As someone who has worked part-time from her house for some 20 years now, there is not much difference in my routines just because we are self-quarantined. Important for me is structure. Regular times I am in my home office and a time window where I will answer the phone (but I way prefer emails).
The new adventure is ordering grocery deliveries online. Planning many days in advance is best, since store deliveries are backed up. We just got our Costco order made about 5 days ago. So happy! Also you can get weekly deliveries of vegetables from various services. I just got my first vegetable order from Imperfect Foods and they all look fine to me. Slightly different sizes of onions and one broken stalk on a celery bunch but perfecty edible. [UPDATE 25-Mar-2020: my farmfreshtoyou box just came, what gorgeous produce! If you try them, please use my refer a friend code KITT4641 ]
Screenshot from kibbutzing a bridge match online at BridgeBase.com (BBO)
The other thing to get used to is playing bridge online at BridgeBase.com rather than in person at the weekly game at our club.
If you are a Beta tester at Ancestry DNA there is a wonderful new feature to play with where you can link your DNA relatives to your own tree. As soon as more people have that I will blog about it.
By the way I have been posting one flower picture a day from my garden on Instagram and from there to FaceBook.
As things continue to slow down, it might be fun to catch up on reading and educational video viewing (like the recent Rootstech videos or soon the i4GG videos)
I just got an email from Nature.com which listed a number of their prescient articles which review and summarize books about plague and such. Here are a few of those that sound like interesting reading:
- “Historian Frank Snowden argues that infectious diseases have shaped social evolution no less powerfully than have wars, revolutions and economic crises. (5 min read, from 2019)
- “The story of the race to stop a plague epidemic in San Francisco that broke out in 1900 is a rich history of epidemiology, political wrangling and scientific denialism. (6 min read, from 2019)
- “The 1918 influenza pandemic probably infected 500 million people — one-third of the world’s population at the time. There was a wide-ranging failure of medicine and governments — which is one reason why its history has been long neglected. (5 min read, from 2017)”
Hope you are all well and managing life in this crisis.
Kitty,
With our country in such desperate need for COVID19 test kits, is there nothing our DNA testing companies can do to convert their DNA test kits to COVID19 testing?
Arlene
Glad to find you are finding ways to keep busy and happy, Kitty. Like you, I spend most of my time in my home, so this is not difficult. My husband, on the other hand, is going nutso, not being able to golf. In addition to all the genealogical ways to keep busy, I also have mailing lists for my extended cousins on several branches of my tree, that I use to correspond with them about on new discoveries, etc. Now that everyone worldwide has more time on their hands, I’m finding that correspondence with them has taken on a more personal (less genealogical) note… definitely a good thing!
I’m also experimenting with finding new ways to cook things. Thank goodness for google and the ability to put a list of ingredients in the search box and see what comes up!
I’m also picking up the phone more to call many of the people I play ukulele with, just to keep in touch and see how everyone is doing. I’m not much of a phone person, so this is a challenge, but it’s nice to hear the delight in people’s voices when they realize this call is not from a telemarketer!
All good ways to pick up the social side of things while this period of isolation goes on.
Have you tried a zoom meeting for the ukulele players?
I envy those of you with extra time on your hands.i am busier than ever. So many people staying home doing genealogy and DNA!
People are being inventive, bot for themselves and others. It’s great.
We’re keeping in touch with distant relatives and friends. And they tell us things they don’t normally think to mention. So that has been good.
Looking back to past relatives, two at least of mine lie in a plague pit somewhere near Glasgow as they died in the 1832 cholera epidemic and there was no time to list their names formally – although they were probably counted. Three sons in their early to mid teens managed to complete their apprenticeships and support each other while working the then standard 13 hour, 6 day week. With no ties to hold them, they moved away, still supporting each other. Making a base in London, before trying Australia (success) and the Caribbean (not as good, so moved to Australia).
Most of my other ancestors came following the wet years of 1845 on, which damaged crops all over northern Europe for several seasons. The miners relied on their extensive kitchen gardens for food to eke out their meagre income, and when the potatoes failed, they could no longer make a go of it, so took free passage to Australia. The farmers hung on for a little longer but packed up and paid their way. And a few came because they had TB and Australia was healthier.
So, all up, whether it is cholera, TB or potato virus and wheat smuts and rust, most of my ancestors emigrated to get away from disease.
By the way, that first Nature article is good, but could have added that 1848 was another cholera year.