tips

Keep from getting bored during lockdown

 in General Fashion  tagged spring 2020 / tips by

quicksilver trail san jose

pictured: Alamden Quicksilver Trail, a great way to get outdoor exercise while social distancing.

Starting at midnight, March 17, 2020, than San Francisco Bay Area went on a lockdown to help stop the spread, or at least slow it down, of the coronavirus also called Covid-19. All non-essential workers in the area are ordered to stay home. Many businesses are shut down, and everyone is ordered to stay in their homes unless they need to buy food, go to the pharmacy, see a doctor, buy gas, or go to the bank.

The bright side, is that restaurants are still allowed to serve take-out, so we can still enjoy chik-fil-a, burritos from our local taqueria, and even fancier food from our famous local eateries. The hardest hit sector during this time will be retail shops not deemed essential.

Although we are all stuck inside our homes during the lockdown, which lasts until mid-April, there are still things we can do to maintain our sanity and parts of our lifestyles. Without further ado, here are my tips for surviving the Bay Area Lockdown-or any lockdown that may be happening anywhere in the world.

Grab take-out

If you are like me, you get bored of your own cooking. Call your favorite restaurant and find out when they are having take-out hours. Place an order, and pick-up your favorite food while adhering to social distancing rules by staying 6 feet apart from other people waiting for food. Also, remember to tip them! Someone had to cook your meal, take your order, and wrap up your food. Please leave them a regular 20% tip.

Organize your house

You know that closet you have been meaning to clean out? The garage you have been meaning to organize? The guest room still in boxes? This is a great time to sort through things, and get organized!

Dive into a new book

If I had a penny for every-time someone told me they don’t have time to read, I would be very rich! Well now, you have time to read! Pick up that book you have wanted to read, and dive in! You can still order books on Amazon and get them quickly. Here are a few of my recommendations, I’m kind of a bookworm:

Shop online

Support your favorite stores online. While you might not need a new outfit for an event this weekend, you may still need other items such as new pajamas, slippers, etc. Order online, and keep the economy flowing!

Support small business

Many small business can take phone or online orders, and then ship to you. Call them and see how you can shop from them while on lockdown.

Take walks and keep active

One of the best ways to keep your spirits up is to stay active. Get out of the house and take a walk. If you do take a walk, make sure it isn’t a busy path and maintain social distancing guidelines.

You can also stay inside! Find a workout on demand or online, and get your cardio on from your house. Go in the backyard and play. Stay active, and you will feel better.

Have online meetups.

Randomly Facetime your friends. Schedule group chats via Facebook, Skype, or Zoom. You can even have group happy hours online! Keep in touch with your friends and family by utilizing video chat technologies.

Check in on elderly friends and family

Anyone over the age of 60 is being told to stay home. See if you can run errands for, and help out, an elderly neighbor, friend, or family member. Please Facetime them too! They are bored at home, and need human interaction. Do what you can to help. My Mom loves to get random Facetime calls, it’s a fun technology the elderly can enjoy.

Watch cooking shows and test recipes

OK, your normal ingredients are sold out at the supermarket due to panic buying in the community. Why not try something new? Watch a cooking show and take notes. You can try a new recipe and have fun testing new foods, ingredients, and cooking methods-just don’t start a fire ok? Keep the flame on your cooktop normal, don’t try anything fancy with flames. Just sayin’

Start your own online business

Have you been dying to sell your crafts online, but never got started? Are you itching to start a blog? Do you want to develop a new app, but have been short on time? Now is the time! Make the world a better place with your new business venture. Start a new company, you have the time. Interest rates are low too, in case you need a business loan. It’s the perfect time to be an entrepreneur. Get started!

Well, those are my tips. Feel free to leave yours in the comment section below!

Also, remember, this is temporary. We will get through and life will eventually get back to normal. The economy will go to back to flourishing, and we will all look back on this as something to tell our grandkids about. We’ve got this!

Remember to wash your hands!

Thanks for stopping by,

XOXO

Cathy

Homeschooling tips

 in General Fashion  tagged lifestyle / tips by

homeschool tips

pictured: my son taking advantage of the nice weather and working on his history schoolwork in the backyard

If you are in a school district which happens to be closed due to the current shelter-in-place orders, you are now a temporary member of the homeschool community! Also, if you are interested in homeschooling long-term, these tips work for you too! Welcome!

Although my kids are currently enrolled in public school, I used to have two of my kids in an online school. I home-schooled through an online school for a total of five year, so I am well versed in the home-school world. Even better, since my kids attended an online school, we know how to handle the current school-from-home environment children are experiencing across the country right now.

If your school district is acting the same as ours, your children are home until mid-April. Teachers are creating lesson plans, using online learning environments, and utilizing virtual classrooms as we speak. Many children have already started learning online from home, while others are waiting for direction from teachers and school districts. It may seem overwhelming to you and your children, and your nerves may be high; but never fear! This is an easy way to learn with a little organization, and self-motivation, to stay focused and maximize your time during this trying time.

Chances are, your children have very little distractions right now since the majority of extra-curricular activities have been temporarily cancelled during this time of social distancing. This allows ample time for children to adapt to online learning, and concentrate on working on lessons from home.

Without further ado, here are my homeschooling tips for kids currently learning from home!

Create a quiet space

Find a spot in your home where your kids can go to school. If you have a home office, spare room, guest room, formal dining room, or other location in your house away from other people, turn it into a temporary classroom.

Make sure you have a desk, card table, table, or other desk-like surface, with a comfortable chair, for your child to set up a classroom.

Make the area look school-ish. Grab a mug from the kitchen and place pencils, pens, and scissors inside of it. Also grab a tape dispenser, stapler, ruler and other supplies your child may need. Take these items and place them on the desk, card table, or table your child will use for school.  Also, if you have a globe, place it on the side of the desk or table to help create a classroom vibe.

Make the space look kid-friendly. You can even hang up their artwork on the wall to make it more comfortable. The environment your child learns in needs to look like their own. If it looks like a pristine, stuffy, formal dining room, they won’t feel comfortable and relaxed. It needs to have a classroom vibe.

Give your kids a laptop or computer to use

You child will need access to a laptop, or desktop computer in order to do their schoolwork. Make sure they have ample access to one in order to watch virtual lectures, and access Google classroom as well as other digital tools.

If you don’t have a computer, laptop or other needed supplies for your child to be able to learn from home, contact your school district. Schools are providing meals and supplies to those who need them.

Keep a regular school schedule.

If your child normally wakes up at 7am, keep waking them up at 7am. Keep the same food routine, hygiene routine, and sleep schedule. This will keep your kids on track, and feeling a sense of normalcy. Of course, they can still wear fuzzy slippers or pajamas to homeschool, I mean, why not enjoy that small perk?

Stay organized

Make sure your child keeps a checklist with all assignments and due dates. They may be given assignments all at once, or periodically. This means your child will need to manage his/her time to ensure assignments are turned in on the right date, and completed in a timely manner. Help your child spread out their workload and meet deadlines. This is great training for college since teachers may be giving them a weekly syllabus! I have my kids keep a checklist in a journal, and label each assignment with it’s due date. There is a great sense of accomplishment every time you check something off the list as complete.

Keep your child moving

You may, or may not, get PE homework during this time. If your child’s PE teacher does not leave exercises to do from home, make sure your child takes a daily walk, jog, or plays in the backyard. Keeping your child moving will not only help them to stay healthy, it will help them keep their spirits up.

Socialize at a distance

No, I don’t mean planning in-person play-dates. You can create a free account on Zoom, and have virtual, video meet-ups! Your child can schedule video conferences with his/her friends for up to 40 minutes on Zoom. They can also FaceTime each other, or use Skype. With video conferencing tools or video chat tools, they can see each others’ faces, and chit-chat about anything, and everything! Encourage them to plan these meet-ups and stay in touch with their friends. They’ll enjoy seeing their friends faces, and hearing their voices.

Lastly, support your child

Your child may feel sad about being at home without friends and teachers. On the bright side, your child will still have email, and possibly phone access to their teachers. But if they need immediate help with a lesson or assignment, be patient and help them out. They will appreciate your help.

That’s it! Homeschooling is pretty easy and stress-free as long as you stay organized, and stick to your checklist. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have via the comment section below, or through email.

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

Cathy

Tips for working from home

 in Home  tagged lifestyle / tips by

tips for working from home

photo credit: Her Creative via Style Collective

Are you looking for some tips for working from home? I’m not surprised. These are unprecedented times, and many people who are accustomed to working in an office, have been sent home for anywhere from two weeks, to one month. Coronovirus is forcing people to stay in their homes, and thanks to the Internet, we are able to shop, work, and entertain ourselves in the comfort of our homes; away from potential germs.

Working from home might sound like fun on the surface, but it takes a certain level of organization on your part in order to be a successful endeavor.

Before I was a blogger, I worked at jobs where I had the flexibility to work from home. I even held one job which was at a start-up that had no office space. We all worked from home, held meetings at each other homes, and attended many meetings on the phone or via video conferencing. This is when I learned how to work from home, and to not only be efficient, but successful.

So, without further ado, here are my tips for working from home

Create a workspace

It’s really important to have a dedicated workspace in your home for work. We are fortunate enough to have an office in our home. We have cabinets on one side of the room where our kids store their toys, art supplies, school-work from past years they want to keep, and extra school supplies such as binder paper and pencils. This gives my kids a place to go to do their homework after school. We also use the room during the day as a workspace. My husband’s company currently has him working from home until mid-April, so he uses the room from roughly 8am-6pm.

If you have a home office, you are in good shape, if not, you need to create a space at home for work. Do you have a formal dining room you only use when you have guests over? You can turn that into your temporary workspace while we are “social distancing.”

Do you have a roomy mudroom? Remember how I mentioned our office has a lot of kid stuff in it? I live in California and we really don’t need our mudroom. I turned our mudroom in my office for Bay Area Fashionista. It’s a little tight, but it’s a quiet, dedicated workspace. If you have a mudroom you don’t need, since you aren’t really leaving the house right now, you can put a card table, desk, or other work surface inside and create a workspace for yourself.

Are you in a small apartment, or all of your rooms already have an important use? You can use your kitchen table or coffee table to work. Just make sure no-one uses a TV in that room, or make sure people in your household stay in another room while you are working. Chances are your kids are at home too, so make sure you can all separate yourselves from one another.

Get high-speed Internet

It’s 2020, so there is a good chance you have fast Internet. But, just in case you are using something slow, invest in wifi through your cable company, satellite company, or other form available in your area. The faster your connection speed, the easier it will be to work from home. After all, your company probably has an extremely fast connection, so you want to try to emulate that at home.

Stock your kitchen with what you need

Do you drink coffee at the office? Does your break room stock sodas or drinks you don’t normally buy at home, but enjoy at the office? Do your co-workers share certain snacks you don’t normally buy? Do yourself a favor and buy the food and drinks you enjoy at the office, and put them in your pantry or refrigerator. This will keep you feeling like you are at work, and keep the office vibe going for you. It’s a psychological thing that will help you stay focused and efficient.

Stay away from the Television, Radio, and other home distractions.

When you break for lunch, coffee, or need a general ten minute rest, don’t get tempted to turn on the TV, radio, or other distractions you find in your house. These types of distractions will throw off your day, and you’ll find yourself extending your breaks too long; in turn, you won’t get your work done in a timely manner. Keep everything business during the day.

Talk to your family-tell them to leave you alone

It’s really tempting for kids, a spouse, and even yourself, to start chatting with each other when you are all home during the day. Don’t do it. Pretend they aren’t there. Focus on your work during the day. If your spouse mentions a honey-do list, explain to your spouse that it can wait until after work, or the weekend. Keep your business time strictly business. This will help you stay focused and efficient.

Keep your routine regular

What do you normally do everyday when leaving the house to work? Keep doing that at home. Wake up at the same time you normally do to commute. Continue to take your daily shower. If you shave, do that daily too. If you have a workout routine, continue that at home. You can go for a walk instead, go for a jog, use on-demand technology to do a cardio routine at home, and play sports with your family in the backyard. Keep yourself moving in the same way you did before you were forced to work from home.

Eat quick meals

Just because you are home, don’t try cooking a recipe you saw on a cooking show during your lunch break. Stick to the quick meals you eat at work such as leftovers warmed up in the microwave, sandwiches, and pre-made sushi from the supermarket. If you try to be a gourmet chef on your lunch break, you will take too long of a break, get distracted, and become less efficient.

Work Hard

Seriously, it’s really easy to feel lazy when you are in the comfort of your own home. Don’t fall into that trap. Start work at the same time you normally do, and stop work at the same time you normally do. Stay in your workspace, and stay focused. This will allow you to keep your quality of work high, and your efficiency normal.

Remind yourself it’s temporary

This is a temporary situation. You won’t be working from home for the rest of your career. If it drives you crazy, keep reminding yourself it’s not forever, and you can get through this. Many people are in the same boat. If you are like me, and working from home is normal for you, then just enjoy the ride. You probably already have an efficient routine.

Also, wash your hands, and make the most of being home. Remember to relax on the weekends, and after work. It can be tempting to continue to sit in front of your laptop and work since you don’t have to brave a long commute. Don’t do it. Don’t burn yourself out working more than you usually do. Remember, keep your routine the same. The only difference is you are saving money on gas, dry cleaning, and the stress of sitting in traffic.

Let me know if you have any questions! Feel free to comment below, or email me. My whole family is home too, so we are all in this together.

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

Cathy