Day 10 of not leaving the house - we still have lots of food, and getting small projects done. Laundry room and bathroom painted, need to do some small touch ups today. Sleeping a lot too. All good wins. Still do not know anyone that has contracted it which is also a huge win.
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Local guy who works on a grocery board is setting up a no contact egg CSA to save a farm whose restaurant clients all dropped her. This is excellent news for me, as we use a ton of eggs and this means we can get them regularly, for a decent price, and from a great local and organic (though not certified) Source.
This has really been the push I need to move a lot of my food back to directly local sourcing, even cutting out the grocery stores.
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This morning I was researching farm-direct food. Great minds, you and I!
Supply chains are struggling. If I can cut out the middle man everyone wins.
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Veg CSA arenât a good fit for my family between our eating preferences and we have a decent sized garden. But I do buy direct from a farmer (or raise myself) most of our meat and eggs.
I will note that wholesale isnât always a bad deal for veg and meat farmers. Stores like local co-ops or chains like Wegmans that offer a lot of local sourced product typically pay a high enough wholesale price that farmers actually net a better dollar per hour income because in a single short delivery they drop off more product than theyâd sell in a multi-hour farmers market.
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Us too! With both of us still working in essential functions and the stimulus money approved, we have been talking about how we can get it out into the community without ending up with more stuff or useless gift certificates. We had a family meeting yesterday and realized that we donât patronize any business on a regular basis that isnât already on the list of âessentialâ. But local food is very enticing!
Our family brainstorming session came up with a few other things we can do to support the local, small businesses and stay sane. (Thanks everyone for the inspiration!). Weâre in a 4 week shelter-in-place so we wanted no contact options only. We are both still working but are the only ones at our respective places of work so no contact there. Iâm doing the shopping for everyone and we donât allow the kids to go into any stores at all.
- Order takeout from one local restaurant. Honestly, there are about 3 places in town that can accommodate our range of food allergies. Two of those are completely closed with no take-out. Weâre going to order a meal to go from the other one tomorrow at DDâs request.
- Pre-pay for horse camp for August. The horses need to be fed now and with lessons being down, income for our kids riding stable has gone to nowhere. If for some reason the camp doesnât work out, weâre good with the money going to horse care. Weâre paying for this by re-directing money that has been refunded from other activities that have been cancelled.
- Sign up for an online drawing class offered by a local artist.
- And, we just signed up for a CSA. We are pretty intense consumers of fruits and veggies, as well as eggs. We found a local CSA that still has shares that will pick up in May and signed up. Iâm so excited at the prospect of having veggies and fresh, local eggs.
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This is what Iâm trying to figure out. While Iâd like to support local places, I donât buy a lot of nonessential stuff on a regular basis anyway. I stocked up on tea from my neighborâs shop a week ago, already have tickets/gift cards from the local theatres that have them available, have doubled my already-too-much thread for temari-making stashâŚthereâs just not a lot left Iâm coming up with.
One thing some friends and I did try a couple nights ago was a virtual movie night (thanks @anomalily for the idea with Emma) and beforehand everyone texting drink orders so we could get a round of distinctly non-happy-hour drinks as takeout from a local bar where we sometimes do happy hours. With one person doing pick up and leaving drinks on stoops so it stays minimal/no contact. Weâll probably do the same thing in a week or two (possibly with a place that also has food), but itâs just not something any of us do regularly so it feels a little odd. Then again, most of this feels a little odd.
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This is genius!
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Does anyone know what to do if you donât have a primary care physician at this point? Everything is saying call your doctor if you think you have symptoms.
We moved from central Illinois to the big city. Our doctor that we last used retired, but maybe we can call his group, they should have our files. But any advice they would give us, weâd have to act on up here.
Insurance has a telemedicine line that I did make an account for. But right now itâs saying at least an hour wait time and they canât order tests. When it gets bad, thatâs just going to go up. And how useful will it be?
Should I try to call around on Monday to see if anyone is taking patients?
I just want to figure this out before we get sick. Ugh. It was on my to-do list for so long. Procrastination is biting me in the butt here.
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Yes, call around Monday and find someone taking patients. Thatâs what I would do.
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Yesterday we kinda broke isolation. But the biggest part of the relief for me wasnât going in the grocery store to get the baby clothes.
The highlights:
Driving and seeing different scenery from my family walk
Parking in front of the lake and sipping juice watching the waves crash
Going to a friendâs building and standing 2ish meters apart for a 5 minute conversation.
These were little miracles.
Without a partner with a car who then bought a car seat to make all this happen it wouldnât be possible. But if youâre stir crazy and can do anything like parts of this safely, please do.
Now Iâm going to babywear and place an aspirational grocery order despite knowing half wonât be fulfilled (I can get by on pantry staples, but fresh is really nice to have).
Also sending love out to people with multiple food allergies or severe sensory issues who canât get by as easily
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I went outside today on a bike ride and umm, wow, it made way more difference than I was expecting it to. The air on my face, seeing humans I donât know, waving to my friend from 20 ft away as I dropped off a beer for her.
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Iâm in the same situation. I canât find anyone whoâs accepting new patients that isnât so far away that Iâd have to get on public transport or rent a Zipcar, neither of which seems safe. I do have a GYN, not that they can help with corona but maybe her office could refer me. Of course, her office is 1.5-2 hours each way on public transport so that doesnât really help me right now.
Iâm probably just going to use telemedicine and hope for the best. Thatâs what my co-worker did, and she said it was helpful even though they werenât allowed to test her since she canât prove she was exposed. She may not have had it at all though as sheâs improving with meds - or maybe she just has a mild case.
And yeah, this spring was when I was finally going to sort out all my overdue medical care (grossly overdue for the dentist and the eye doctor as well. Did get as far as making the dentist appointments for the work I need done but my dentist cancelled both of them.)
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Interesting piece on how the ibuprofen hypothesis got so much traction, and why the French health minister may have shared it, etc. https://www.wired.com/story/the-ibuprofen-debate-reveals-the-danger-of-covid-19-rumors/
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The Joshua Kennon piece I shared previously was substantially rewritten with much less emotionally charged language, plus quite a bit of additional detail in his argument to explain the liquidity crisis he sees on the horizon (his estimate is 12-16 weeks) if the shutdown goes too long.
Possibly worth a reread, particularly if the tone of the first version turned you off. I think itâs a much improved piece now.
https://www.joshuakennon.com/what-price-should-we-pay-to-fight-covid-19/
Thank you. I was definitely slightly concerned about my use, and feel a lot better now. Plus I love the investigation
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Yeah I was pretty damn hesitant on something being recommended universally based solely on a proposed mechanism of action.
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Placed a grocery delivery order. At first when we were getting set up Mr. Meer said âItâs only how much? Why havenât we been doing grocery delivery this whole time??â But then we ran into issues like flour didnât pull up any results in the app and it suggested butter instead. How about just tell me youâre out of flour? Because thatâs fine, but suggesting butter is confusing. Anyway, I used the chat option and asked our shopper about the flour and she was able to fine some for us, woo! $50 worth of groceries did not seem to take up much space, though. (Me ordering two blocks of cheese surely did not help.)
Mr. Meer is currently channeling his anxiety into planting seeds. Given our past success for gardening, there will be a lot of work for about one or two meals worth of food but maybe weâll do better since weâre WFH now?
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So⌠with federal stay home recommendations now at April 30, that means the governors will follow suit, yes? I thought at the outset that our 3 weeks would be extended, and that would make it over 5. I feel like itâs very necessary, but wow thatâs going to be tough for a lot of people as well as businesses.
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I imagine youâre right. I donât think there was ever a realistic chance that restrictions would end after three weeks. Imo most governors probably picked three weeks or whatever knowing that they would need to extend it, but if they had started with six weeks people would have freaked out. I wouldnât be surprised to see a few additional rounds of extensions as the pandemic progresses.
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Yes, Iâm pleased to see this getting a closer look. Always hesitant about letters, but in our case avoiding has done no harm. Thatâs not true for everyone and we refrained from advising an elderly relative against it knowing all her circumstances.
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