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Thread: Self Isolation

  1. #16
    Join Date
    Mar 2018
    Location
    Piercefield, NY
    Posts
    1,659
    I've been very lucky so far, I live and have a 'day job' at a small farm/homestead/nonprofit organization, so I am able to keep working during the day as normal, though our outreach in the local community has had to be put on hold as we are not able to visit people other than to leave things for them on their porches, nor to be visited by them. My paid work is as a self-employed banjo and other stringed instrument builder in the evenings, and my workshop is here on the premises, so I am able to carry on as usual so far. Whether people will continue buying instruments in a time like this remains to be seen, and if the mail is shut down or reserved for only essential services I will have a problem. I've made sure I have enough parts from my suppliers to last for 6 months or so of normal workload, and I have lots of lumber. If I am no longer able to keep making instruments or selling them at some point I will be okay for a while as I have been saving money over the past few years to buy a house, so while I would hate to use those savings for something else at least they are there if needed. We have all been mildly sick in an odd way for a couple of weeks now, not enough to have to stop working except a couple of days, but I'm not getting back to being really healthy either.

  2. #17
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
    Posts
    8,973
    We started isolation a bit before it was even suggested. I've been working on a lake house that we were hoping to be renting out to vacation renters this season, but it looks like there will be no income from that, like we were expecting. We have no close neighbors anyway, and a pretty sizeable spread, so we have plenty of ways to occupy our time anyway.

    We are giving our helpers paid leave, starting before it was ever mentioned to have any kind of government help for that sort of thing, and will just continue it on our own.

    My Wife teaches exercise classes, but stopped that about a week, and a half ago. She is also a dog breeder, and we had a litter of puppies last Monday, and the second one for this Spring last night, so we have plenty of entertainment from that. Not one person on the puppy waiting list has decided to put off getting one, so that was a little surprising. I'm not sure how the pickups are going to work, especially since one family is from NYC.

    We only had the first case in our County discovered today, but I doubt it will be the last.

    My 103 year old Mother is in Assisted Living, and we've been visiting her through her first floor window. She'll be 104 in a couple of weeks. She's mainly occupied her time doing puzzles, but they have spread them out for meals, and needed the space she was using for puzzles for meals. We're going to try to get them to take out one of the chairs in her room, and put in a table that she can do puzzles on tomorrow. She's seen many changes over her century plus of life, and is taking it all just fine.

    In short, we're making out with no real problems. I have more work to do than I can ever get done anyway. It's just a slower go by myself. We are putting in a much larger garden this year.

    All take care, and stay healthy.

  3. #18
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Northern Oregon
    Posts
    1,820
    After learning that you can have no symptoms and still spread the virus we got even more conservative in our family.

    Sadly today we isolated even more. Me and my wife live in one house. 9 other extended family members live in 3 other houses. Our house was always the daily gathering place.

    Today we decided to not allow extended family in the house for awhile. I will only leave to get supplies weekly. We're both over 65 so I guess more at risk, but my wife will leave daily to visit extended family. She still wants to work to be of service to the community.

    I will miss my daily visits with my great grandson.

    I'm grateful that my wife and I don't have to work. We have enough to get by easily and house is paid for. My prayers go out to those with work and financial stress.
    "Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t - you’re right."
    - Henry Ford

  4. #19
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Location
    Edmond, Oklahoma
    Posts
    1,749
    I was sent home from work last Wednesday before noon with a very mild cough. It is hay fever time of year for me which was the cause. The plant nurse checked me and I was fine except for the mild cough, but corporate is wisely taking no chances. Everyone with a hint of a cough, etc., was sent home. The plant nurse had no flexibility at all per corporate.

    Everyone else, but "have to be there" folks, was sent home by the end of that same day. We who can, were given instructions from the company to work at home. I worked on our lap top at home, but could not get on the company web site, so will have to email the work to my plant email.

    That changed today, and I got on the company web site. The Security Chief made special arrangements for me to pick up a loaner lap top in the parking lot at the plant. IT also had a Special Security permit to be thereto set me up, I could not leave the parking lot and final log in and set up was in the parking lot. The IT guy and I had to stay 6' apart and when done leave right away. Getting on the company web site made work from home much better and more productive too.

    My wife and I are also staying in the house except for necessities, but I do go outside into the yard. I left once for cough medicine and groceries, but used hand sanitizer liberally entering and leaving the store. Church was on line Sunday, and we watched from home on the web, as we had been advised.

    We are praying that this situation will be over soon.

    Regards,

    Stew
    Last edited by Stew Denton; 03-23-2020 at 11:44 PM.

  5. #20
    Salt Lake area... Our house is/was my parents house, we moved here when I was 14 in 1969 from our first house (ironically, relatives too close). The engraving 'hobby' my dad started 3 years earlier started to blossom, became the main source of my income 1974 and my ONLY source since 1976. I pretty much took over the biz in '02, and the wife & I had to move in to take care of my aging parents in '09, been our home ever since. Lost mom & dad 7 and 9 years ago, and soon after business started coming in like gangbusters, and hasn't let up. The past 2 years I've been working on average 17 hours a day, usually 7 days a week. The past couple of months I rarely shut down before 2am...

    SO, we got the self-quarantine thing covered! We've hardly left the house for years. Shopping and post office runs, and maybe twice a month we go out to eat. We're both notorious over-buyers so we're stocked up and good for at least 6 weeks without ever leaving. As to my job, I build and/or laser engrave ski lift operator panels for the 2 largest ski lift mfr's in the country, and they have steady work for me lined up till past August. Another customer builds mining trucks that mix ANFO to pour down little holes that make much BIGGER holes; I supply all the controls labeling and etc for their trucks, and they're booked for at least 4 months. And at least half of my other regulars are able to work during a shutdown. So I'm one of the lucky ones who'll be working steady regardless. We've had 'social distance' outside pickup for years, should be easy to expand on that-

    This is all getting to be too 'real', especially after last Wednesday morning, when, as if we needed anything more to worry about, we were shook out of bed by a 5.7 earthquake. Still getting aftershocks, our nerves rattle more than the house!

    I would like to be able to believe we're going to be missed until a vaccine (hopefully) shows up, but not holding my breath. The vast amounts of people just plain not giving a crap about this situation, that's REALLY scary. Full on proof you really CAN'T fix stupid. And sadly about 4 in 10 of us is likely to pay extra for that...
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  6. #21
    I never actually have to go outside from home to my shop and it's a 4 mile drive.

    150 gallons of diesel in the truck, two cases of redbull, smokes and food to feed 5 plus 4 animals for 6 months or so.

    I wish I had more than 4 rolls of TP. Lol.

  7. #22
    Join Date
    Sep 2019
    Location
    Lafayette, CA
    Posts
    832
    NoCal. I’m a one-on-one SAT-ACT test-prep tutor, and all the tests are cancelled until at least June. A few students have begun prep about once every two weeks, and will eventually ramp up to weekly sessions if the June tests don’t get cancelled too. We’ll see. I take every opportunity to slip into the shop, and for that I don’t mind staying in the house, except for the daily walk with our dog. I have three projects lined up. Never bored!

  8. #23
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Upland CA
    Posts
    5,548
    East end of the greater Los Angeles area. Wife and I are both 77, and our 50's daughter and her two 20's daughters live with us. We built a 'granny flat' addition on the house 10 years ago, and the daughter lives in it, while the two granddaughters live in the main house with us. We are almost done building a 'spare' bedroom suite in a separate building for one of the granddaughters to live and teach in.

    She and her mom teach dyslexic kids full time, one in a patio room, the other in the granny flat. They come in every hour one at a time for lessons. The new room will enable teaching out there, and free the patio room to be for the other granddaughter, who has asperger's syndrome.

    We started staying home two weeks ago, and one week ago the daughter switched all the students to on line instruction to be safe.

    We still have workmen working on the building, but they all try to stay away from each other, and we try to stay away from them. Another two weeks and it's done. Hopefully we will all be OK. About every other day we take the car out and get lunch at a drive through then take it home to eat. The daughter shops when needed for food.

    Lots of hand washing, and I spend a lot of time in the shop alone. Lord willing we will be ok, and we hope the same for all of you. Which reminds me, our church also started having services on YouTube two weeks ago.
    Rick Potter

    DIY journeyman,
    FWW wannabe.
    AKA Village Idiot.

  9. #24
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Toronto Ontario
    Posts
    11,248
    I'm on week 2 of working from home, Diann is retired.

    In general we're pretty isolated from the entire issue, I'm getting paid, finances are of no concern.

    We're not socializing at all, we've made one trip out for groceries, that's it.

    Gasoline is down into the 60 cent range, normally twice that amount as demand has fallen off the graph. I live in the largest city in Canada and the traffic cameras are showing empty highways at rush hour, hopefully it means that we're being responsible.

    Tonight the province brings in mandatory closures except for essential services, we already closed restaurants and bars, theatres etc a week ago.

    At this point our per capita infections and deaths are low, hopefully it stays that way for everyone in the world..........Rod.

  10. #25
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    McKean, PA
    Posts
    15,593
    Blog Entries
    1
    My wife and I started staying away from other people 2 weeks ago. So far so good. We have taken advantage of curbside pickup for groceries at our two regular supermarkets. One does it all themselves with no surcharge, the other uses a third party app and adds a small surcharge for the labor to do the actual shopping. Both work pretty well. We've ordered take out once from a local restaurant. Our kids live several hours away form us so we communicate often by phone. Our niece called yesterday and offered to do some shopping for us, we accepted. She is a Dr of public health. I've been walking outside several miles as often as the weather permits for exercise and to get out of the house for a while. We live in a rural area so meeting someone along the road is rare and everyone seems to be exercising expanded personal spacing. I've noticed far less traffic on our road so people seem to be staying at home more. We are mentally prepared to continue this for several months. We've been trying to stay in touch with our friends via emails and phone calls and try to encourage each other to stay the course.
    Lee Schierer
    USNA '71
    Go Navy!

    My advice, comments and suggestions are free, but it costs money to run the site. If you found something of value here please give a little something back by becoming a contributor! Please Contribute

  11. #26
    I'm retired and on SS though the wife is still working. Though she works in MA and they have shut down all but essential businesses, her company does over 50% military work and quite a bit of medical so she is very busy. Fortunately her office layout allows wide distances between employees and they have plenty of cleaning supplies. We have limited our shopping and the only other trip was last Saturday to the local Chinese take out place. All volunteering at the VA Medical Center has been terminated until further notice and my next 2 appointments scheduled for early April were yesterday changed by the VA to telephone appointments. 4 weeks ago I suspended our American Legion 10 meter air rifle Junior Shooting Sports Program until further notice for the kids safety. In our town the March town meeting has been rescheduled until May 16th, the library is closed, the senior center is closed, and the transfer station has suspended recycling and accepts only trash until further notice. We don't have any issues about neighbors being close since we have 2 acre minimum zoning and most of the town of 5200 is pretty rural anyway. I've kept busy with odd jobs round the house and yard, reading, and a small bit of woodworking. Financially we are in fine shape with no mortgage or credit card debt. Once the weather warms up I have a big list of yard projects to keep me busy. Overall Sothern NH is in relatively decent shape compared to more densely populated states.
    Dave Anderson

    Chester, NH

  12. #27
    Join Date
    May 2015
    Location
    Ingleside, IL
    Posts
    1,417
    Alive and well in NW Indiana. Several weeks ago I was at a meeting with someone who - unknowingly until he got to the meeting - had been in contact with someone who had the virus. So I have been on quarantine since then, but feel fine so I'm back in the main house again. When the addition was put on we had 2 new HVAC systems installed, with electronic air cleaners, and we can shut the house into 2 separate living spaces. So I was in one wing, SWMBO was in the other. But that has ended and we both feel fine. Old, but fine. I retired after 40 years of construction estimating, but got an offer I couldn't refuse from the software vendor whose product I used, to handle support for them in the US. So I work from the second floor of my shop, and drop down to make sawdust when the mood hits me and the calls are slow. All in all a pretty cool arrangement.

    I read somewhere that the theory is that small towns like the one I live in - 900 souls - will be the last hit by the virus, and I hope that's true because the med world better know what they are doing by then, or the whole place has burned down. We don't go out at all, except to pick up groceries from my daughters garage after they are delivered to her. (delivery is not available here, so we give her a list and she orders it for delivery) Since her immune system is challenged at the moment, we don't have any contact with her - hence the delivery to the garage. I have a zoom account so we have been spending a lot of time online with family and friends, grand kids and great grand kids. I take a walk in the morning and have had some great conversations, using BT headsets, with a couple of friends in Denmark who walk after dinner.

    I've been down the rabbit hole of shop improvements for a week: dust collection, chisel rack, bench horses, moxon tweaks, etc. Currently starting a Stickley bookcase. And my lumber guy in Lafayette is closed, but has hand picked about 80 bf of QSWO for me and left in a stack in his barn for me to pick up. And I'll leave him a stack of greenbacks. Social distancing at work.

    Stay safe and healthy, kids.

    PS: all 4 humidors are full, so I'm good.
    Stand for something, or you'll fall for anything.

  13. #28
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Northern Oregon
    Posts
    1,820
    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew Joiner View Post
    After learning that you can have no symptoms and still spread the virus we got even more conservative in our family.

    Sadly today we isolated even more. Me and my wife live in one house. 9 other extended family members live in 3 other houses. Our house was always the daily gathering place.

    Today we decided to not allow extended family in the house for awhile. I will only leave to get supplies weekly. We're both over 65 so I guess more at risk, but my wife will leave daily to visit extended family. She still wants to work to be of service to the community.

    I will miss my daily visits with my great grandson.

    I'm grateful that my wife and I don't have to work. We have enough to get by easily and house is paid for. My prayers go out to those with work and financial stress.
    I'm quoting myself to give an update. Everyone in my family is healthy right now
    I've visited my great grandson and grandkids only a few times. Gone for walks outside only. I've started wearing a cloth mask to do weekly food shopping.
    Will keep my rubber paint respirator ready in case my wife gets the virus. She still visits extended family in their homes daily. She does social distancing at work, but not with extended family. Some of extended family are young and don't know what 6' looks like

    My wife just told me we WILL be letting all extended family in the house by April 30th. She is scared and emotional. Tough time right now. I may have to rent a place for her to live and have the family over. Science tells me to preserve my health for now the best I can.
    Hope you all are healthy.
    "Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t - you’re right."
    - Henry Ford

  14. #29
    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Location
    Modesto, CA, USA
    Posts
    9,882
    Easy way to stay safe is to bag the purchases into cold stuff that needs to come in and go into the fridge. Wash your hands and take a break. Everything else can sit in the car for 3 days then be brought in safely.
    I was surprised to learn that freezing does nothing to stop the virus since it is not alive it can not be killed. It is not clear if freezing contaminated goods allows them to be self sterilized in the same three days or not. Or does the three days start only after they are thawed.
    Bil lD

  15. #30
    Join Date
    Nov 2016
    Location
    Itapevi, SP - Brazil
    Posts
    672

    No radical changes

    We completed three weeks in isolation at home.

    I worked mainly from home office, now for almost ten years,
    except when visiting a few customers locally and abroad - all customer´s visits are not allowed by company since quarantine started
    . Actually my job volume increased significantly in this last three weeks but I maintain my job.

    We miss the visits to our favorite restaurants but fortunately we are lucky (yet) to have a good delivery system to home for multiple stores so we can have some culinary adventures also at home.

    We live in a spacious home with an almost 3,000 books library and a woodwork shop. A reasonably sized backyard with more than 20 trees, mostly fruitiful, five cats living outside home and a external gourmet area.

    Finally we are connect with a 100Mbps fiber internet connection as well a backup 8Mbps from another provider (just in case), besides of our mobiles (using two different providers).

    My parents live some blocks from home and since the begining of this mess we did not visited them but call them to check if everything is OK. One of my brothers is in charge to provide groceries and medicines to them. My father is more impatient and decided to go out to look for a barber shop - fortunately all of them are closed.

    Our church offers virtual services. Our friends are in touch with electronic channels.

    Probably our biggest stress is on the Economy: how we will pay the bill for that paralises? I forecast significant worse years ahead if compare with current quarantine.
    All the best.

    Osvaldo.

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