We can do this! We have been training for this!
Staying home? Check. Not going to the store? Double-check.
Staying at home is great. As a family of individuals possessing introverted tendencies, home is a place to relax and recharge. Plus, as an added bonus, during the course of the pandemic, we upgraded our house. Since moving back to the Washington, DC area in 2018, we had rented a house. I was constantly on edge as the kids ran into walls, scraped the floors, and generally behaved as if they were kids. However, we have now purchased a house, about a half-mile away from our old place. Closing on the sale in July was a bit different than normal, with plexiglass between us and the escrow agent and masks worn all around.
We sent the kids to Boyscout Camp for a week.
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| Going camping to avoid moving stuff |
Then Dan and I drove back and forth the 1/2 mile between the two houses about 1,000 times, moving most of our stuff ourselves. We had some help from friends and their nifty trailer. And, for the 12 really heavy things we own, we hired movers. By the time the kids returned, we had set up their beds in their new rooms in their new house. Now, when the kids drop something heavy on the hardwood floors, I still exclaim, "No gouging!" But it is ok because they can help repair the dents all over the house this spring. It also doesn't affect a future return of a security deposit.
Shopping
What about not going to the store? We have been preparing for this since 2003! Back in November 2002, Dan and I got married. Since he had a nicer apartment at the time, I moved my stuff into his place. However, as he already lived there, my stuff ended up kind of stacked around the living room. So we started looking for a home where we could move all of the things together. We ended up purchasing a one-bedroom plus den condo in early 2003. It was on the 8th floor of the multi-unit building and worked out splendidly. We were able to move our stuff in and integrate it as we did so. Plus, we had the whole extra den room that we decided to use as a guest bedroom. That's when we built the murphy bed, construction occurring in the middle of our living room and extending out onto through our open balcony doors to reduce the sawdust.
Back to the point: not going to the grocery store. At our condo, we were on the 8th floor, which was ok since we had an elevator. However, our assigned parking space was located way down the side of the building. In order to buy groceries at the store, we had to either 1) stop in the loading zone near the elevators, move groceries upstairs, then move the car OR 2) park the car and carry all of the groceries quite a distance to finally get to the elevator area, then go upstairs with them.
Fortunately Giant had developed a fancy new grocery delivery service called Peapod. And, as a bonus, all of the produce was selected, not from the store, but from the warehouse where it was stored before it went to the store (or to us). The concept of online grocery shopping fit well into our newly developing family value of "the overuse of technology." Much like my foray into online banking back in the '90s, we were early adopters of the online grocery shopping philosophy. I mean, you can sort the items by unit price on the screen instead of being a victim of aisle and shelf product placement manipulation. How awesome is that? It turns out that Costco partnered with Instacart to deliver huge packages of (not low fat) Oreos to us. When all else fails, there is the quick Amazon Prime / Whole Foods delivery.
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| What?! Even toilet paper gets delivered? |
Together in our house and stuff delivered to our doorstep! A decent start to the never-ending stay-at-home pandemic experience.
