Within the past couple of weeks the world has changed quite a lot. It seems crazy that just two weeks ago I was able to visit the theatre with my friend Hirst and my Mum and now everything’s closed – including the office I work in! I am taking the social distancing measures seriously but haven’t got cabin fever yet because I’ve actually been quite busy for the past week or so. Therefore I’ve decided to share my social distancing plans and what I’ll be up to during this isolation.
Working From Home
I am extremely fortunate to have a job that 1) accepted that we will all need to adapt to home-working and 2) have a manager who is determined that none of us will be left without work and go on sick or no pay. It took a bit of time and we haven’t ironed out every bump yet but our entire team is now working from home and it’s going okay. I’m in a work group chat with the other admin and we finally managed to have a successful video chat so although it’ll be weird not to see them properly I shouldn’t have time to miss them.
One of the benefits of working from home is that for the foreseeable future we don’t have to answer phones, we’re taking any queries as emails and answering the phones was my least favourite part of my job so I’m ecstatic about that. The only downside is that I’ve been added to a volunteer list to potentially help out in the community as we’re not going to get be getting tons of work coming our way – a nice idea in theory but I’m not sure I get paid enough to put myself at risk. But we’ll see. Either way, I’m glad I still have a job during these times as I know many people weren’t as fortunate and one that will keep me relatively busy.
Movie Nights with my Girls
Somebody on Twitter very helpfully tweeted about how Netflix Party might be a saviour during the next few weeks so me and my best friends Becca, Hirst and Jess decided to put the system to the test. We normally spend forever picking a film but to be fair we settled on ‘Twilight’ very quickly on our first Netflix Party night and then over the course of a week we completed the entire series. The system wasn’t flawless, one night I’d estimate it took us about 40 – 45 minutes to all successfully get into the party and then during Breaking Dawn Part Two it kept saying people had left even though they hadn’t? But although the system isn’t perfect it’s nice to still be able to watch a film with my favourite people.
Now that we’ve finished the Twilight saga we’re going to need something else to watch but I’m sure we’ll find something – if anyone has any suggestions then please feel free to leave them! The trouble we have is that our tastes are all quite different, I’m surprised we settled on the Twilight films so quickly.
Playing Animal Crossing
I’d been moaning about wanting a Nintendo Switch for a while but couldn’t really afford it until eventually I decided to settle for a Nintendo Switch Lite which I actually kind of prefer – I don’t have a TV in my room so wouldn’t really get the most out of a proper Switch and I think my Switch Lite is cute. I’ve bought two games, a Mario Game and Animal Crossing. And so far, the only game I’ve played is Animal Crossing.
The only Animal Crossing game I’ve played is ‘Wild World’ on my Nintendo DS which I’ve had since I was in primary school but I loved it and never really grew out of it. The games have obviously come on a long way since then and I love it. Being able to pick where I wanted my house to be in ‘New Horizons’ was such a treat. I always wanted a house near the beach in ‘Wild World’ but even if you selected ‘beach’ you were bloody miles away from it so I plopped my house is ‘New Horizons’ right next to the beach (as you can see from my screensheet). I can never go back to ‘Wild World’ after this, I’m enjoying ‘New Horizons’ too much. I definitely made the right decision to buy it on release day, I think it’ll keep me entertained throughout this disaster.
Disney+
The second Disney+ was launched in the UK I signed up, I’d been absolutely counting down the days until it’s release. I bloody love Disney and since my trip to Florida I’ve wanted to re-watch a lot of the films. I have a few DVD’s but as mentioned I don’t own a TV and unfortunately my laptop won’t let me play DVD’s so they were no use and I didn’t mind buying digital copies but they were quite expensive for just one movie. But finally, they’re all in one place and I only have to pay like £5 a month to watch them. Absolute bargain.
I haven’t even had time to properly dive into it but I’m sure I’ll set aside a day to binge all of my old favourite Disney movies and shows – so far all I’ve watched is ‘The Little Mermaid’ and several episodes of ‘The Simpsons’. I’m honestly so excited!
Playing The Sims
I’ve recently re-found my love for the Sims (although truthfully I have abandoned it recently to play Animal Crossing) which couldn’t have come at a better time to be honest. I’m a sucker for the Sims 3 (I never really got on with Sims 4) and recently downloaded a couple more of my expansion packs and honestly I’m at a stage where I could play all day and probably not get bored. I bloody love the Sims. So I’ll definitely be occupying some of my time with that.
Games with my Friends
On Thursday night me and the girls took part in a Virtual Pub Quiz and although it was absolutely chaotic it was a lot of fun. Then we did a YouTube Disney quiz, answered some riddles and then a Twilight quiz. So we’ve decided that some evenings we’ll also play games somehow so that we’re not always just watching movies. It’s going to be a lot of fun!
Reading
Just before everything went pear-shaped I ordered three new books in case we had to fully isolate and since then I’ve finished two of them and am halfway through the third. I have a couple more that have been floating round my ‘to be read’ shelf for a while so I should probably get started on them but if possible I’m also gonna order a few more. My reading goal for this year was 30 books and this lockdown will be a great excuse to get through as many as possible. If anyone has any book recommendations please leave them in the comments and I might give them a go!
Writing
We’ll see if I actually do this because unfortunately although I was doing okay with this at the start of the year it seems to have gone down the pan. But I want to get back into writing and now seems like a perfect opportunity to do so. So I will try harder! It might also give me an opportunity to write some more blog posts although I’m not sure what about considering I won’t be able to go anywhere or do anything but I might think of something. We’ll soon see!
For now those are the only plans I have and to be honest I’ve been quite busy for the week or so… So hopefully I’ll get through these difficult times. Let me know your social distancing plans and how you’re finding it. Stay safe everyone!
Hozzie Writes 