Work OOTDs - April 2020 aka Self-quarantine p2

Let me just say up front, the title of this post is misleading because I will not be posting any regular work outfits here. However, for some reason, I was compelled to title it in alignment with the rest of my monthly OOTD posts because I thought it would bother me not to have one for April.

We're still in an unprecedented time right now and I really wasn't expecting to not have any real blog content for this month! But that's kind of the world we're in, so I'm going to ramble a little bit and see where that takes me.

April was the first full month of the stay at home order for us in Hawaii. We had started working from home in mid-March and honestly didn't fully expect that we'd still be here today. I'm glad that my husband and I had somewhat established a routine which I had mentioned in my previous post and we continue to follow that today. Almost everyday I am thankful that I am doing the self-isolation thing with someone I truly love but also having enough space inside the house to give each other some space when we need it.

I really don't have much of an update because we're still very much doing the same thing! In no way, shape or form am I fully "getting ready" for work while I'm teleworking. My employer doesn't do any video conferencing (everything is over the phone), so I have no need to present myself any particular way. After working off a small tablet screen for the first few weeks, I finally caved and brought home one of my computer monitors (with 5 friends) and teleworking is about 10x better with 2 screens. Now what I need is a better office chair than my dining room one which I'm just putting a pillow on to get my arms to align with the table surface correctly lol.

I did get "dolled up" just once to take remote twinning pictures with Ebony in our Liz Lisa sweet latte OPs. See Ebony's post on IG here and on Twitter here.

I literally got ready in the morning, put the dress on, took photos for about 20 minutes and then changed back into casual clothes for the rest of the day lol. It did feel really nice to have my hair and make up look presentable, but I do think I'm doing the right thing by giving my hair a break from heat products for the most part.

And then we changed out our bathroom lightbulbs on the same day and apparently I couldn't resist taking some selfies since hair and make up were already done lol.

I also finally got around to trying to do my nails again and did two simple "manicures" this month. The thing I learned is that I cannot properly photograph glitter nail polish. I swear it looks a lot better in person! (Not that anyone will see it in person these days so I'm just enjoying it on my own lol).

The part of our routine that I'm the most satisfied with is the "stay active"/exercise portion. We're still following the Monday-run, Tuesday-100 burpees, Wednesday-walk, Thursday-100 burpees, Friday-run schedule and it really helps me feel like I'm still being a little productive even though it's not something I typically look forward to. Especially running after work when the sun is blaring and we have to be careful to avoid other people out exercising or walking dogs.
I am regularly "documenting" our burpees progress through time-lapse videos + sharing a portion of it on my IG story and this is the only visual content I really have to share for the month. We made it to 1000 total burpees (10 sets of 100) on the second to last week of April! For the last set this month (#12), I decided to shake it up a little but I have no idea if it will be sustainable.

I don't see any real difference in my body, but when actually doing the burpees, I do feel a like it's a lot easier now compared to when we first started! I can even do short additional workouts after as well. My dad had made these plyo boxes years ago for my brother and I borrowed a couple to add a little variety to my Tues/Thurs workout after the 100 burpees.

I did a little tidying project with the sideboard and took some before and after pictures that I'm actually kind of proud of. But that's mostly because the spaces were SO MESSY before that anything was an improvement. I hadn't organized anything in there since we first got it after moving into the house almost 2 years ago.

  

I don't have any purchases to share because apparently I am only interested in pre-order/special order things or items that take forever to ship and may not even make it to me before the end of May. (Note - I completely understand shipping delays during this time and don't want to make it seem like I am complaining too much but just wanted to explain why I don't have anything to blog!) Hopefully I'll actually have something to report next month!

We didn't even eat anything particularly exciting in April, although we did continue to try to do take out from local restaurants 2x a week. I've been eating a lot of popcorn and cookies though lol.

A couple of our favorite restaurants are opening up again (for take out only obviously), so we'll probably try to hit those up in the coming weeks. Lines/wait times look like they've been crazy though!

Very sorry there isn't much new content in this blog post, but I've definitely been enjoying my time at home by mostly relaxing and watching TV. I do miss creating outfits and actually wearing heels (since I'm always in slippers or running shoes these days) but not feeling obligated to go anywhere or do anything is really nice as well.
I know that I continue to be very lucky to be employed and working safely from home. Thank you again to all essential workers who are keeping society afloat.
If anyone is ever bored and wants to chat, my IG DM's are open! I can't always promise I'll respond super quick (especially in the middle of my work day), but we're got time, right?

My Self-Quarantine Routine

I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to work from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the stay at home order and encouragement of social distancing, my daily routine has certainly changed a little bit - in some ways for the better! It took me a few days to get the hang of things, but I think I've found some things that really work for me.

Here's what I've been up to lately ~
Working from home
I wake up one hour later than I usually do and head to the dining room where I have my work laptop set up. I sign on, email my boss to let him know I'm online and get working! The majority of my job can be done by sitting in front of a screen, so I'm just doing that in a different location and occasionally taking or receiving calls to my cell phone instead of my office phone.

While I wait for files to download or when I get a small break, I finish getting ready for the day including changing out of my sleep clothes, putting on contacts and sometimes even applying make up. In order to let my face "rest" a little bit more, on weekdays I usually only put on make up every Tuesday and Thursday. No one outside the house really sees me, but it just helps me feel a little bit better when I look in the mirror lol.

My husband is also working from home and he set himself up in the office upstairs. This allows us to have some space to focus during working hours and also have (work related) phone conversations without bothering each other too much. We're both often on conference calls which can sometimes run quite long, so it's good that the other person doesn't have to listen to the whole thing. We do still cross paths every so often of course, but for the most part we'll keep to ourselves while we're on the clock.

Exercise
Once work is done, we might relax for an hour or so, but try to get a little exercise in. I always try to change into my workout clothes right after I log off to give myself less of an excuse to skip it.

After some disruptive weather for the first couple of days, we settled on:
Monday - 3 mile run
Tuesday - 100 burpees or similar workout we can do in the driveway or indoors if rainy
Wednesday - 1-2 mile walk
Thursday - 100 burpees or similar workout
Friday - 3 mile run
Saturday/Sunday - yard work (which is actually pretty exhausting wtf)
Nothing too exciting, but this mirrors my workout routine that I used to have when I was going into the office. On Mondays and Fridays, I used to run at lunch time with my coworkers (about 2.5 miles) and on Tuesdays and Thursdays (also at lunch time), my boss or his boss would run "crossfit" which includes a lot of circuit exercises for 30 min. It was my idea to substitute the burpees for circuit exercises, but I think if we get tired of doing burpees, we'll probably look for a replacement (youtube video maybe?). For now, I'm actually kind of enjoying how much of a "full body" workout burpees feel like without having to do a big variety of exercises and it's easy because no equipment required.

What we eat
For meals, we've been somewhat inconsistent with breakfast and lunch while we're working whereas when I was in the office, I had a pretty routine schedule of what I would eat and when. Since we don't really leave the house for lunch, I usually just find something that we already have on hand and often skip breakfast in favor of lunch or eat a really late breakfast and skip lunch for an early dinner.

For dinner, we try to make something at least once a week that generates a few meals of leftovers, but we also know that some of the remaining restaurants that are still open for take out need customers too.

We're in a pretty fortunate situation where we can afford to order from restaurants, so we don't mind "treating ourselves" to something for dinner more often than before. We mostly get take out on the weekends. We also participated in the #keephawaiicooking campaign by Central Pacific Bank while it was running by ordering from O'Kims!

Purchases/splurges
We didn't go out an exorbitant amount prior to the stay at home order, but I'm kind of enjoying using it as an excuse to kind of just sit in the house and do nothing. That being said, I did opt for a few "splurges" outside of what I would typically buy just as small things to keep us entertained while we stay in.
Larme 044 and 045 ordered from Amazon JP

I used to buy a japanese magazine or two every so often if the cover piqued my interest, but have definitely taken a step away from that for a couple years. I saw that some of the spring EATME items were going to be featured in a spread, and decided I would enjoy looking through some pretty pictures. Amazon JP is relatively easy to order from and it was delivered by DHL within the week.

Ben and Jerrys ice cream

This might seem mundane or kind of lame but I've never had Ben and Jerry's ice cream before but after watching one too many Good Mythical Morning videos, we were determined to get a pint or two just for fun. Staying in seemed like a good excuse to just sit and eat some ice cream. We bought Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Peanut Butter Cup first and then during a sale at a different grocery store the following week, we also got The Tonight Dough and Half Baked.

I've been doing a LOT of online shopping browsing, but really haven't had a chance to commit to anything yet. Some brands seem to be offering some not bad deals and most have a pretty good shipping/return policy right now but there isn't anything that I'm dying to buy...aside from an expensive office chair which I probably don't really need lol.

Social media
I definitely don't really have the motivation to fully get ready for work while I'm not going into the office, so my content has been suffering with regards to my "work outfits". However, I got a great suggestion from @smallestsloth on IG to do a favorite/featured item on my story daily instead and I think it's been working out really well!

I have full access to my closet while I'm home and it just takes a couple minutes to snap the photos so it doesn't really take away from my workday.

In general, I opted to post a lot more to my IG story than I usually do and kind of gave up on trying to make regular post content for the time being (until something comes along to motivate me). It's been fun just posting whatever and also seeing lots of other people's stories as well.

Also spent some time going through my old content! I've shared some older photos in my "fashion look back" post but here's some additional embarrassing photos that I thought were a bit fun lol.

There's not much more to it than that! I recently discovered the Wordscapes app and despite the incessant ads, I'm kind of addicted. I'll sometimes just sit around and watch TV (Hulu, Netflix or Disney+). I'm currently mainly rewatching How to Get Away with Murder while folding origami cranes. I finished the 1000 but am working on an additional 100 in red foil and 100 in silver foil and it's going pretty slowly lol.

My thoughts and prayers go out to you if you've been negatively affected by the pandemic in any way - whether it's being laid off, having to postpone an important event or yourself/family member/friend being diagnosed. A special shout out to those who are working in essential businesses, keeping all of the rest of us afloat, especially those in healthcare.
Feel free to share what you've been doing to keep busy during self-quarantine!