The Not Traveling Gingerbread: Quarantined Edition

Day 1: Monday

• Today was day 1 of working from home together. Before 5:00pm Mitch’s office expanded from the spare bedroom to the dining room and living room. 
• Stephanie is finally able to take advantage of her excessive amount of pajama pants (islands, tigers, and pears oh my!). Will her supply last until the end of quarantine?! 

Quarantine Tip: Create a designated office space to maintain a work life balance. With 3 workspaces it’s hard to disconnect or maintain a normal 8 hour work day.

Quarantine Tip: Many breweries in Pittsburgh have online ordering and payment available on their website with contact free pickups. Grab your crowlers, growlers, and cans from local breweries (or wine from wineries) and have a brewery (wine) trail at home.

Day 2: Tuesday

• Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We dressed in our green garb, danced to Irish music, drank some Guinness, and were entertained by SnapChat filters for at least 30 minutes. 

Game Tip: Read Mad Gab cards with an accent to make the phrases easier to guess…unless in quarantine when it’s ideal for games to last longer than 18 minutes.

Day 3: Wednesday 

• It’s important to maintain a normal schedule while in quarantine, and don’t eat pasta at 9:00am. We’ll try again tomorrow.
• Today was exciting, we left the house to buy groceries and board games. Anyone interested in a riveting game of Guess Who? or Yeti in My Spaghetti? 

Quarantine Day 4

• We’ve been curious about juice cleanses, what better time than the present? …And our juice cleanse should arrive in June. 
• We stopped using calendar days and starting referring to time as the number of days in quarantine, but we’re back on a schedule of eating, looking out the window, opening the front door once a day for fresh air, Netflix, games, sleeping, and washing an endless amount of dishes.

Quarantine Tip: Try something new: start a journal to document life in quarantine, read a book, knit a pair of comfy socks, learn a new language, take an online class at Hogwarts is Here, or finish a project. 

Quarantine Day 5

• Date night! We are going to a very exclusive concert. Live Acoustic Session and Q&A with Trevor Hall streaming in our living room at 7:00pm. BYOB. 

Quarantine Tip: #RootfireTV is hosting artist live streams and collecting donations for musicians who cannot tour during the Coronavirus pandemic. 100% of donations go directly to the Artist. Check favorite artists’ facebook and instagram pages for new music and live streaming concerts. 

Quarantine Day 6

• It’s Saturday, but we still popped into the office (dining room) now and then…we have to to reach the kitchen.
• Reaching Willamette Valley, Oregon is just as impossible in the The Oregon Trail Card Game as it was in the 1970’s pixelated computer game. After hours of snake bites, broken axles, and losing supplies forging rivers we gave up.

Quarantine Tip: Check out the Traveling Gingerbread Facebook page to see the Quarantine Door to Door Challenge.

Quarantine Day 7

• Today we attended a 60 minute private couples hot yoga class upstairs compliments of Yoga Collective.

Quarantine Tip: Many local gyms and fitness studios are offering free online workouts including yoga, bootcamp, meditation, strength training, and more. 

Quarantine Day 8

• After receiving an email sentencing us to working from home until further notice, we went to Target in a panicked search for more games. It started with the cereal aisle, then milk, turkey bacon (the only meat left in the store), discounted St. Patrick’s Day decorations, gardening supplies (we don’t even have a garden), comfy throw blankets, silly putty, and ended arms full of things later in the game section. We succumbed to Target’s magical force field once again.

Quarantine Day 9

• It’s Italian night! We have been craving pizza, but don’t have pizza crust, flour, or frozen pizza. Cauliflower crust pizza it is, paired with a glass of red wine, followed by a couple games of Yeti in My Spaghetti…We still want pizza.

Quarantine Day 10

• We decided to mix things up: dinner for breakfast, breakfast for lunch, lunch for dinner.
• Today we took on a new challenge: 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of an ancient world map. Instead of traveling the world, we’re building it piece by piece.

Puzzle Tip: To avoid dedicating our last available surface to a puzzle, we found a large picture frame to assemble our puzzle on. When we need a break, we can move the puzzle without disturbing it. A large canvas, poster, or piece of sturdy cardboard would also work in lieu of a puzzle mat.

Quarantine Day 11

• We went on a safari and saw a lion, hedgehog, Angler fish, cheetah, King Emperor Penguin, panda, and more.
• Stephanie is spending the evening at the bathroom spa for a facial and pedicure while Mitch is at the movies. Hopefully zucchinis have the same hydrating effect as cucumbers. Feeling adventurous? Look online for DIY face masks or foot scrubs.

Quarantine Tip: Google any of the 13 available 3D animals on a smartphone, select view in 3D, scan the room with your phone, and the 3D animal moves around the selected area.

Quarantine Day 12?

• Chopped Quarantine Edition: We each wrote down 5 ingredients, put them in a pile, and drew 4. These were our basket ingredients. In 30 minutes, we prepared, cooked, and plated our meals. Who will be the next chopped champion?
  • Basket Ingredients: peanut butter, Honey & Oats cereal, cheese, Thai noodles
  • Dish 1 Cheesy Asian Fusion Vegetable Pad Thai: The sweetness of the cereal and peanut butter were offset by the cheese and pepper flakes. The cereal provided a nice crunch among the sautéed vegetables and noodles.
  • Dish 2 Vegetable Noodles with Peanut Butter and Cereal Crusted Chicken: The chicken was juicy with a sweet, crunchy outside. The sweetness of the chicken was offset by the buttery noodles and vegetables. 

Quarantine Day 435,243,234

• The first day of warm weather and sunshine in Pittsburgh always brings out the weirdness in residents, but a man raking leaves in flannel onesie pajamas might be the strangest yet. 
• The streets of Pittsburgh are eerily empty. On a morning run through the city we never had to stop at intersections for cars. In the empty parking lot of Heinz Field two Pittsburgh University fans sat in chairs drinking a beer. Just because sports are cancelled doesn’t mean tailgating is. 

Quarantine Tip: Have virtual happy hours with friends to stay connected or in place of birthdays, holidays, and other cancelled get togethers. Zoom is free to use, but does have a 40 minute time limit without a Zoom Pro account. Just re-click on the meeting invite link to restart the meeting as many times as needed to somewhat avoid the time restraint. The thought seemed silly at first, but we have had a lot of fun connecting with friends. Have a theme, wear a wig, or play a game.

Quarantine Day ???

• We cleaned everything, the walls, top of the refrigerator, under the wireless router, cabinet handles, and dusted. We surpassed dust bunnies and found a dust ferret living under our dresser.
• After hours of cleaning we celebrated with a bottle of rum, Hawaiian shirts, leis, a beach slideshow on tv, and Spanish music. Our flight from Los Living Room (LVR) to Master Bedroom (MBR) didn’t get in until early the next morning.

• Unable to find 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles in stock, we finally found some on Ebay. We didn’t realize it was a MINI puzzle until the tiny box arrived in the mail. Two puzzle pieces can fit on a quarter. Challenge accepted!

And the quarantine continues. Hoping everyone is safe and healthy with an adequate supply of toilet paper.

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April 2020