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Self Isolation Day 9: Student Loan Confusion

23 Mar

Nothing special happened today. No epic cleaning or organizing took place, no big project completed, it was just a normal day. Well, normal in the way of our new normal.

I started the day with a headache which had me going back to bed in the hopes of sleeping it off. I only have 4 Advil left and I feel this strong need to hoard them, make sure I have them if something worse than a headache comes along. The nap did help the headache go away, which makes me glad I didn’t pop that pill.

Once I was up for the day I did some work online, had a lot of cat cuddles, watched more Criminal Minds, I am now on Season 3 if anyone cares. Of course there was time spent scrolling through social media and a happy thing that came of that was a friend I hadn’t talked to in ages and I reconnected. It is 100% my fault we stopped messaging each other and I’m so grateful she is a better person than I and forgives my having been an ass. I’ve really missed her. Once all this chaos is over we have agreed one of us will fly to visit the other, she is in Los Angeles, so not that far away when we aren’t in the middle of a pandemic. Or are we not in the middle yet? Are we still considered to be at the beginning of it? Oh now that’s a depressing thought…quick! insert cat pictures!

I came across someone who is in an Acting Vancouver BC group on Facebook who is looking for people to collaborate with. Not in person right now, obviously, but eventually, when people can hang out again. So I reached out and we chatted for a bit. He has a good director demo reel and we’re gonna keep in touch. It may turn in to nothing but it doesn’t hurt to try.

My one thing I really wanted to accomplish today was to chat with someone at the NSLSC, the National Student Loan Services Centre. They have on their website a big ‘ol banner saying if you are repaying a student loan you don’t have to make payments, and interest will not accrue, until the end of September, which is amazing and makes me so happy. But! When I was checking my email I have an email from them, auto generated, informing me of my new monthly payment. So uh, do I have to pay or not? And if I do have to pay, what date within the month is the payment due? I tried calling, and the first time it cut off. The second time I got their incredibly annoying automated system and couldn’t get an option to get to a human, and their system eventually hung up on me. I called back and had something similar happen. So I called back again and eventually got the system to give me an option to talk to a person, I selected that option and the system informed me they are having technical issues, I can’t talk to a person today, and hung up on me.

Not wanting to give up I went back to their website and saw a message saying they are performing maintenance and their system is temporarily unavailable. They really didn’t want to talk to people today! I’ll try again tomorrow, not like I don’t have the time lol.

Let’s see, what else…I found a 28 day fitness challenge I shared with my Dragon Boat team. So far only one person has decided to do it with me (well, with me but not physically with me cause ya know, social distancing!). We start tomorrow, feel free to join in!

day 9c

Oh, and I finally cracked open the alcohol. I’m not a big drinker, and purposefully didn’t drink during these past days because it seemed the wrong time to start drinking alone in my basement suite. Today though, well, why not? The Heather Ale was delicious and I highly recommend it.

day 9a

My take away from today is that some days you may have a plan, a specific thing you intend to accomplish, but not everything is in your control and maybe you can’t complete that task you set yourself to. When that happens just chill, grab a drink, pop something fun on the screen to watch, and hug a cat, you can try again tomorrow so no reason to let it bring you down today. 🙂

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Self Isolation Day 8: Adulting, Sort-Of

22 Mar

Today I adulted, well, sort-of.

My part-time job has arranged for staff to be able to work from home so this morning I worked. The whole thing was done via Zoom and it felt odd being able to see so many people I know, and chat with them, almost like before Covid, only of course not quite. That only took an hour or so, with an additional 15 minutes  spent chatting with a co-worker about non-work things after the work stuff was done.

Then I had a training webinar for 90 minutes a bit later, for the same company, but with different people.

All of this meant that instead of sleeping in until who knows when and spending the day looking completely frumpy I had to get my butt out of bed and from the waist up look like an adult, a business casual adult.

Full disclosure, I was still in my pj bottoms and slippers the entire time, and it was glorious.

This is more what I thought working from home would be like.

I think the early start wouldn’t have seemed so bad except at 3:45am Striker, cat extraordinaire, decided he just had to run around the apartment at full speed, running in to his water dish, making it crash in to his food dish, making a sound so loud I had to get up to make sure nothing broke. Which had me walking right in to the puddle of water he created when he ran in to the dishes. And while I was cleaning his mess he decided it was the perfect time to sing the song of his people, loudly.

It was glorious, really. Practically operatic.

Lemme tell ya, after all that, 8:30am came quick!

After the work portion of my day I didn’t do all that much. I had one of those days where I felt hungry all the time so I distracted myself from endless snacking with episodes of Criminal Minds. I meant to clean but didn’t manage to get around to it…oops?

Since I’m not allowed to go out I used Instacart to order my groceries. It took three days of trying before I could get a time slot and when one finally was available it was for delivery between 10pm and 11pm tonight. So of course I was super tired and this was the one night I wanted to go to bed early.

The guy who did the shopping was great! Kept in touch via the app to see what replacement item I wanted when one of the things on my list was unavailable. He also let me know that the store was completely out of eggs.

What’s with the run on eggs people? Are eggs the new toilet paper?

When he arrived with my groceries he wouldn’t hand the bags to me directly, instead he put them on the ground, which I completely understand. He was all gloved and masked up, granted, one of those masks that is actually worse to wear than having no mask on at all, but if it makes him feel better I guess I’ll try to not judge. The guy did bring me my groceries after all.

Today was a much better day, even if I didn’t get to go outside. I’m not sure why…was it getting up and working, or putting some make up on (just the bare minimum so I wouldn’t look horrible on Zoom), or getting to see people and in a way talk face-to-face with them?

Whatever it was, I’m grateful for today, it was a good one. 🙂

day 8

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Self Isolation Day 7: Half Way There

21 Mar

Day 7, who knew 7 days could take so long to pass?

I’m equal parts “woohoo, half way done!” and “omg, there are still 7 more days left of this”.

I decided to treat today like a normal day off, so, like how last Saturday was…it is crazy to think how fast everything changed!

I slept in, woke up to the cat plotting my demise, by this I mean I woke up laying on my back, cat on my chest, one of his paws on my mouth. Not lightly resting, more a heavy weighted paw, on my mouth, while he stared right at me. What may be even weirder is that when I woke up and saw this I just figured ok, and closed my eyes again. Who am I to interrupt whatever the cat is up to?

Anyways! After I finally got up I stayed in pj’s for a while, ate a bit, watched Criminal Minds Season 2 (I’m re-watching the entire series), read part of a book, rented a movie, checked out social media, and not too much more.

Well, I did also do some work training for my part time job in preparation for a work meeting I am attending on Zoom tomorrow morning.

It feels wrong that the most productive part of my day was an online training module, something that still had zero contact with humanity. I tested out my laptop with Zoom, made sure my microphone was working ok and when I popped up on screen I waved to myself. It has been so long since I’ve had contact with people I waved to myself.

Today was a day in the Before Time I would have loved, would have wallowed in, would have enjoyed every moment of, and I would have been sad when it was done. Now, today was so similar in so many ways to every day of the previous week it doesn’t stand out as any different. Except I didn’t get to go for a walk today, I’m not allowed to do those anymore. I am well and truly stuck inside this basement suite, for 7 more days.

You may be happy to hear the plants I mentioned in yesterday’s post are doing ok. I was going to say they are doing well but that seems a tad optimistic. They are all drinking, which I take as a good sign, and the one with the extra crispy leaves, remember him? His leaves aren’t quite so dry and crispy today.

So yeah, to recap, I haven’t killed the plants yet, I did nothing of interest today, and by accident I sat on the cat, something I am still making amends for.  That my friends, is how Day 7 of Self Isolation is going. Woohoo!

day 7

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Self Isolation Day 6: Re-Potting Plants

20 Mar

I wanted to make a video of my attempt at re-potting plants, and well, I did, it just isn’t all that good.

However, it took a while to make, then edit, then get uploaded, so now you’re stuck with it. After all that effort I’m using it regardless, we’ll just have to look at this as a learning situation…for me.

Don’t worry, it’s only four and a half minutes, you aren’t going to lose oodles of time watching it, if you watch it at all!

I was gifted these plants end of last summer and they usually live on the windowsill at my work. They’ve been looking pretty rough though so I brought them home for re-potting. Lucky for the plants I did as two days after bringing them home I was put into self-isolation and I’m 100% positive they would not have survived being ignored for 14 days.

I’m not sure if they’ll survive until I can take them back to work, poor little things. See, I live in a basement suite with two very tiny windows that get almost zero sunlight thanks to fences. These plants are getting zero sunshine while home with me. But at least today they got new pots, and potting soil, and a bit of a chance at life.

One of them I think is too far gone, it’s leaves are quite crispy. They didn’t fall off though as I was handling it which I have decided to take as a sign that it is a fighter and wants another chance. None of them look particularly good right now, which means if they make it I’ll have some great before and after pictures to share lol.

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Self Isolation Day 5:Work An Stuff

19 Mar

Ok so while I’ve been working all this time, today I got more done than on the previous days. Glitches were fixed, I was able to access what I needed, it was good.

Still, the amount of work I can do from home only takes up so much of my day. When not working I did some projects around the apartment, personal paperwork type stuff so nothing to take a fun picture of.

I also took a quiz to see which Disney duo best matches my best friend and I, apparently we are Peter Pan and Tinkerbell…

Very scientific obviously. We aren’t sure which of us is supposed to be Peter Pan and which is supposed to be Tinkerbell but do sort of agree with the description.

There was The Look I kept getting when trying to work…

day 5b

Not. Impressed.

There was an unhappy cat for a while today as my laptop was right exactly where he wanted to be, on my lap. At one point I left him curled up on the chair with the cushion and heating pad, sound asleep, and moved myself and the laptop into the bedroom so I could work sitting at a desk and he followed me in just to glare at me. He also at one point jumped onto my lap and sprawled on my right arm drastically reducing the speed at which I could type but if you think I moved him out of the way you are obviously insane. He eventually moved to the bed and glared at me from a distance. Letting me know just how much of a disappointment I was being to him.

I went out for my daily stroll, today I took a trail that gets me to the ocean where I took this picture…

day 5c

A reminder for all those full on stuck inside that the outside is still there waiting for you.

Honestly, today I didn’t do much. I’m trying to actively not think too much about how many changes have happened and may still happen to how society runs, because the idea of walking into grocery stores and seeing empty shelves, or not being able to go see my parents, or being stuck inside for longer than 14 days, kinda freaks me out.

To combat the freaking out I have submerged myself in to cheesy 80s movies because I get distracted by the hair, and the clothes, and the makeup, and the lack of technology. I watched 3 Men and a Baby and have so many questions!

Was it really ok to have a baby in a car seat in the front of the car in the 80s?

Why do they keep showing off all the guy’s chest hair, do they think people find that attractive?

What’s with the super short running shorts the guys are wearing? And why are they all oiled up?

If the guys didn’t want to lose the kid why didn’t they just call social services on the mom?

Did nobody the mom knew notice she all of a sudden didn’t have a baby?

Was it common to have three guys, who I’m guessing were supposed to be in their mid 30s, be roommates? Is that a New York thing?

Did you not need a plane ticket to get past security in the 80’s? They got through just fine even though none of them were flying and were doing the classic trying to catch someone before they get on a flight thing. But in movies now when people try that they always have to buy a ticket to get through…or sneak through like the kid in Love Actually. Were airport rules different back then?

See? Oh so many questions!

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Self Isolation Day 4: Cooking Happened

18 Mar

Well, it’s always good to know for sure the smoke detector works, right? Mine, in case you were wondering, works perfectly, maybe even a little too perfectly.

I realized today, on day 4 of avoiding humanity, that I don’t need to have a quick bowl of cereal or oatmeal for breakfast but that I could take my time and make something. I intended to make egg on toast but somehow that changed to pancakes.

When I organized the pantry yesterday I pulled out an open box of Aunt Jemima pancake mix. I left it out because there was not much left in the box, so today when I saw the box on the counter it felt like pancakes were meant to be. The universe told me so!

However, according to the box you need 1 1/4 Cups of the mix and I only had 1/4 Cup. A tad short. Instead of doing math to figure out how much I had to cut the milk and egg down to I topped up the mix with Kodiak Cake Mix.

In total I used one cup of combined pancake and kodiak mix, one egg (because why not?) and almost one cup of water. In retrospect I should have either used less water or more kodiak mix, or even just cut the egg I suppose. But I didn’t, and the end result was the runniest pancake mix I’ve ever seen.

I am a fluffy thick pancake type of person and what I got was these…

Possibly the thinnest, most pathetic pancakes every created.

They were however edible and not being a person who likes to waste food, they were my breakfast.

I worked for a while, then went for what may become my routine mid day walk, only this time I went on a trail instead of to the library and grocery store. There’s this outdoor pool I pass that had some very happy birds in it.

The ocean is a very short distance away but some prefer the pool I guess.

After I got home and worked some more I had to start thinking about dinner. I’m used to being fed at work and this whole making all my own meals thing is not something I’m enjoying. I figured on making some mac ‘n cheese but logic dictates I hold out on that. If I cook that today, on day four, then what happens on day 12 when I’m out of all the quick stuff and am forced to ya know, cook for real? I won’t have a choice! And who knows, maybe by then places won’t be delivering, then I’ll really be screwed.

So, I dug in the freezer and came up with something to cook, like a grown-up!

I made a jalapeño cheddar burger, with all the toppings, and fries, because every good burger needs fries.

I thought the burger would be spicier than it turned out to be but that’s ok because it tasted good and I’d rather the spicy food be tasty than be so spicy there is no flavour, ya know?

I don’t take good food pics, deal with it.

So yeah, four days in and I realized the folly of ordering in take out daily or cooking all the super easy food first. I also learned that super thin pancakes set off the smoke detector if you’re not careful. 😂

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Self Isolation Day 3: The Organizing Has Begun

17 Mar

Only three days in and I already started organizing.

I’ve decided the best way to go about this whole self-isolation thing is to try to maintain some sort of routine. My normal work shift is 10am-6pm so I’m getting up in time to be at my computer for 10am, which means I’m getting up around 9:45am, puttering my way to the bathroom, then the kitchen for a cup of tea, then to my laptop. At 10am this morning I didn’t have full access to be able to work remotely so while technically available to work I was physically incapable of working, so I sat in my cozy pjs, with a blanket over my lap, my laptop beside me, a cup of tea within reach, and watched YouTube.

Gotta say, it was the best way to start a work day!

Eventually IT called and got me online, sigh. So I caught up on emails, learned there is a glitch with my access so emailed IT for help, was told they will get to me tomorrow, and was pretty much done for the day, thanks to the glitch.

But now what?

The library had emailed me saying an item I had was overdue and I figured that for a legitimate reason to go outside, so out I went. I know I know, not exactly self-isolating but I don’t want a larger fine than I was already getting! I chose to walk to the library, get some sunshine and it was glorious. Warm but not hot, sunny but not sunny enough to burn me, the walk is a decent length so I can get a bit sweaty if I push it but not so long I regret taking it.

When I got to the library I was grateful I went today as there were signs up everywhere that after today the library would be closed. They were also only letting 50 people be in the library at a time and had signs requesting everyone form a line. It was the most orderly line I’ve ever seen. Not only were people standing in a line, but they kept themselves to one side so as to not block the sidewalk, and they all kept minimum an arm lengths away from each other. It was quite polite lol

After that I stopped at Safeway for a couple items I realized I did not have and saw the empty shelves for myself. Every other time I went in to a shop there might be shelves dangerously low on items but not empty. These were empty. Entire sections in the produce area were bare, and the apples they had were nasty looking. I ended up buying two apples from the organic section, desperate times call for desperate measures. Two apples cost me two bucks and change! These better be the best tasting apples I have ever had in my life.

After I grabbed my couple items I enjoyed one last walk in the sun home. And have been stuck inside ever since. sigh.

I hit a level of boredom that resulted in me taking every item out of my pantry, wiping them down, wiping down the inside of the pantry, and reorganizing the whole thing.

Then I did the same with the fridge.

If this is happening on Day 3 how much worse is it going to get? Am I going to start organizing my sock drawer or something?

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And yes I know, it still looks cluttered for something I said I organized, but c’mon, I have a tiny space to work with and two weeks worth of food is a lot, no matter what I did it still looked cluttered…just a cleaner cluttered lol

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Self Isolation: Day 1 & 2

16 Mar

Yesterday when at my part-time job I got exposed to two people who had flown back in to Canada within the past week. Which means I am not allowed to go to my full-time job for 14 days because I work with seniors and I can’t put them at risk.

At first I was all:

Yay, 14 days off, I’m gonna go to the gym every day, repot those dying plants, clean the apartment like it has never been cleaned before, paint two walls, and a bunch of other stuff.

That quickly changed to:

I don’t have enough projects to keep me busy for 14 days. I’m going to die of boredom.

Then I thought:

Just live like the cat, nap a lot, be chill, run around every so often, and eat when hungry not when bored. Who wouldn’t want to live like a cat?

That plan lasted until the morning of Day 2, which is today. Work is attempting to set me up with remote access. It hasn’t happened yet, until it does I am being emailed various things to work on. Annoying things. Things that make me wish for my work monitor as it is much larger than my home laptop. Plus, the cat is mad because I am home but not cuddling, instead my laptop is on my lap and I’m working. So he is now on my chair in the bedroom, pouting. When I poke my head in to check on him he glares at me.

So to recap, I am not at the gym, or working on projects in my apartment, because I am sort of working from home. I am not living the life of a cat because I can’t very well nap when work may call, plus, I’ve pissed off the cat which is earning me mega bad karma.

Not even the cat gets to cat normally.

Totally rocking this self-isolation thing huh?

Update!

The cat came, literally pushed the laptop out of his way, and cuddled on my chest for a bit. Looks like one of us is happy again. 🙂

striker day 2 self isolation

He looks unhappy but I swear he was purring!

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The Death of Math

13 Mar

I budget, as in sit down with a notebook, bill tracker, fun coloured pens, and a calculator, every paycheque and do actual math kind of budget.

I have a love hate relationship with the whole budgeting deal but whatcha gonna do? Somewhere along the way you become adult enough to realize you should properly track your money and that means budgeting.

This whole being an adult thing is such a scam. 😐

To make it suck a little less I use tools I like, because they are cute or in a fun colour or because they make me smile. It might seem childish using brightly coloured gel pens to track my bills but since I don’t recall being told I have to adult in a boring way I choose to adult my way. Which is more cute than boring, and yet still functional…mostly. 😉

Which is why I was sad today when working on the numbers to have my cute calculator die.

Don’t mind the ratty looking savings challenge behind the calculator.

Not all of it stopped working, just the addition button, so ya know, a mildly important button. 🙄 It even feels different when you push down on it so I guess something inside shifted? I dunno. I’ll probably never know, unless I get stuck in self-isolation at some point and am so bored I take the calculator apart…let’s hope that doesn’t happen ok?

It’s not the end of the world, I can use the calculator that’s in my phone, and at some point brave the shops to find a new cute calculator. But for now, in this apartment, I declare math dead (at least for that calculator) and I’m swapping my notebook and bill tracker and fun pens for a cup of tea and a cuddle with the cat. Buh-bye math, see you in a couple weeks!

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It’s A Hard Day For A Cat

7 Mar

Today has been such a hard day for Striker.

He stole my chair, pillow, blanket, and heating pad.

First I was here, on a day I’m usually at work, ruining whatever plans he may have had.

Then I kept getting up and down from the living room chair, ruining his afternoon nap, because of having to do things like switch loads of laundry, go to the bathroom, make something to eat. Ya know, normal things for me but useless activities from his point of view.

To make everything even worse I had the nerve to leave the apartment, without his permission, to buy groceries. I took longer than normal because I chose to walk to the store instead of drive, something I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want to face his wrath.

Now I’m back and instead of immediately settling down so he could cuddle on my lap I made dinner, and insisted on eating it! So rude I know. This of course delayed his evening nap.

Seriously harsh day for him.

For me though it wasn’t so bad, I did get to end it with a slice of homemade carrot cake which was delish.

Mmm, can’t go wrong with cake!

I will of course pay the price for eating the cake instead of providing cuddles, most likely punishment will come in the form of being jumped on in the night but hey, we lose an hour of sleep tonight so one less hour for Striker to get his revenge!

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