A "normal" Covid-19 work day

There is nothing normal happening these days. Like I mentioned before, we spend a few hours a day talking to patients on the phone. We cancel appointments and call in prescriptions and triage emergencies. 

Today was a little different because we were being fit tested for N95 masks. Because our job is one of the riskiest when it comes to Covid-19, we are preparing to return to work with extremely intense PPE (personal protective equipment). So today we were tested and we are approved to work while wearing these masks.



We also went crazy and did the Starbucks drive-thru, which felt like such a treat. It was our first time away from the boys together in over 6 weeks. It felt weird! We are both really eager to go back to work, even though we know our jobs will be completely different for the next year or two until a vaccine is available.

My second year of buying no new clothing

A few months ago I was walking through the mall wearing my usual uggs and skinny jeans and sweater and realized not a single other person was wearing uggs. They fell out of fashion without my even noticing. It might have happened a few years ago! I don’t even really like them, but I don’t really like any boots. So I asked my sister if she would sell me the boots she was wearing because I was going to Ottawa a few days later with my girlfriends and needed boots for walking around. So she did, and now I will be wearing the sperry duck boots for the next 5-10 years until I suddenly realize I need something better. 

So I went to Ottawa and I spent many hours in the Rideau mall. I was completely prepared to break my no new clothes ban if I found something I loved. But nothing really “sparked joy” for me. So I bought a new bra (after my first ever fitting! I was of course wearing the completely wrong size) and a new bathing suit top. 

In May it will be two years since I’ve bought any new clothes. I feel great about it. I learned a lot in my first year. The second year I pretty much just learned that I have plenty of clothes and I really don’t need many more since I'm just wearing jeans and t-shirts over and over. BUT. I still love to go to the secondhand store. I definitely still went once a week (until the Coronavirus), bu t I would often just buy stuff for the boys. 

Buying used clothes for Cohen

Cohen doesn’t have anyone who gives him hand-me-down clothes, so I have to buy him a lot of clothes. And he has strong opinions on what he wants to wear. And he is not interested in going to the clothing store ever. And I want his wardrobe to be exclusively second hand. Sooo I end up buying lots of clothes for him, and then I pass along anything he ends up not being into. He is pretty much only interested in wearing sports pants and athletic tops right now. And then he likes to dress way up with a collared shirt and bow tie once in a while.  

Buying used clothes for me

I am pretty much always looking for jeans. I am super picky about jeans (like everyone), so I have to get really lucky to find a pair I love. My main focus is to find jeans with almost no stretch. Maybe 2% lycra is my max. Once I have perused the jeans, I like to move to the men’s long sleeved t-shirt section. This section has the men’s sweaters as well. It is where I would find a sweet old man cardigan or super plain but high quality t-shirt. I also always look at the men’s jeans because very rarely you will see an actual vintage pair of non stretchy Levi’s. That’s the dream. I also have to check out the blazers and coats in both the men’s and women’s. I can’t get enough of an almost too small blazer. And a men’s woolrich buffalo check coat is another dream. 

After that I will look through the ladies dresses. I am not even sure why I look at the dresses because I have zero reasons to ever wear a dress. And whenever we have an event where a dress is a good option, I will always always choose to wear a blazer and wide legged dress pants. I never learn.

My thoughts for the next year of clothing shopping

I am definitely going to continue my new clothing ban. I might make some exceptions for my sister's wedding weekend in September. And I got paint on one of my two constantly worn grey alternative apparel sweatshirts, so I might order a replacement. I am going to work really hard on not buying used clothing that I won't wear. Even though I have minimized my closet so much, I still find myself with clothes that I have never ever worn. I also need to work on not "saving" clothes. Sometimes I want to save an outfit for a special date in the future. But really, I should just wear all my clothes. A trip to the grocery store is as good an occasion as any to wear something I feel good in. Also, if someone really likes something I wear, I want to give it to them. I think it's way better to pass clothing on to friends who you know like your clothes than to put them in a giveaway box where they really might end up as garbage. 

More quarantine reading: Jon's library books

We have a lot of library books right now. They are in every room of our house, so I am not sure of an exact number, but for sure twenty plus. We usually pay a lot of late fees because we like to have tons of backup books. I enjoy reading at least two books at once these days. I am moving to Jon's library books now.

The life of hope by Paul Quarrington: This was a book that Jon got from the library and read, and I would never have picked it up if not for the quarantine. I had to read two thirds of it before I really embraced it for what it was and started to enjoy the weirdness. I sometimes want a book to either be super realistic, or completely fantasy. But this story has a talking fish and a giant and so much nonsexual nudity. Somehow it kinda worked and I liked it.

We begin our ascent by Joe Mungo Reed: LOVED it. Jon really liked this one, and we usually have pretty different opinions about books (his very favourite when we started dating was this one. I didn't really get the hype). I feel like I learned so much about professional cycling. Just so so good. I want to read more by this author.

Quarantine Reading: A memoir and a graphic novel

I have some days during the quarantine where I am so distracted by work and also the horrible news (especially the mass shooting in Nova Scotia) that I just reread the same sentence over and over again. On those days I am just lucky to get through the day, make meals for the family, and only cry in the bedroom so the boys don't see. But some days feel a little more "normal", and reading is a teeny tiny reprieve for me. When this all started I had to make a rule for myself that I don't bring my phone into our bedroom at night, because I kept checking the news as I was trying to go to sleep. So now I am back to reading at night, and sometimes for 20 minutes during the day when the boys are watching a show.

Also, I am on a quarantine/lack of employment shopping freeze, and since the libraries are closed, I am just reading whatever we have in the house. But!!! Jon and I found a couple gift cards to Indigo that were in birthday cards (we are trying not to buy actual toys for gifts anymore) to kids whose birthday parties were cancelled. So we each ordered a book. This is what we got:

For me:
Untamed by Glennon Doyle. I read Glennon's other memoir, Love Warrior, and was very into it. This was so good. Also very easy and quick to read. It's basically just a bunch of little mini-essays about various things, with the overall subject being her leaving her husband for a woman. I loved what she said about racism (that it's everywhere, and it's lame to deny that), and what she said about sex (that girls are raised to think it's gonna be uncomfortable and not great, and that's crazy!), and what she said about rules you make for yourself (you don't have to do something just because it's what you might have done in the past). I think all women should read this. I'm passing it to the doorstep of a bff tomorrow.

For Jon:
Bad Weekend by Ed Brubaker. Jon is very into graphic novels, and I read most of the ones he reads. Sometimes I love them soooo much (like Maus, of course), and sometimes I am like, huh? This one I loved. The drawings are so cool, and I am a sucker for the nice colours. The story was super cool and it had a perfect ending. Also made me want to go to the next comic-con, whenever that may be.

Our new normal

We have fallen into a bit of a routine now that we are in our 5th week of isolation. This is what a typical day is looking like for us:

6:00 AM: Cohen gets up on his own, gets himself cereal, and watches some Netflix.

6:30 AM: Jon gets up, makes coffee, reads the news.

7:00 AM: Will and I wake up, and join Cohen and Jon for coffee (me) and cereal (Will).

8:00 AM: After smoothies or eggs and toast, Jon or I will go for a run. My favourite smoothie: tons of spinach + almond milk in the blender. Then add a frozen banana and maybe some frozen blueberries. So simple and good. 

9:00 AM: I go in to work for a few hours to answer the phone, return calls, cancel appointments. We see a minimum of 30 patients a day for cleanings alone in our clinic in normal times, so these days I spend hours per week calling and cancelling 100+ cleaning appointments each week. We are booked solid for months and months, so watching all that disappear is pretty devastating. I think about our patients oral health, and I think about our receptionists who work so hard to fill our schedules months ahead. And I think about our four hygienists who care so much about their jobs and their patients. And then I try to speak with any patient with tooth issues, call in any prescriptions, and keep meticulous notes. Doing dentistry without actually doing any dentistry is not ideal. I have a huge list of patients who need to be seen but their dental issues are not considered an emergency under the pandemic standards. 

While I am working, Jon usually does a little school with the boys. Cohen has a bunch of online things he does that his teacher recommends. And Will mostly just hangs around. Cohen also reads to Will as part of his school work. The boys are also very into lego and playmobile. 

12:00 PM: I come home and we have lunch. The boys are pretty snacky these days, so lunch is sometimes just some hummus and veggies and crackers, or maybe a salami wrap or tuna sandwich. 

1:00 PM: Jon and I have another coffee. Jon and I have made the personal decision to forgo any takeout, delivery, or drive thrus, so we are 100% doing all food, coffee, etc at home. We are still obligated to see patients for true emergencies, so we feel that we should do everything possible to stay as healthy as possible. Anyway, coffee number two, and the boys usually get a little more screen time while Jon and I chat. 

2:00 PM: We do a walk or a bike ride. Cohen is very into biking, and Will just learned how to ride his hand-me-down scooter.
3:00 PM: I start thinking about supper. Actually, I feel like I am constantly meal planning lately, because we do a grocery pickup only once every ten days or so. So by day nine we are down to a super empty fridge. I weirdly love planning the meals in a way that means we have zero waste. We probably have at least 5 meals a week made by a restaurant or my mom in a normal week. So this last month has felt like we are using our kitchen constantly. I feel like our dishwasher is always running.
4:00 PM: Jon does a bike ride on his trainer in our bedroom. He uses the Zwift app.
5:00 PM: Supper time. I've been trying to do a lot of chickpeas and lentils lately.
6:30 PM: Bathtime and reading
7:30 PM: Both boys are in bed. Will doesn't nap anymore, so he usually falls asleep super duper easily by 7:00. Cohen is allowed to read on his own for a few minutes after we read to him for half an hour.
8:00 PM: Tea and cards for Jon and I. We have been sort of trying to drink less, so tea is our thing lately. And recently we borrowed a crokinole board from my parents, so we play for a bit, then watch Netflix. Jon and I both find we are SO tired after our days with the boys. In some ways, work was less tiring.
10:30 PM: In bed, reading. Right now I am reading Untamed by Glennon Doyle. Jon is rereading graphic novels. We both really miss the library.

Before and afters of our main room

I recently found the listing pictures of our house online, so I thought I would compare them to where we are now. The main room in our house includes the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room. I already wrote about our kitchen renovations here and here. 

Three years of living with our kitchen renovation, we are still really happy with it. But. If I had more time and money, I would probably now opt for a panelled fridge that blends in with the cabinetry. Also, on the sink wall, I might extend those two floating shelves the length of the cabinets, and just make them a little less deep. I also wish our upper cabinets on the right wall went all the way up to the ceiling. That space above the cabinets feels very wasted to me. 

Other things I want to change some day: 

- The fireplace. I like it, but I think a big chunky slab of marble on top would make it even better. 

- Our dining table. I still love the look of it, but I find the legs get in the way when we have a big crowd here. I would love to have a big stainless steel top made for it, or maybe sell it and get a new longer/larger dining table. 

- The church pew. I have the fabric, but I'm kind of scared to tackle re-upholstering it on my own. Maybe when this quarantine is over, I will hire someone to come in and reupholster it. The fabric I bought for it is waterproof and beige. It will be a big change from mustard carpet-like fabric.

Before:

After:

The first picture of Jon and I (kind of) and our non-love story

I was curious what the very first picture of Jon and I would look like. We met on my first week of dental school. We were at the beach for a frosh event. I was sitting on a big blanket chatting, and I realized I was kind of leaning back against someone chatting in another circle of people. We both looked behind us at the same time. It was not love at first sight, but I definitely felt so calm and peaceful to be sitting beside him, even though we weren't talking to each other. That day at the beach was early September 2007. I wonder if there is a picture of the crowd of us at the beach that day. I've never seen one. 

What I did find on my facebook page is a couple pictures from late September 2007 of Jon and I with my sister. She came to visit me in Halifax and attend a party at the Tupper building on the Dal campus. Jon and I had maybe gone on a few dates by then, but in a very old-fashioned way that maybe is not common anymore. He would call me and ask me to do a specific thing (like a concert or coffee or a movie). He would pick me up, we would go, and then he would drop me off at my apartment. We were basically just friends. Except sometime in the fall/winter of 2007 I fell in love with him. 

This is what Jon was into in the winter of 2007: going on dates with me once or twice a week, indefinitely. This is what I was into: daily phone calls by him to me and also him accompanying me to the grocery store to help me carry stuff just because he wanted to. I was very specific, and those things were absolute minimums for me. And he said no. He had just been in a 10-year relationship that ended in a rough way. He wanted to just focus on himself. He was interested in continuing to go on casual dates. Casual dates were the last thing I wanted with him. 

I was pretty in love with him. And he hadn't hurt me at all. He hadn't let our relationship become very deep or intimate, and so it allowed me to save face when he ended what little casual thing we had in December 2007. We still saw each other all the time. He lived in a big apartment with one of his best friends from home and also his friend's little sister, who was my best friend in dental school. So we saw each other most weekends and also most school days. 

I never straight out told people how I felt about him, but some people knew. My best friends Jenny and Shannon were visiting me and we ran into Jon. We talked to him for two seconds, but I think they knew. And probably my sister knew. As for his friends, he told me years later that his friend always felt we weren't done. 

In the summer of 2008 I worked in the anatomy lab with Jon's best friend Tim (the best man in our wedding). And I think he knew we were right for each other. I always felt so strongly inside that I just wanted what was right for Jon. I felt like I should just be grateful to be in his life at all, friends with his friends and him. He definitely draws good warm people to him. 

In the spring of 2009 Jon showed up at my apartment (he called first) with a lamp that he heard I was in need of. And he was all in. Because I had secretly been all in for 1.5 years, I was thrilled. He was ready to do the daily phone calls and go to the grocery store with me. He would buy groceries and bring them to my apartment and make me supper. He would do my dishes that were in the sink when he showed up. He would leave me notes to meet him for coffee at the place across from my apartment. We started doing laundry together, working out together, studying together. One time I was walking down Morris Street in Halifax to meet him at the Wired Monk for coffee. And I was waiting for me at the corner wearing a wooly sweater, looking amazing. And I watched as a dog and it's owner approached the corner, and he got down and pet the dog and chatted with the stranger. And then he saw me, and he was so happy to see me, and he drew me right in to his moment on that corner. That moment on the corner is for sure the moment I knew I wanted to be in his presence forever. And each day with him, I always think that if it ended tomorrow, I would be SO lucky to have spent all these days with him. The last picture was taken in  May of 2009 at Jon's family cabin on PEI. Jon wanted me to meet his Dad. By then we were both completely sure.  

We moved in together soon after that, and were engaged in May of 2011.

Low- to no-budget changes in our hygiene coordinator's office

When we bought the clinic, it had a very bachelor vibe. The former owner must have really loved black and grey. Although we have pretty much no decorating budget, I have slowly tried to update little parts of the office, mostly by decluttering.

The quarantine has given me a little extra time for the hygiene coordinator's office. She is in here 8 hours a day making and taking phone calls in non-pandemic times. This room is very Harry Potter-esque, mostly because it is under a stairwell and has no windows. I toyed with lots of grand ideas, like ripping out the built-in desk that is under the stairs, and also the little built-in table that is super awkward and never gets used.

But the zero budget thing won. This is what I did:
1. Declutter. I threw out lots of empty binders, old photos, headsets, and even a star wars phone. At some point that bookcase must have been used as a lost and found, because I found a few pairs of dirty old mittens and hats.
2. Cleaned the floor and the desk. then I put a marble-like sticker on the desk and table. This cost next to nothing. You can buy huge rolls of it on amazon for $25 that will last for so many projects.
3. Traded the broken filing cabinet and bookcase for new shorter filing cabinets. Filing cabinets are not cheap, but completely necessary in this room.

4. Added a mirror and a fake plant. And that's it.

What I want to do:
- add a wall-to-wall countertop to sit on those filing cabinets
- maybe some art and more fake plants over at that end of the room.
- Someday I would love to completely overhaul this room (including drop ceiling situation), but until then it's at least 15% better for our coordinator.

Before:

After:

Ottawa lady trip

This trip feels like a lifetime ago, even though it was just in the first week of March. Our lives have changed so dramatically since this trip. The things we did on this trip would now be considered so completely socially irresponsible, but 3 weeks ago, this was just a normal trip. I am sooo grateful we got this trip in before the pandemic really hit Canada. 

We try to do a lady trip every year. One year we did Vegas. Also Halifax, Miami, Toronto. This year we chose Ottawa because two of the girls are currently living there, and also the Lumineers were playing there.

Nordik Spa:
I loved it. Going from a hot pool to a really cold one felt awesome to me. Also walking around with a big fluffy white robe and having a beer in a huge hot tub was all so fun. We paid extra for the salt water pool. It felt like you were in a dark basement grotto situation laying in one foot of salt water with 30 other people. Everyone had ear plugs and an inflatable neck pillow. Kinda weird, but also relaxing.

Rideau Centre:
I arrived 5 hours before anyone else, so I spent a lot of time here. I loved it so much. It is so big, with every store I could have wished for. I especially liked Nordstrom.

Ottawa Marriott Courtyard Downtown:
We booked this hotel completely because of the location. It was totally fine, nothing fancy. I liked the little bistro behind the lobby where they served Starbucks coffee and avocado toast. The location was so perfect. The walk to the Rideau Centre was probably 3 minutes.

Play Food and Wine:
So cute. The vibe was really nice, and we all loved our food.

Lumineers:
So, I only knew a couple songs. And I LOVED this concert. It was one of those concerts where you really feel like every single person there is a huge fan and in the best mood. The lead singer ran around high-fiving at least 100 people (which would be basically obscene at this point three weeks later). They sounded so good. I feel lucky I got to attend.

A moment that I have thought of a lot since I got home happened on my flight from Ottawa to Montreal on my way home. I ended up sitting beside a pilot who was wearing his uniform. As I was settling in, he asked me to hold his Tim Horton's cup. He had been trying to hold it in his teeth while wrestling with his bag, but it wasn't working, so he handed the cup to me. I am just so much more aware of spreading germs now.