, go for it!

Extremely Routine Meal Planning

I serve the same kind of food on the same day of the week, every week.

Sunday: Something using the fresh groceries (experiment new recipe night)
Monday: Rice, meat, veggie
Tuesday: Tacos (or nachos, quesadillas, etc)
Wednesday: Pasta
Thursday: Sandwiches or Breakfast for dinner
Friday: Pizza
Saturday: Pasta

Every. Single. Week.  Meal planning saves you from thinking about meals at 4 pm: my way saves me from thinking about meal planning.  I can vary things like meats and vegetables and sauces based on what was on sale at the grocery store, but the framework is there.  My kids enjoy it, too, since they always know what’s for dinner.

Extremely Routine Entertaining / Vacationing

I throw the same parties, over and over.  Every single 4th of July, I throw an identical party with the same food, same beverages, same lawn games.  Every Christmas gathering I throw is the same, every year.  Every kids’ first birthday party has the same food and cake, just decorated differently around a loose theme (but every theme is a children’s book, so still very similar!)

Every group vacation, I bring the same food and entertainment to contribute.  Every camping trip, we plan and eat the same food.  I even pack the same clothes for any vacation of similar temperature.

I even do identical activities every Advent with my family, every Hanukkah season, etc.  I make the same treats to share every holiday season.  Holiday traditions are secretly easy ways to have fun without thinking too hard.

These parties, vacations, etc are only planned once a year, so it’s not super repetitious or obvious that I’m doing the same thing as last year.  I keep permanent lists for packing and grocery shopping, permanent record of how many batches I need to bake, how many paper goods to have on hand, the whole nine yards.  When the event or trip is coming up, I whip out my lists and just do the same thing I did last time.

With all those tips, am I totally sane now?

Of course not.  I have four kids – I am obviously nuts.  But at least I can keep some of the crazies at bay, find a few minutes of me-time, and celebrate events without being completely berserk.  Worth it!

Anything unusual you do to keep your sanity?  Share!

 

Bringing Vacation Home

admin

Is there such a thing as an adult who does not enjoy vacation?
I went on a little New Years’ getaway with my husband and our best friends, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes vacation so wonderful, and how to incorporate some of that into my daily life.  I’ve come upon a few different concepts.

From our recent vacation – relaxing in the middle of nowhere.

Relaxing, minimalist environment
Think about what made the vacation so relaxing.  Was it that your space was clean?  That you were living with just a suitcase of possessions and no clutter?  Odds are good you were even living in a significantly smaller space than usual, possibly even with extra people, yet the hotel room/cabin/condo was relaxing.
This is great to replicate at home!  Living with fewer possessions naturally helps your space stay cleaner.  I will forever be indebted to the Kon Mari method of decluttering for making my home more peaceful and easier to keep picked up.  Consider a capsule wardrobe to replicate the limited options of a suitcase (and the ease of dressing that comes with it!)

Fresh linens
That may seem super small, but really.  When’s the last time you changed your sheets and washed your throw blankets and bleached your towels? (I keep white towels for this reason.)  Try it, and really pay attention to the sensation of sinking into fresh linens – savor it!  (By extension, all your nicely folded laundry in your suitcase?  Ey?) If you find this as valuable as I do, plan it into your housekeeping!

Pre-planned activities
Now, this is probably personal preference,  but I usually  have some pre-planned activities on vacation.  On this recent vacation, we brought along decks of cards to play our favorite game, one board game the husbands specifically like, and books and facemasks for the wives.  Nothing fancy, nothing that involved leaving the couch.  The aspect of this that makes the day so enjoyable is that there was no sitting around saying, “What should we do?  I dunno.  What do you want to do?  I dunno.”
Consider planning your leisure once you’re back home – would you like to read a book in the evenings? Journal in the mornings?  Have a family movie night?  I have actually taken to pre-planning my leisure activities for my miracle mornings and for my evenings after the kids go to bed, and it’s great.

Personal growth time
Like I said, this recent vacation included intentional book-reading.  For me, leisure reading is a part of self care and personal growth, because I truly love reading (like in the depths of my soul, love, reading.  #nerd)
Odds are good that during a vacation, you take more time for these kinds of activities.  Perhaps hiking is your personal growth.  Maybe meditating.  Some people probably experience personal growth by touring important landmarks or museums.  Whatever it is that feeds your spirit, you’ve probably made up your mind and planned to do it during your official vacation.
You should really do that kind of stuff during your regular days.  Seriously.

Moments of complete stillness
There are moments in vacation where absolutely nothing is going on.  Nothing is calling your attention.  Nothing needs to be cleaned or cooked or put away.  Those moments may be in an art gallery, in your hotel room in the wee hours, sitting on a beach kid-free, or doing a face mask on a couch while your husbands play a board game.
See if you can recreate those moments in your daily home life.  For me, those moments exist at 6:00 am (after my husband has left for work, my kids are still soundly asleep, and I’m alone in my office with a cup of coffee) but you can jam them anywhere.  On a commute using public transport, on a walk, etc.

Pick one thing to try – make your daily life more like a vacation.  Maybe commit to it for 2 weeks.  Write it down.  Plan it out. 
Share what you’re going to try or what you already do!

P.S. – we used Air BnB to book our vacation, and it worked like a charm!  I even got email copies of text messages sent by our host.  Recommend!
(Not sponsered.  I wish!)