Quarantine Diaries

Oh, Mane Landers. In case you were looking for the count, it has officially been 27 days since we had any new Orlando City soccer in our lives, and it’s been three weeks since I’ve been anywhere that wasn’t on a walking path. I’m already going a little crazy, but I’m committed! How are your quarantines going? Come with if you will down my path of crazy.

Week One

The first week of staying home was technically our spring break. We enjoyed sleeping in, which turns out is only 8 a.m. at the latest after you hit age 30. We binged a few shows, most notably— Mythic Quest on Apple TV+. We laid around, I started DuoLingo to work on learning Spanish, porque mi español es muy malo. We also spent the weekend worried about work, so we emptied our entire pantry, checked expiration dates, and reorganized it.

Week Two

We got word that we would begin transitioning to teaching remotely and would spend our first week back to work engrossed in professional development learning about platforms and understanding the new curricula for the time away. The timeline that seemingly changes every day has since been extended to May. My DuoLingo practice paid off and I was able to help a parent that didn’t speak English, and she was very kind about my broken Spanish!

We had some bananas that were going bad, so I decided to try my hand and banana walnut muffins. It’s important that you all know my last “baking” attempt was about five years ago. I was preparing slice-and-bake sugar cookies, but I ended up with one giant sheet of cookie blob. My husband was rightfully worried to see the oven preheating. The muffins actually turned out pretty great, but the recipe I found yielded 24 and we only ate two. So very wasteful in a time we’re working really hard to make use of everything.

We cleaned the closets after the long days of sitting in front of the screen to keep us up and moving. Our one-year-old dog, Mina, was thrilled that we found her mini Orlando City soccer ball. We used to play with her all the time, but it had been lost. She’s a fabulous defender — she runs better backwards and it’s hard to get a shot past her. She cheats though. She can’t take the ball from us so she’ll just pick it up and run.

Week Three

With a successful batch of muffins under my belt, and seemingly endless days helping parents, teachers, and students navigate the online world of Microsoft Teams, I thought brownies from scratch would be easy. I followed a recipe perfectly. They looked and smelled so perfect coming out of the oven. Reader, these were the worst brownies I’ve ever tasted. They were so bitter and crumbly and no one was surprised they failed.

Yesterday I tried chocolate cupcakes. I burned the first batch. With supplies running low, I tried to cut the recipe in thirds, and that did not work. Who do I think I am trying to cut a recipe? I ruined the second batch that used the rest of my supplies. So, there’s that.

I continued to work on soccer skills with Mina, having none myself. I’ve gotten so many shots on target, but she just won’t let them in! I started bouncing the ball to her to see what she does, and she traps it out of the air then runs backwards with it. It’s quite precious, and I’ve been trying to get video, but she has a camera sense and completely shuts down when we pull it out.

Here’s a picture of her. We adopted her from a bad situation in Kentucky. Her dad was a beagle and her mom was half pug, half chihuahua and yes, she’s as weird looking as she sounds.

J. Glash, The Mane Land

Now, she’ll go grab the soccer ball and sit with it when she wants to play, which is all the time. We taught our dogs that sitting nicely is like saying please. Our older dog, Rory, is 12 and has no interest in toys anymore, or Mina for that matter. Without Rory to play with, Mina spends a lot of her day bringing us the ball and sitting nicely.

All this to say, my time in quarantine has mostly consisted of baking fails, counting food items, wiping everything down, and playing soccer with my dog. How are you all holding up? What have you found to keep you entertained and sane during your time at home?