I slept in a little later this morning, but not by much. I’d had a fitful sleep. At one point, I thought I heard some sort of beeping going off inside the house, so that kept me awake for a while. At a later part of the night, I awoke in a panic, wondering if I had checked the front door. I wasn’t so worried about me or my well-being, but if someone had tried the door, and left it open, I worried about our cat Sissy and if she would merely walk out the front door if it were left wide open.
Between the dreams (which I can’t remember), these worries popped up in my mind.
First thing this morning, I took my iPad and went into the bathroom. I sit at a slightly odd angle when I have my iPad with me, and at one point, a sharp pain kicked in to a vein near my elbow, much like when they are taking blood or inserting an IV. Right away, I wondered if I was having a heart attack. That worry sent me into a near full panic attack. Somehow (God knows how), I calmed myself down. It came to me that it probably was a pulled muscle from sleeping strangely, and this was confirmed by the tension I felt by moving around throughout the day. But the last thing anyone needs during a pandemic is a fear of having a heart attack.
I made myself homemade egg mcmuffins for breakfast. They were very tasty.
I was pretty sure I only had one large test to input all the questions on in our Moodle online platform for The Place Where I Work, so the work didn’t seem as urgent, even thought today is day 19 out of the last 21 days in a row (I think) where I have been working on this and other things. The only days I took off were a Sunday a few weeks ago (when things were feeling very overwhelming) and my birthday.
Earlier this year, I had promised myself I wouldn’t overwork myself and spend more time on the things that I love. Have I done that in the last 21 days or so? No. The 2 days I did force myself to have off were felt with anxiety about not working. Sigh.
We heard some sad news today. There were 2 more deaths due to COVID-19 in our country. That brings it to 4 deaths in total, 3 from rest homes, 2 in Christchurch. We had only 29 new cases (not all confirmed, some were “suspected” or “probable”), and a heap more than that recovered. So even though we have lost some of our most vulnerable members of society — and their deaths are tragic and heartbreaking, please don’t get me wrong — many more people recovered in the last 24 hours than came back with a positive or probable test or died. It means, hopefully, we are getting very much on top of the curve with this horrible virus.
Another sad statistic is 2 out of the 2 outbreak clusters in Christchurch are from rest homes in the area. One, according to authorities, is under containment and control; the other seems to be growing internally amongst rest home carers and residents at a not-so-great rate. Let’s hope they get this under control soon.
Overall, though, the lockdown seems to be working well.
I got a bit done today. By the time I got to encoding 60 out of the 100 questions in the final multiple choice question (MCQ) assessment I was putting into the system, I decided I needed to get out of the house and go for a walk. It was a short walk with my husband in a rather cool wind, but it got the exercise quotient in for the day.
We managed to talk to 2 lots of neighbours, and it was nice to check-in with them all.
Once home, I felt invigorated again to get a good chunk of the MCQ assessment done. At first, the goal was to hit 75 questions done. Then 85. Then 90. And once at 90, it was a dash for the home-stretch. I got all 100 questions done.
One less thing for me to do over the next few days.
I also managed to get one out of the two government reports due soon done, ahead of my personal schedule.
That means I probably can have tomorrow off.
The pepper steak casserole I cooked yesterday had leftovers enough for tonight’s dinner, and probably dinner for Easter and Monday too. Let’s hope that all works out so we don’t have to cook as much over the next few days.
Before the pandemic, and when the path towards lockdown seemed more apparent, I bought enough chicken and beef (and associated supplies) for 2 lots of casseroles for each type of meat. Overall, this would last us 12 to 15 days at least. I felt this could be the small contribution I could make to our meals. Adding on to that that I seemed to buy enough for 4 more spaghetti meals, and that could last us 16 to 19 days out of 30 (or more) in lockdown. That was a good half to 3/4 of the dinner meals done.
Tonight, we didn’t watch any musicals or music videos. We watched some things on TV, RuPaul’s Drag Race season 12 on Netlfix, then some YouTube. Nothing too exciting.
We decided to head to bed early. We are both tired and need some rest. So here’s hoping tonight is a good night’s sleep.
Please stay safe and look after yourselves and your loved ones.
Beam Me Up, Scotty 