Name one or two things you're going to get better at while we shelter at home.

[milestogo]

I am going to cook. I live alone and am pretty lazy about preparing meals - if it can be done in the microwave, that's what I'll eat. My excuse is I don't have time.

So now I have time. And a new crockpot and a new cookbook. I will be making vegetarian paella today.

I'm also cooking for my dog, who has pancreatitis.

[Brainstormy]

1. I was going to bake

but there hasn't been any all purpose flour in our grocery for over a week. Guess other folks had the same idea. I've decided to improve my knitting instead. BTW, I'm the Crockpot Queen. I have five of them!

[TEB]

2. Tolerating boog the chocolate lab

[milestogo]

4. Do you have a dog park?

The dog park is like a piece of heaven now. I am going to take him a couple of times today to get a long walk in.

[TEB]

8. Big back yard friend him and our golden retriever and a friend

Yellow lab our friends dog is staying with us

[Tommy_Carcetti]

3. I've been writing a novel.

It's topical and political but also a hell of a lot of fun to write.

Got about 260 pages so far.

[milestogo]

6. Awesome!

[Zoonart]

9. Great. me too.

Writing Sci-Fi 10 short story connected arc. 6 shorts in plenty of notes. 165 pages in.
Good luck.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

15. Good luck to you too! nt

[drray23]

28. cool. do we have a writer's forum here on DU ?

I am also writing but its short stories. I had one in the making since I visited Ecuador a couple of years ago, I finally have time to work on it now.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

33. Very cool!

There is a writer's forum here...I should try to check it out more.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1202

[Freddie]

5. Neatness

Why not, I’m home all day. Things like actually putting clean wash away. Cleaning out spare bedrooms.

[a kennedy]

7. Ha ha......getting better at watching movies.....and getting so much better on my

iPad games. Sorry.

[milestogo]

12. Yes, I am going to try to watch all of the Martin Scorcese movies

that I haven't previously seen.

[Shrek]

10. Landscaping

Weather starting to warm up and we have a lot of planting to do before summer.

[Raven]

11. Knitting and felting...and patience :-)

[Hugin]

16. I'm going to put some more time into my crocheting.

Luckily, I've got plenty of yarn.

[crickets]

30. Patience is something I'm working on too.

Knitting is so good for that. It's so relaxing. I have a few skeins of sock yarn in my stash... knitting sounds like a great idea!

[Hugin]

13. Making peace with the touch pad on my laptop.

We've been at each other's throats for years.

[LakeArenal]

14. Just trying to be a better person

Trying not to complain. Trying to think positively that this will be less than expected. Trying to cheer up anyone who is cheerless.

I could say checking in on the elderly.
But that’s just texting family and friends.

[Hugin]

17. Hey, checking in with family and friends totally counts!

Every grain of sand builds a mountain.

[luvs2sing]

18. Living with my husband. 😂

Seriously, we have a great marriage, share a lot of interests, have been together 29 years and married 22 years. We love AND like AND respect each other.

But..we are stylistically as different as night and day. He is a total extrovert, the life of every party, the guy everyone talks to and remembers. I’m a total introvert. I need a lot of time alone. Just living with another person is often stressful for me. He needs to get away from the house at least once a day. I can shelter in place..indefinitely. He is the night owl, and I’m asleep by 11 and up at 5.

When we got married, he was in a band that toured nationally. For the first seven years, he was gone three or four days out of every week. I had time to enjoy him and time to be alone. Once that ended, we had some truly rough years adjusting to each other, but it eventually smoothed out.

I retired a few years ago, so I have had alone time all day while he is at work. We have been discussing how not to drive each other crazy once he retires. Now he is working from home every day, and it is kind of like “retirement lite”. We’re adjusting again. Getting on each other’s nerves again. And working it out again.

[Tree-Hugger]

19. Muscles

I'm homeschooling with the kids.

I have a kettlebell, so I figured now is the time to begin some workouts with it.

I may try to learn how to actually see with my machine, but I don't have that much faith in myself. lol

[DURHAM D]

20. Plan to catch up on some ancestry stuff. nt

[Keth]

21. Cooking in Large Batches

I agree with the cooking. Cooking for an army! I live by myself and love eating out. When I did cook, it was usually simple. Pasta. Chili. Beans and rice.

Just this past week, I made large quantities for freezing - spaghetti with mushrooms, red beans and rice, egg noodles with butter, olive oil and fresh parsley, lentils with stewed tomatoes, sautéed cabbage with onions, garlic and a spit of apple cider vinegar and, my favorite, chickpeas with tomato sauce and curry. My freezer is stocked with supper for at least the next two weeks.

I'm also working on my third book which I didn't think I would write because my first two flopped. Which is bad on me because a writer should never stop writing.

Stay safe everyone!

[Hotler]

22. I'm going to learn spanish so I can speak it in the

check out lines at the store just to piss off repugs. learn for free. https://www.duolingo.com/

[blitzen]

23. Guitar, exercise. n/t

[GulfCoast66]

24. Making the prefect Old Fashion.

Figure in a couple of weeks I will have it perfected. If I don’t run out of bitters!

[PA Democrat]

25. I want to de-clutter and organize.

It's a good time to reassess how important "things" are to you.

Talking more with my elderly parents and helping them with their shopping and errands. I'm afraid to visit them but have been dropping off their groceries and doing as much as I can to help them.

[nuxvomica]

27. Same here

It's amazing how our priorities change in this situation. I have so many useless things I once thought were vital to my very existence.

[GumboYaYa]

35. My wife has been on a Marie Kondo binge

She has been asking herself does this bring me joy about everything.

[dmr]

26. Rediscovering crossstitch and needlepoint and read!

There was a time back in the day ... but life got in the way, so I dug out my gear to begin. I'm looking forward to being creative again. My eyesight's not what it use to be, so it'll be a challenge.

Shoot, I may even drag out my sewing machine, lol

And, there's so many unread books, too. But I think I might reread Stephen King's "The Stand".

[global1]

29. Among Many Of The Same Things Others Have Said Here I'm On The Covid-19 Diet.....

I'm watching my calorie intake & rationing the food that I eat. I love to cook and am making foods that support this diet. I'm down 11 pounds now and am feeling better and my blood pressure is moderating. My BMI has gone from being classified as overweight to normal. I'm targeting to get down another 16 pounds to what I feel is my ultimate weight where I've been and feel most healthy. Cutting out restaurant and fast foods has really helped. I'm self isolating and feel very secure in my home because I can control my environment. I coined this with a baseball term. I'm "Safe At Home".

[SWBTATTReg]

31. Living.

[Bayard]

32. I've worked from home for the past 20+ years,

So no problem there, except business is really slacking off. Worrisome.

Just to get out of the house to a safe place to visit this morning, I went over to a friend's to give her a riding lesson. She has a beautiful place....used to be a tree farm. Tons of evergreens and flowering trees right now on rolling hills, forsythia and daffodils. Very peaceful and soothing. May go back tomor. I want to try transplanting some of her farm pond plants to our farm pond. She's also offered me spruces and pines to transplant, but haven't figured out how to do it yet. They're not little, and landscaping tree spades are definitely not in the budget.

Mr. Bayard has been off for a month and a half now--unpaid--which is really worrisome. But he has gotten a ton of stuff done around here, that he hasn't had time for before. He applied for another job yesterday that would be great (close to home, no travel, and actual BENEFITS!) Cross your fingers and all other appendages.

I'm going to start getting my gardens ready to plant. Lots of cleanup and weed pulling. Building a new watermelon bed. Bought a new sketchpad and pencils several months ago, and haven't had time to do anything since then.....

[GumboYaYa]

34. My wife and I are going to work on improving our bread baking

and my son and I are improving our hanging and pull up skills on the fingerboard: https://trainingforclimbing.com/intro-to-fingerboard-training/

Had to make him promise me no free climbing before we installed it.

[zackymilly]

36. I have to work, but wife is at home...

...and she keeps rearranging the kitchen and I can't find a @#$#$ thing anymore!