2020 has been a decade hiding within 12 months. So much about every day life has changed between the pandemic, social changes, politics in general and it being an election year. For the first two months of the year, everything was normal. I went to the office twice a week, had a standing coffee date with Mom once a week, and my spouse went to his job 5-6 days a week. It was nothing for me to go to four different grocery stores in a day and we had at least one meal out a week. Life was fairly "normal" in the before time...

Now we both work from home with minimal trips to either work place, no more standing coffee dates, no more hunting all over town for my favorite ingredients, and no more dinners at restaurants (though we do have our favorite local places we order take-out from). After almost 8 months in self-isolation, we have made all the necessary adjustments to our daily life that we should need to for the time being, even with the possible return of full lockdown. So what does the new normal look like for this work from home couple?

A Day in the Life of a Work from Home Couple

8-10 AM - My quiet time. I usually wake up before Phil, so I'll check my emails and socials, talk to and feed the furbabies. Even though I'm not at the computer, I usually work for about an hour off my phone during this time processing leads and requests that came in overnight.

10 AM-12 PM - Morning couple time. Phil wakes up, I make a pot of pour over coffee with a bit of collagen for joint health, we catch up on what we did while alone (I usually go to bed 2+ hours before him), discuss our plans for the day, log into our Animal Crossing accounts and watch YouTube before getting dressed for the day. If we are hungry, I'll make up something light but protein packed like eggs with a little sandwich meat scrambled together. Otherwise we both just eat whatever we dig up whenever we get hungry after we start our work days. Usually one of us starts a load of laundry just before starting work. 

12-6 PM - Dedicated work block. Even though we both work from home now and can make our own schedules, we work primarily during regular business hours as our employers and clients do. On weekends, I focus on the blog or go grocery shopping, but during the week it's all about my day job clients. We have two office space areas in our condo (one in the spare bedroom and the other in the dining room), so depending on our individual work loads, we may work in the same space or in separate ones. Around 3 PM, I start getting antsy and by 4 PM, I'm usually making us decaf coffee and do mindless data entry those last couple of hours. If I'm making anything that needs to simmer for a bit, I'll start it when making coffee or if my work schedule is light, I'll run to the store to get whatever we need before the afterwork crowd gets there. I'm trying to get into the habit of using grocery pickup to save time and avoid crowded weekend shopping but I'm usually dissatisfied with any substitutes or fresh produce and meats, so I'm not sure if it's really for me despite it's social distancing perks. 

6-7 PM - Make dinner and clean the house. Our house stays pretty clean as it's just the two of us and our pets. I've switched from using the dishwasher to handwashing our dishes and it helps clear my head so whenever I'm feeling restless, I wash up anything that has accumulated, so we never really have dirty dishes sitting around, but if we do, I'll wash them up while working on dinner. Phil usually does the litter boxes and vacuuming while I'm cooking and we walk the dog and take the trash out together. We turn on music videos and chat about our work days while taking care of our home.

7-8 PM - Eat dinner and watch some TV together. We have a few shows we love and since our dining room is an office, we eat in the living room and catch up on an episode or two. (I know, it's such a terrible habit to not eat at the dinner table... not! We talk all the time, I don't need to sit at a dinner table to talk to my spouse when the coffee table works perfectly.) 

8-10 PM - Watch a movie, AEW, or have unstructured free time. Sometimes we will watch a movie or do our own thing but every Tuesday from 7-9ish and Wednesday from 8-10, we are watching AEW Dark and Dynamite without fail.

10-? - Unstructured free time aka alone but together time. Phil usually plays video games with his buddies, I usually work in my planner or home books. If it's a busy work week or if I need to schedule emails for the morning, I'll spend some time at the computer. If it's the weekend, I'm usually swimming around my island on Animal Crossing. Because our living room is set up with a smaller, secondary TV, we may have something like The Office or Bob's Burgers streaming or we will play music through the main TV/PS4. Before bed, I'll usually indulge in a hot cacao that I make after doing up any leftover dishes from dinner. I like adding a scoop of collagen powder to it so I don't get snacky before bed. Some nights after Phil gets offline, we watch something spooky (we call it Late Night Horror Club). It may be a movie or just quick YouTube video, but it's a fun way to end the night. Just before bed and in between a million pee trips, I slather my face, neck, chest and hands in lotions and potions. Then I get tucked in and Phil does his thing (he will paint/draw, play more games, watch YouTube or do a little more work) until he comes to bed. Unless we watch a late movie, I'm usually in bed between 12 and 1. Exhaustion and fatigue from "normal life" used to force me to take naps and sleep 9+ hours a night to function. Now I can easily have 7-8 hours without needing a nap midday. Funny how many spoons I was using running around so much that I now get to use on fun stuff like recipe testing!

Our new normal has been extremely easy for us to fall into because prior to last summer, Phil was a house spouse who ran our eBay shop while I worked from home every afternoon. During the last quarter of 2018, I was recovering from surgery so we were together 24/7. Since we were already accustom to spenting a huge chunk of time together, we've never hit a point of dissatisfaction or annoyance while having to strike a balance in our isolation life, it just came naturally. Having separate work spaces also helps for those days when one of us really needs to focus and the other really needs to pump the tunes and caffeine if they are going to make to the end of the work day. If, however, you are still finding it difficult to get into a groove with working from home, check out these tips here.

Until next time, my lovelies!

-M

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