Virus.

Hello from Quarantine! :P Things have certainly changed and calmed down out of necessity.

In mid-March, my company decided to close all our offices so we've been working from home since. At first I whole-heartedly welcomed the move (or lack thereof) but after about a week, I really started to struggle with it. On top of regular life worries and my job, I am now expected to worry about an invisible monster if I choose to go outside??

Since January, Zach and I haven't had a permanent home. Instead we've been bouncing around every month to different places around California. There are a lot of positives that have come out of this decision:

• I paid off all my "bad debt!" allowing me to focus more on saving money
• We've transitioned into the minimalist lifestyle (by that I mean I have)
• We have the flexibility to go wherever we'd like, whenever we'd like
• The experience has given us better tools in navigating a successful relationship together. It's honestly awesome being around him all day, everyday. I'm going to miss this whenever our routine changes.

I didn't think it would be difficult considering our personalities, but there have been challenges. The places we'd been staying didn't have an accessible kitchen and I found myself missing the ability to make home cooked meals. Having meltdowns over it sometimes. And not having a consistent, physical place to call "home" really stresses me out. It feels like we are constantly booking new places to live because we hardly stay in places for more than a few weeks. I love the adventure, but I recognize how much I took routine for granted.

And then COVID-19 spread. Everything shut down - restaurants, our favorite coffee shop, our gym, our office.

We found ourselves confined to a small room for a couple of weeks. The vacation we'd planned for the end of March got sidelined. My family canceled their April trip to visit me.

I like to think I'm a pretty elastic person, but I do not handle change of plans well.

As my friends seemed to love the self-isolation, I started to find myself constantly struggling with it. All plans were canceled and I didn't feel like I had a safe place to hide. I know I'm very fortunate to be able to work during all of this, but my work life was creeping into my personal life because I had to work from where I was sleeping. There was no getting away.

Zach and I still ended up taking our scheduled time off work and I'm so glad we did. There wasn't much for us to do, but being removed from my hectic work schedule and resetting in a better (and bigger) location for us gave my mental health the release I needed.

I know we are supposed to "#stayhome" and I may get shamed for traveling, but I feel we made our best effort in avoiding contact with others. Because we had previously been relying on restaurants for our meals, it honestly wasn't much different from if we had decided to cancel our trip altogether.

Now we're in a fantastic place with a kitchen and an extra bedroom for Zach's niece to stay over anytime she wants! We have homemade meals every night and can do laundry whenever we want! Well, until May at least :)

I'm still unable to get flour for baking and I don't know when our next toilet paper purchase will be, but I'm a lot happier and relaxed now. My family isn't going to be here any time soon, but my dad and I are already planning a party whenever we are able to physically reunite.

Things are good and I'm (trying to be) grateful. Hope everyone else out there is staying safe and appreciating your families. I can't wait to hug my mom, dad, and sister when all this has calmed down.

Until then I will stay home and call my mom!