Category: 2020 Pandemic

Well, the pandemic is still here!

How has the pandemic effected our lives during the month of October?

Paul is still working from home, which is is still soooo great! I’m getting used to eating lunches with him and will really miss them when this is all over.

Eli’s school is still open full time. All of the public schools have either gone online learning or hybrid learning. All my employees are hybrid so they go into the school 2 days a week and alternate with the other half of the school the other two days.

With having a crazy schedule of not knowing if employees show up to work, I have to have Eli in school full time. We are very thankful Eli’s school has taken precautions and have remained open.

What has effected the stores? The sales are still down, but manageable. I think the sales will remain at this percentage till next year. Our biggest struggle is the public wants drive thru, and we are not a drive thru store, hallelujah! We sold off our drive thru store and will NEVER own another one. I offer curbside, but they don’t want that, they want drive thru.

What is great, is my high school employees are hybrid so they can work during the day, which has been wonderful! It has been extremely nice to have a selection of employees who can work during the day. Finding day help is hard, and not just during this pandemic, but every year for the last few years.

We have been keeping busy with playing games. Eli is hooked on pie in the face. And yes, Paul and I have been behind the hand… 🙂

Hiking trails we frequent are now closed. The state has started shutting down popular trails and we are very disappointed on this one. Every fall we look forward to hiking up to the hot springs and look at all the beautiful changing leaves. We will have to wait till next year.

In March I told Paul I wasn’t going to join the world in mask making, but here I am! Making masks! So, why not make them cute?

Church: We are going into the building every other week for 45 minutes. The other weeks they broadcast it and we watch in our living room.

Back during the crazy panic shopping, we needed milk. I drink skim milk, but wasn’t too picky that week and would have picked up any % of milk I could find. Okay, whole? I would have passed on whole and would have had water for the week. The only milk I could find was chocolate milk. I haven’t had chocolate milk in a long time, so I wasn’t complaining on having to drink chocolate milk for the week! I mean we are experiencing a pandemic. We need to make some changes and sacrifices, right? So, I picked up a gallon. It was so delicious! The next week they had skim milk, so I picked up a gallon of skim and chocolate. I have done this every week since March.

It’s the end of October, I’m still picking up chocolate milk and I’m so addicted to it. It’s now a staple in our house 🙂 Unable to keep up with the calories I needed to start rationing myself, so I purchased these little glasses to keep my portions smaller. Paul laughs every night when I pour my ounce for the evening, but it works!

The pandemic is still here. How has the pandemic effected our lives during the month of July?

Paul is still working from home. He says his highlight of the week is watching the garbage man come by. He needs to get some new highlights.

How has this pandemic affected the store? There is a shortage of coin! Who knew? I didn’t. How are we short of coin? The majority of the population are still staying home and not spending money, and if they spend money they are using credit cards, not cash. So, their coin sits at home instead of being circulated into the system.

I found this out I went to the bank to get my weekly change. They told me this was the last time I can get a large order of coin. I can only get 10 rolls of coin a week. 10 rolls of coin will last me 2 days 🙂 So, I have recruited Paul and my parents to make bank runs for me so I don’t have to go daily.

Grocery stores are back to normal. All shelves are stocked and I can find everything I need/want. Milk prices have finally come down. They were $0.60 higher for the last few months. Several other food items went up after the panic shopping, but I only documented and followed milk. So if milk is back to normal, maybe other items are back to normal as well?

Finally! Retail stores are opening!

My mother and I went shopping one morning and it was so fun. I sure miss being out with my mother. We always do a shopping trip with each other once a month, so it was nice to finally get out.

Church is still the same with home church and one day a month for 45 minutes in the church building. The Primary presidency put together a fun thing for the primary children. They dressed up their razor as an ice cream truck and delivered ice cream to all the primary children. They even had music! Can’t have an ice cream truck without music!

Eli was sooo excited! He was out front sitting on his blanket, just waiting for them to come by.

Out of all the ice cream, he chose a Popsicle.

Speaking of church… One Sunday we went for a hike into the mountains and had our church lesson on a log. That was fun! We definitely will be doing this again.

Hmmm…anything else for July? I think I covered it all.

Things have started to slow down. Panic shopping has stopped and businesses are reopening. We went bowling one night. Eli had a wonderful time. We are going again, right after I purchase some bowling shoes. Not renting those things again!

Eli is still going to school 2 days a week, home schooled with me 2 days a week, and he is home on Friday’s with Paul. Paul puts his schooling in front of him, but has to concentrate on his job. So Eli really plays video games/TV until I get home.

What has changed with church? We have home church every week at home, and one Sunday a month we go to the church building for a 45 minute sacrament meeting. Just 45 minutes, so we can’t be late, or we will miss the whole thing!

June 1 everyone is required to wear masks when they are out and about. I have been forced to make masks for my employees, so when they forget theirs, I will have a back up for them to wear.

I made one for Eli, but he refuses to wear it. I have played games with him, saying he is now a PJ mask and he going to save the day and to wear the mask. He won’t. Oh, well.

Everything else is almost back to normal. Not much has happened in June, which is good.

How is the pandemic affecting us? Paul is still working from home. Eli goes with him on Fridays. Eli goes to school 2 days a week, and I’m home with him the other two days.

May 1. A few things are still a hit or miss at Sam’s. A lot has been stocked and almost back to normal.

May 4. Monday lunches are still at my house.

May 11. Monday lunch at my house. We don’t social distance very well…. okay, we haven’t social distanced since the first of April.

What has changed at the store? As of May first all fast food must wear a mask. I still feed the missionaries. Customers are allowed to dine in again, but every other table. Sales have been increasing, but not to where they have been or should be.

Other than that, things have been calming down. Still wondering how long this will last. Everyone can’t stay home for too long, right?

How has this pandemic affected our Monday lunches? They now include Paul which as been fun, but they are in my kitchen instead. We get take out at any fast food that has a drive thru.

Paul is still working from home. We think for the rest of the month.

What has changed at the store? I now eat breakfast alone. I really miss my breakfasts with my dad.

And since we don’t have customers to purchase cookies, I must take one for the team and eat one so they don’t go to waste. 🙂

April 8. Every time I go grocery shopping I go down the rice isle to see if they have any rice, and today I finally found Jasmine rice!

Stay home orders for the elderly. Paul and I have been grocery shopping for both our parents. Not as much for mine. They don’t stay home. 🙂 I called my parents asking if they needed anything and my dad said he already went to Costo for ice cream and they were out so he went to Arctic Circle to get some. Priorities. 🙂

April 17. Sams had stocked up on toilet paper.

April 20 Sam’s sold out of EVERY pack of toilet paper. People are still in a panic for toilet paper.

Most shelves have been filled. My essentials must not be part of the panic shopping. Mascarpone cheese is a staple in our house and they never ran out of it!

How has this pandemic affected my parents. It has forced them to stay home and rest like retired people are supposed to do. Funny that they social distance in their own home. I had to laugh.

April 20. Costco put a maze in front to keep people 6 feet apart. Again, I have to laugh at all of this.

April 27. The Costco line. Weaved in the maze…

And lined up around the building!

Crazy! Wondering how long this pandemic is going to last.

I was reading my great grandmothers Journal. Inga wrote, in 1918 after World War I ended, there was a terrible kind of influenza around the world. They called it ‘The Spanish Sickness’. She experienced it in Norway. She described the sickness as ‘grownups were vulnerable’ just like today! Her husband, Olav, was the first to come down with the sickness, and she was next. She said her fever soared, her eye sight was blurry and she lost her hair. The physician told her mother there wasn’t anything he could do for her, and he needed to leave to tend to other patients that had a better chance of living than she did. She asked the missionaries for a blessing. They came and blessed her. They said she would be well if she kept the Lords commandments and particularly keeping the word of wisdom. She lived through that pandemic, another World War, drove horse and buggy and then gas vehicle, and saw man stand on the moon! She lived until the age of 99.

When we heard little about what was going on in China about Covid, we didn’t think anything of it. We didn’t think it would come over and affect us the way it has.

March 12. My day started out like any other day. I ran my miles.

I went to Sam’s to grocery shop and I saw empty palettes. I thought that was strange, so I kept shopping….

More empty palettes. Every isle I went down was empty. It was kind of a scary feeling. I called Paul and asked him if he knew what was going on. He didn’t know, but other people on his team were getting calls from their wives about full parking lots and empty shelves.

I picked up my mom and we went to another grocery store and this is what we saw.

Packed with people and everyone with packed shopping carts. Every isle was full of people and slowly the shelves were emptying.

That evening, Paul went to the grocery store next to our house and saw an empty space where shopping carts were stored.

Empty shelves.

Lines to check out were miles long.

We haven’t seen stores packed like this.

Check out. Kind of eerie.

This is March 14. Still out of everything. People panic shopped for 2 days now and cleared out the stores of everything.

Store workers just left palettes in the isles and instead of putting it away, they let people pick away at it.

March 20. Panic shopping has calmed down and the shelves are starting to be stock up again.

Starting to stock up.

What is going on at the store? My sales have slowed drastically. The health department closed all restaurant seating. Customers can still come in, make their sandwich, they just can’t stay and eat.

What has changed with the family? Eli goes to a private school so while the school districts have sent all students home, Eli’s school is still up and running. We have decided to keep him home 3 days out of the week and home school like we have done in the past.

Paul? This is his commute.

This is his work station. Set up to work from home for the rest of the month. I had him shut off his work monitors, but during the day, all 4 monitors including his laptop is on 🙂

march 23. Stores are almost back to normal. They have limits on everything.

March 28. News came out saying they are finding Covid on the floors, so panic started hitting the cleaning isles and shelves started emptying of all cleaning products.

At the store? March 29. One customer today so we closed early. We cut back on our open hours and we closed the store on Sundays.

Next day the Health department closed all fast food lobbies. I now have to act as a drive thru. We are now 80% loss in sales. Have I cried? I may have lost it a few times. Not sure how we are going to pay our $4,000 rent next month.