The Quarantine 15: 15 things you can do at home other than snacking

Say no to the quarantine 15. Now that the majority of us are required to stay at home, we are finding ourselves out of things to do. And what do most of us do when we are bored? Well we eat.

My Discovery

It all started with me sitting on the floor of my husband and I’s new house. We don’t have a couch yet and am not sure when we will be able to get one. I was eating a box a Cheez-Its and as I went to stuff a handful more into my mouth I stopped. I stared at my hand and the crackers that looked oh so delicious and thought “what am I doing? I’m not hungry!” I came to the realization that I was eating out of boredom. I have lost my sense of control that I worked so hard to develop over the years.

I am the active, get up and go do something type of person. I feel like I am the epitome of “busy-body.” This quarantine changed that. I somehow got into the mindset that I am not allowed to do anything so therefore there is nothing to do. But this was a lie. There is plenty to do. In fact, I am rediscovering the things I loved to do that got pushed aside because of adulting.

I recently moved to Colorado with my husband. We both absolutely love it here. I was made to live near the mountains where I can go hiking and camping, and I can enjoy all 4 seasons. When I lived in California, I was a nanny and worked at 24-Hour Fitness as a personal trainer. Once we moved to Colorado the COVOID-19 hit our nation and all my avenues for work were no longer viable. Leaving my husband’s job as the sole source of income. I am currently a student studying nutrition. I suffer from severe anxiety and depression. This is an extremely stressful time for me as a person. It is essential that I remain positive and remind myself how blessed I am that my husband still has a job and that everyone I love is in good health.

This brings my back to the Cheez-Its. I am great at control and staying active but I have fallen into a slump. I told myself that this is it. It’s time to get off my ass and do something. Make use of this time that has been given to me. I decided to share my discoveries with all of you in the hopes that you find a few of these activities helpful in passing the time but to also avoid going into the kitchen to grab another snack.

1. Go on a Walk

My husband and I walk our 2 dogs every day. No excuses. I am thinking about moving it up to two walks a day. One in the morning and one in the late afternoon. Fresh air is a miracle worker when you are feeling trapped and stuck. Yesterday, I felt like I was losing my mind. I wanted to go do ANYTHING just to get out of the house so I got my dogs ready for a walk and took them out for about 20 minutes. These 20 minutes alone made me feel renewed. The crisp fresh air was rejuvenating. I highly recommend getting some form of fresh air daily.

2. Declutter

Having just moved, I decluttered quite a bit before moving and packing everything up. I was also distracted with unpacking all of the boxes and getting our new home all settled but now that everything is set what could I possibly have left to declutter. Thanks to Easter, I realized that there is a ton of Well I was amazed at how much stuff I had that I could go through and determine if it is worth keeping or not. For example, I have several huge bins of decorations for every holiday. These decorations have been collected over the years and some of them are so old that they are falling apart. Do I really need that? Well no. Throw it out!

3. Movie/TV Show

Take turns picking your favorite movie (or new movie you haven’t seen but want to) or TV show to watch (or re-watch). If you are home alone during the quarantine write down your top 5 favorite movies and top 5 favorite TV shows and select one at random until you’ve watched them all. You can even bring out your inner child in you and make a fort in your living room and make popcorn and bundle up with yourself, your significant other, family, dog, or cat.

4. Color, Draw OR Paint

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved to color in coloring books, draw and paint. I am actually a decent artist when I put my mind to it. But, as I got older, I stopped coloring. It wasn’t like I woke up one day and said I was too old to color, it just kind of happened. I would still draw. Pencil drawings were my favorite by creating detail through shading. I even took an art class freshman year in high school. I loved it. Yet, as the years went on from there I began to draw less and less. Why? Well life. Painting was always fun. I even did a few paint by numbers as a child. The last time I recall painting was when I decided to paint each of my family members something special for Christmas. I think I was a junior in college.

Well I’m almost 30 and haven’t really engaged in drawing or painting. However, adulting coloring books became a thing a couple years ago and that sounded exciting. I remembered how much I loved to color as a kid so why would coloring now feel any different. I went out and got like 5 adult coloring books and around 10 different types of coloring utensil from crayons to makers. I must have over 500 different “colors!” Sadly, I wasn’t able to color much. I was busy with teaching then moving to two different states within 2 years. Life was busy, what can I say?

Taking a positive outlook on this situation, I am not as busy as I was before and have insane amounts of free time ahead of me so let’s color. I color a little bit each day now and you know what I found out? It really is a stress reliever. For that 30 to 60 minutes that I color every day is 30 to 60 minutes where the only thing I am thinking about is making sure to stay in the lines. No noise or news article can touch me. I am in my own little world thinking about what color I want to make that flower. It is a form a Zen I didn’t know I had.

Another exciting moment, I ordered a paint by numbers canvas off Amazon about a week ago and it’s finally arriving in the next few days. I am excited to dig into some paint soon. The biggest take away I got from this was sparking my inner child. My imagination and creativity have raised my spirits in the darkest of times.

5. Puzzle

Alright, I feel like this is a common theme during quarantine since it took me 3 weeks to get one puzzle off amazing for $40. So, if you are able to get a puzzle that’s great! I worked on mine for a couple hours each day and it took me about 5 days to complete it. It was stress free and quite enjoyable being able to accomplish something.

6. Home Workout

This may be tough for some people, heck I’m a gym rat and find it extremely difficult to even do a 10-minute workout during quarantine. With that, start small. Do sit ups or jog in place for a minute a couple times a day. The goal here is to get your body moving since majority of us are now stationary for the entire day. My Instagram is TuttleFitnessandNutrition. I post workouts on there and have recently started posting my home workouts to hopefully inspire others to workout at home.

Many people aren’t able to afford to go out an buy a home gym. Trust me, that is not what I expect form you either or what I expect form myself. One of my old clients I had at 24-Hour-Fitness, when I was a trainer there, said that in order for her to do her homework she had to use her tequila bottle she got from Costco. I love it! Get creative. No weights, that’s ok, take an old liquor bottle and fill it with water and use that to hold while you do squats. My next focus on my Instagram is to post workout that can be done at home if you don’t have any gym equipment. This shall be fun!

7. Yoga AND/OR Meditation

This almost goes hand-in-hand with working out except this is the calming side of exercise. Yoga and meditation are proven to ease the mind and reduce stress. Yoga is also a great form of exercise that stretches the body, works your stabilization muscles to help with balance and can even cause you to break a sweat (yes, I sweat when I do yoga). If this feels like another “task” that you need to accomplish, either wait until you wake up one morning feeling refreshed or try meditating first for 2-minutes either in the morning or at night before you try to tackle something like a 10-minute yoga session. Again, start small then build on that accomplishment, which will inspire you to try more like a 5-minute mediation.

8. Read

Simple yet satisfying. Start reading that book you’ve been putting off for years that’s collecting dust on your bookshelf. I am huge into mystery, fantasy and thrillers. Right now, I am reading “It” by Stephen King. Its pretty intense and not for the faint of heart, I will say that. You can even start a book club with friends. Have everyone pick a book and read it then update your friends on your thoughts, but no spoilers that way if someone thinks it’s their kind of read, they have a new book to read after they finish their current read. Happy reading!

9. Video Chat

This one has become my favorite for many different reasons. First, I am a huge family advocate and love my family more than anything in the world. I would do anything for them. I recently moved to Colorado. This is the furthest I have ever lived from my immediate family and it’s not easy. What makes it worse is that I can’t go see them now and don’t want to because I don’t want to put them at risk, especially my parents. Huge shout out to technology and the ability to video chat. I am one for limiting the use of technology but right now, at this given moment, I have never been more thankful for technology. Think about it. Take us back 11 years (I chose 11 because 10 years ago was when FaceTime was introduced). Before Snapchat, before Instagram, when phones were able to sent ok photos. Video chatting was unheard of. If this pandemic happened around then and I was living in Colorado, I would only be able to talk to my family and friends. Being able to see their faces brings a new found joy and gratitude.

Next, there’s my friends. The people that know me better than anyone else int eh world. They have been through thick and thin with me and still want to hang out. I love each one of my friends for a different reason but I love them all the same. I got the crazy idea to set up a Zoom conference for a quarantine happy hour with my closest friends. Turns out, everyone loved the idea and it has now become a weekly Thursday night tradition. This Thursday marks our 4th quarantine happy hour. Each week we set a “theme” like everyone must wear a mustache. This has truly been my saving grace!

10. Write Letters

This one is short and sweet. Write a letter to a friend or family member. Let’s bring back an old tradition. My parents were high school sweethearts and if it wasn’t for them writing letters to each other in college while my mom went out of state, who knows if they’d still be together. Spread the love!

11. Journal/Blog

This feels ironic because this is a blog and seems redundant so I will keep this one short. Blogging is a great way to express oneself. My husband hates writing and would never write in a journal or participate in blogging. I get it! Writing isn’t for everybody. I will say this though. Writing is a great way to express oneself and to express one’s emotions. Open a word document and begin writing. Write about a time you were happy or sad. Write a fictional story about a dog that can talk. Write about anything you want. You don’t have to share what you write either.

I struggle with anxiety and depression. I saw a therapist almost 2 years ago and one thing she taught me was to start journaling. It was a way to talk about what was bothering me without having to talk. She even said she had clients that would write her a letter and would give it to her at their session to read so that they didn’t have to vocalize what they were going through. Give it shot and see how it goes! You don’t like, that’s ok. At least you tried.

12. Craft

Ok, crafting is something I do on the regular… well if several times throughout the year is regular. I like to think of myself as an aspiring Etsy seller. Hopefully… one day! I have always seen these handmade silk pumpkins either at fairs or online on places like Etsy, so I got the idea last October to make these pumpkins. You said it, I have been way to busy these last 8 months to even consider the idea of starting a new project. I bought all the components and even saved my pumpkin stems from last Halloween. No more excuses girl, I sat down one day and made a bunch of these pumpkins and oh my goodness, I love them!!! I found something that was easy to make but also had such a satisfying feeling when done. I plan to make more and even start selling them on Etsy once Halloween rolls around.

Time to take another look at something positive that has occurred form the quarantine. I was able to do a craft I have been putting off for so long and finally accomplished another goal of mine. I also found this craft to be extremely fun and gratifying to where I want to share my work with the world and sell my homemade pumpkins one day. search your inner self and ask “what is something I have always wanted to make?” Who knows you may learn something new about yourself!

Another crafting idea is to scrapbook. You can order scrapbook stuff online and have pictures printed at Walgreens or CVS for a really great price (any drugstore has great prices on prints). I decided to print pictures over the last two years of my life… there was a lot! Around 1000 single-print pictures. Needless to say, I have enough pictures to make a ton of scrapbooks. The scrapbook I started was my wedding scrapbook starting from our engagement all the way through our honeymoon. It is so much fun to look back at all the wonderful events I shared with my husband. It is moments like those that we need to think about to keep us staying positive.

13. Cards/Boardgames

This is yet another simple thing to do at home that takes time and will distract you form entering the kitchen. There are tons of card games you can play with others or solo games as well. You can even play “War” with a friend on video chat!

14. Pamper

Ok, this one is more for the ladies. Men you are welcome to join but my husband is one that turns me down every time I ask him to join me in doing a face mask. As I said, do a face mask once a week to rejuvenate not only your skin but your mind as well. I am not one to wear makeup all the time but some people find it therapeutic putting on make up so you can use your spare time in trying out new colors or a new eyeliner design. Shoot! You can even try perfecting putting on eyeliner. I know I struggle at times.

Another way to pamper yourself is to give yourself your own manicure and pedicure. Some of my friends get their nails done once a month or more. I know they’re feening to get their nails fixed so why not try it yourself. You’ll eventually need to cut you toe nails during quarantine.

15. Video Games

Finally, we have come to number 15. Video games whether it is on your computer or a gaming console, it counts! I am a WoW head and paly for a couple hours each day. Not everyone is a video game nerd like me but now is the time to bust out your old Nintendo 64 and show off your Mario Kart skills. Anything to take your mind off food or stress.

Thank you

My love goes out to every single person throughout the world, whether you are personally affected by the virus or not. I wish you the all the best from the bottom of my heart.