By far the best thing we did the past few months was create separate office spaces for David and me. After fourteen years of sharing a small bedroom as an office in two different houses, we each have our own space. I'm still in the upstairs bedroom with my corner view. David is in the library turned library/office. We're both getting so much more done now, especially David. It's one of those things we look at now and say - why didn't we do this years ago? I guess the time just wasn't right yet. It took a pandemic and job loss to get it done, but we're there now!

When Brett was going in to work, I always woke up and fixed a hot breakfast for him, packed his lunch, and spent a little time with him in the morning. I enjoyed doing it and will go back to doing it when (if?) he goes back to working in his office. The problem is that I am a night owl, and having to get up with an alarm at 6 am was worth it for my relationship, but hard on my natural tendencies. Now that he's working at home, he still gets up early, but has said I don't need to get up with him. Now I am able to indulge my night owl tendencies, I have read SO many more books (some excellent, some not, lots of stress-free, easy to concentrate on twaddle too, but good for my soul). I also sleep until I wake up naturally, not with a jarring alarm clock. It has been so nice! I sit and drink my coffee with him, while he eats a mid-morning snack, or even lunch. My mind is amazingly more clear and I don't require my typical afternoon nap just to survive.

Elizabeth and I may be late to the party, but we also discovered diamond painting. We have done all the crafts over the years, and I have found I prefer mess-free, short-term, easy to finish projects and this just fits right in that niche. We aren't doing giant projects that take hours and hours, but it is nice to just sit down at the table and spend a bit of time working on our projects together. It's definitely a quarantine worthy craft - indoors, mindless, and can suck up the time without even noticing it passing. 

Elizabeth has been doing a lot more baking too. At least once a week, she will just decide to head into the kitchen and make some sort of baked treat. That has been very nice, but not good for avoiding the covid 19 pound gain. 😉

Posted by: @amanda

Elizabeth and I may be late to the party, but we also discovered diamond painting. We have done all the crafts over the years, and I have found I prefer mess-free, short-term, easy to finish projects and this just fits right in that niche. We aren't doing giant projects that take hours and hours, but it is nice to just sit down at the table and spend a bit of time working on our projects together. It's definitely a quarantine worthy craft - indoors, mindless, and can suck up the time without even noticing it passing. 

Well, I'm later to the party than you! I had to look up diamond painting because I had never heard of it. Is this what you are talking about?

Diamond painting

Is it a smelly craft? It looks interesting.

@sallie

Yep! That's it! No smell that I noticed. Elizabeth hasn't said anything about smell and she has a super-sniffer! 😉

It's basically paint by number with little rhinestones. The picture is covered in a sticky glue and has a clear covering like a sticker. You peel back the clear cover and there is a "pen" that you dip in wax (to make the tip of the pen sticky), pick up the colored rhinestone, and stick it down to the picture in the marked area. The end product is very gaudy and we probably won't keep / display them when we are finished, but it's something fun to do. 🙂

I just googled "diamond painting for beginners" and found this post. It has a video, but I haven't watched it. The post does show lots of good tips and what comes in a kit, as well as what the canvas looks like.

https://paintwithdiamonds.com/blogs/pwd-insider/what-is-diamond-painting

If you try it out, I definitely recommend getting small projects to begin - we started with a few bookmarks!