Well, we’ve had another week of mostly beautiful weather. Other than that… I think my husband has correctly labeled this time the doldrums. We’ve “settled in” to this quarantine pandemic life for the most part now, but any time I look out very far and realize we aren’t near the end of this gets me down. The fact that this is going to be normal for a long time yet is hard. But it is what it is, I suppose.

On a more positive note, we’ve gotten into a routine where we have a Zoom call with our old neighbors almost every weekend. Considering the last time we saw them was December and the next time will be who knows when or where, it feels good to be able to connect more than just group texts. So I’ll give this stage of life that, at least.

Friday’s Frugal Five

1. So, we went camping last weekend!

Okay, so we went camping on my parents’ property in their backyard. Still, we were able to have a social distanced dinner and breakfast with them, roasted marshmallows over the fire, and slept in our tent, waking up to the chirping of birds the next morning.

While it maybe wasn’t a true adventure like we’re used to, just sleeping in our tent somewhere other than our own home felt really great. I expected to have a good time, but I didn’t realize quite how much it would feed my soul. My mother also cooked breakfast for us, dropped it outside on a tray, and we ate in the grass a bit of a distance from their back deck. So really, the weekend fed my belly as well.

Bob joined us as well, sitting separately from us and sleeping in the back of his truck, and it was the first time we’d seen him since this whole quarantine thing started. We sure did miss him. And then he, my sister, and I did a yoga video on YouTube together in the grass before dinner in the sunshine, spreading our mats out (and having them rely on my poses because the screen was too far away to see).

2. We’ve been doing a great job making enough food for lunch leftovers, and I’ve been doing a good job of actually eating them. It cuts down on food waste, and it means on the days I’m busy with too many Zoom meetings and work phone calls that I don’t have to think about what to have for lunch.

I also made pancakes for breakfast on Saturday and packed up the leftovers, reheating them for the kiddo and me for weekday mornings. Flour is precious right now, so I wasn’t going to let the pancake mix go to waste, but it also made for a great easy weekday breakfast by heating them back up in the toaster.

3. I shared more garlic greens with neighbors this past week. One neighbor does a lot of work with a local food bank and associated charities, and she was able to take a few bunches with her and drop them off with the food deliveries. My garlic starts are now growing in a number of different gardens, and it feels amazing.

Sharing produce from my garden is my love language, and that community connection feels that much more important now than it ever has. I’ve expanded my garden yet again, and will be sharing more as other plants grow ready for harvest and transplant.

4. I’m back to hanging most of our laundry out on the line on our back deck, thanks to the great weather. We’ve had some rain at night and I’ve done a (mostly) good job with bringing the clothes in from the line before they get rained on. When I don’t, they just end up hanging out for a couple more days drying for a second time.

Part of continuing my clothes buying ban is treating my clothing with care, and minimizing the number of trips through the dryer is a big part of that. Of course, skipping the dryer is also the ecofrugal answer when it comes to both energy use and utility cost. .

5. Our roommate lost job. He’s a machinist who worked for a company that supplies materials, in large part, to Boeing. The day before Boeing announced they were cutting a huge number of their jobs, his company laid off half of their employees. While this didn’t come as a huge shock, we were hoping the rest of their orders would be enough to hang on. As this recession and pandemic lags on, more and more jobs are lost, and now our household has been impacted on a personal level.

While our roommate has money to pay us rent for some months without a job (thanks in part to my constant nagging to fill his emergency fund), I told him that we wouldn’t have him pay for his share of the groceries this past month. We’ve been limiting trips and buying as a household, so now that we’re covering his portion I’ll be showing an even higher grocery bill for our April spending report. We can afford it though, and it seems like the fair thing to do while he is out of work.

Exercise Update

My daily yoga routine continues, now clocking in at thirteen days in a row of a minimum twenty minute yoga video. Daily walks are also still happening, either by myself, with the husband and kiddo, and/or without the dogs. As always, I am so thankful for our backyard trails (and a low enough population density that they aren’t too crowded to social distance easily).

I did get in a twenty minute run on Sunday, but that was the only one of the week. The rest of week got away from me somehow, so I’ll make sure to get another run in this weekend as well as next week. My heel hasn’t minded a slower week there though, so it’s not all bad.

How was your week? Are you feeling the doldrums, like we are over here?