Coronavirus has demolished many industries and small businesses, and the wedding industry is one that has been greatly affected. Weddings have had to be postponed, plans shifted, expectations lifted. This is typically a time of year that is insanely busy, and it feels strange to be home with no editing in my queue.
But, there is hope! I truly believe that weddings will happen again soon. Most of my couples have postponed their events to fall 2020, and I know we will celebrate in the near future.
We’ve been at home for at least 45 days and counting. To keep our sanity, here are a few things we’ve been working on:
Personal Projects
When my grandfather was in his last year of life, I discovered war letters in his closet that my grandmother had saved. He let me have them, not understanding why I would want them. To me, they were treasure.
I started scanning the letters and trying to decipher the messy handwriting and lingo from the 1940s. My grandfather passed during the start of the project. I didn’t pick it up much after that because we became pregnant with Kitt, and parenthood took over.
Now, four years later, I have extra time on my hands and have started to work on it for an hour or so each day. It’s been a fun thing to distract me from the world, especially to transplant myself to an era where I’m sure people felt like the world was ending then too.
I’m hoping to make a personal book of the letters to go alongside the photos I have from his Navy days.
House Projects
Like everyone else, I’m sure, we’ve been slowly purging/deep cleaning our house. It’s not glamorous, but when you’re confined inside for most hours, it helps to have a peaceful space to exist in.
We actually did most of our purging well before COVID-19, but we finished some projects that were far down on our to-do list, like cleaning out the microwave and organizing the lazy Susan.
Toddler Learning
We’ve been taking advantage of the free online education that has become available for children. Kitt loves the Scholastic free online books + videos. Even though most of them are from the 80s, he gets a kick out of them.
Other Goose also gifted a free month, and we’ve been incorporating some of their lesson plans as well.
Busy Toddler on Instagram has incredible ideas for little ones when confined inside. Most of them have been a raging success and have occupied him for at least 30-60 minutes.
Our library has an immense amount of online children’s books that are easy to check in and out. While I don’t love the idea of reading with extra screen time, it has been nice to refresh our book list without spending a fortune on new books.
We’ve been trying to tighten our spending, as we’re not sure when wedding season will be able to start again. However, we did buy a few inexpensive outdoor toys to play with, and Kitt has shown us a new talent he has: tennis!
Off-Season Work
I completed most of my off-season work well before COVID-19 because I thought wedding season was about to begin. However, since my spring weddings were postponed, I’ve been able to work on projects that usually get bumped…one of those being blogging. I had about 30-40 blog posts that needed to be written + uploaded, and I spent a few weeks working through those.
Most of my working hours in the time of coronavirus are spent writing emails, prepping social media, sending welcome packages to new 2021 couples, setting up consults with prospective 2021 couples, and working on monthly newsletters.
Journaling
I used to journal every day, as well as pour time into a devotional. This has fell by the wayside the past few years with the busyness of life. However, I’ve been trying to wake up each morning by writing a stream of consciousness (homework from The Artist’s Way) and then spending some time in the Bible. It has helped re-center my thinking before jumping into the news cycle.
Getting Outside
To keep vigilant with social distancing, we’ve been exploring new trails + scouting for future sessions. It’s been a fun challenge to go off the beaten path. It’s also been life-giving to feel the cold mountain air and the peace of the wild.
Hobbies
If there ever was a time to pick up old hobbies, now is the time! I started playing piano again last fall, and it’s been nice to have some extra time to play with the down time. Beethoven and Rachmaninoff also give me some space to pound on keys when I’m frustrated ;)
I love to read, and I’m quickly making my way through my stack of unread books. Soon, I will have to pick books off my shelf to re-read…
I’d love to hear how you’re occupying your time at home during the quarantine. It would be helpful to think of other things to do instead of Netflix binging. We still haven’t watched Tiger King…
