I know a lot of people are doing some spring cleaning right now because they’re all kind of trapped in their houses and need something to do.
Yard tasks are being addressed in record numbers, from what I hear.
I redid my office.
I’ve been tasked with overseeing the “distance learning” of my daughter, so we put a small table in my office across from my desk, with a couple of chairs. She does online learning and a lot of FaceTime calls with friends in there while I oversee the process of getting her through the rest of 4th grade until April 30. Then, hopefully, school resumes.
We’ll see.
In the meantime, I’m also doing a lot more Zoom calls so I need to have a better backdrop behind me. I’ve been watching MasterClass episodes, and Neil Gaiman, James Patterson, Dan Brown, and RL Stine all have bookcases full of books as their backdrop, so I thought I’d redo mine to keep up with the Jonses.
When I used to do the YouTube show, I sat over next to the chest of drawers and the legal cabinet with a little green lamp in the English hunting dog picture behind me, and put on a blue blazer. My head and body would have blocked that pink backpack, and it was a nice backdrop. It wasn’t too much work to move my old laptop computer over to view that area, but it was enough. My new desktop computer pretty much needs to stay put, but it gives a sharper picture (which means the crows feet around my eyes show up a lot better) and you might actually be able to read the titles of some of the books behind me. Maybe we’ll have a competition to see who can name the most books.
Anyway, that’s life as we know it this month. Maybe next month things will resume to a more normal routine.
What are YOU doing to make the most of our “shelter in place” time?
I hear video cooking classes are on the rise…
You could check out a great book, too.
The Gamma Sequence is doing really well, and there are three books in that series.
Savvy Stories has seven titles in that series.
But the newest launch is for horror fans, Dark Passages. Book 1 got snapped up by over 700 people since it came out March 31st. Book 2 in the series, Dark Voodoo, possibly the best book in the series, comes out April 30, less than 3 weeks from today.
If you’re a horror fan, drop me a message and I’ll send you a free copy of Dark Passages OR Dark Voodoo. Limited time offer, restrictions apply.
Dan Alatorre 
Homeschooling is making a lot of people appreciate their children’s teachers — and there are also a lot of people considering homeschooling.
I agree we will probably not go back to life as we know it. Anyone paying attention can see it will only take one EM pulse, one bioweapon, or the US version of an Arab Spring for our civilization to crumble in months — if we aren’t diligent.
Last year, April 2019, I went to my doctor’s office for a blood test. A few days later, I was hit with something that knocked me over. Literally. I’d stand, and drop. Then I lost my sense of smell. I was sick for a few weeks and didn’t get the sense of smell back for months. Some of the symptoms were eerily similar to COVID-19. I tell you this because I’m not convinced that the Wuhan virus is responsible for all the deaths it’s attributed to. What if something like the beast that got me last year is going around at the same time as the flu? That could make 3 things at one time contributing to the problem.
What am I doing during this time?
1. I’m learning all I can about COVID-19, and finding that if the flu had been hyped to this extent, we would have been this paranoid 20 years ago.
2. I’m writing.
3. I’m shopping as usual. The only difference is that I respect the x on the floor to ensure social distance, and I give people more space than usual.
4. My job is considered “essential” so I also have a day job to do. I’m fortunate. Many people are wondering how they’re going to pay the rent..
5. I’m reminding people of a truth our country seems to have forgotten: Those who are willing to trade safety for liberty deserve neither. What we should have is common sense instead of hysteria.
Anyway, that’s what I’m doing.
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Essential! Congrats. Scary, whatever was making you sick. Glad you’re better.
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Thanks. 🙂
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