Welcome to 2020, the year of the great new pandemic. Whether it was created in a lab in Wuhan, China, or it just suddenly appeared in a market there, it is here, and we have to deal with it. I left my job in a very public market a little over a month ago, and my husband left his job in construction about 2 weeks ago. We found ourselves in a quandry. What now? What do we do with ourselves and being jammed up at home? Every sneeze and cough is a fear factor.

Where we live, we are so far removed from everything. We already live a fairly reclusive life. We are living in a resort, a few hundred feet off of the Snake River, but for most people who live in the city limits, it must seem frightening. When we go into town, there are people wearing masks, and it all seems so strange. It’s like we plunged into an episode of “The Twilight Zone.”

Where do you find yourself in this direst of times? We found ourselves staring at our porch steps and realizing they need repainted, staring at our solar lights and knowing that they needed to be replaced, staring at our lawn and knowing that it needs serious upkeep. So, that’s what we did.

Mike, my husband, went the extra mile and wired a bunch of exterior outlets around the entire house so that he could plug in the leaf blower anywhere. This worked out to be a big plus for me when I sanded the 3 porch decks and steps with my palm sander to prep them for paint. I finally finished today when I repainted the front porch steps. It’s a beautiful color that almost matches perfectly to the body of the house paint.

Amongst other things, we have found the time that we didn’t have before to rehearse a bunch of new songs for gigs that we don’t have. There is nowhere to play music at, and no one to play for. Regardless, we have had ample time to rehearse two or sometimes three times a week. I have also found the time to read, “To Kill A Mockingbird.” It is a book that I have been meaning to read for years and suddenly find that I have the time to sit down and read it, I’m about 1/2 way through.

We have watched a boatload of movies that we never would have taken the time to watch before. Some were good, and some were bad or strange. Welcome to the current status of our ability to watch movies at home. We have played tons of games of cribbage and trivia, Uno and 10,000. I have also dropped myself into cooking again. I am cooking all sorts of recipes that I have never had the time to do before. I am also working on a painting that I have been stalled on for months. Who knows? I may finally finish it. That is only going to happen if I can get myself away from the Prime Video series I have jumped into, thank you to BBC and “Silent Witness”.

At the end of the day, we are good. This has been a strange esoteric example of how people would react to being homebound when they are not used to it. Only those in the government really know what’s truly going on and we are at their whim and control. What a lovely feeling!

Where are we at tomorrow? I feel lost. I feel like everything is surreal. Any day now, I am going to wake up and realize that this has all been a bad dream. I will suddenly be aware, have my job back, Mike will be at work, and everything will be back to normal. Fortunately, things are slowly returning to normal, whatever that is. Mike is going back to work on Monday, I am back to working on the magazine, the house is in great shape, and all is well.

I hope this article finds you all well and happy. I hope it finds you spending much needed time with your family. I hope it finds you doing those projects that you haven’t done, but you said you would for months or years. At the end of the day, I hope it is drawing you closer. Have a peaceful day from Idaho Gazette.