Besides the limitations of being able to do things outside my house, I have more downtime in my house now. My main job doing customer service work has significantly cut my hours. I used to work about 30 hours a week for that job. A few weeks ago, most of my co-workers were let go and I had my hours cut in half. We weren’t doing any shows, but my manager and I stayed on to handle the few customers that were contacting us for help with various issues. Then this week, I became the last one left at my job (because of the way unemployment would work for me, it made more sense for me to stay on than my manager). But I am down to 3 hours a week. I now only will be working 1 hour for 3 days a week to answer voicemails. This could change to no hours, but I’m hoping at least I can keep this.
I do still have my other job (although I am restricted in how many hours I can do for that) and I can file for unemployment to make up the difference in salary once the pandemic unemployment assistance is set up. I’m not as worried about money as I thought I might be. Since so many people are in the same situation as me right now, I know there are a lot of people I can ask for help. And they are making the rules for unemployment different so I am eligible (when normally I wouldn’t be). So even though I’m sad that I’m not working normally, at least there is a bit of good news with the situation.
Now that I’m down to 3 hours a week (plus the other few hours a week I do my other job), there is so much free time for me every day. And I’ve really been trying to be productive. I put a lot more stress on myself to be productive when this all started and I realized that I couldn’t hold myself to that standard. This is not just a normal break with work like I’ve had before. I don’t know how long this will last and there are so many other things bringing stress into my life. SO I’m trying to find ways to be productive but not be hard on myself if there are some days that all I do is sit on the couch and watch tv. So I’ve been making a list of things that I have been putting off when I do feel motivated. And a lot of that list is big cleaning projects.
I’ve only accomplished one of those cleaning projects so far and that was to deep clean my fridge. I usually clean my fridge by wiping it down when necessary. But I couldn’t remember the last time I took the drawers and shelves out to scrub them. And I wanted to add some shelf liners to the shelves and a crisper drawer liner for my vegetable drawer to help keep it clean (or make it easier to clean when there is a spill). So I ordered a few things online that I wanted to use and once it was all here and I felt motivated, I did a huge cleaning of the fridge.
I was able to just shift things inside the fridge so I didn’t have to worry about things going bad. I just did one section at a time and then put things back and moved them around to work on another section. Because I was doing a deep cleaning plus adding liners, it did take a bit longer (it took me longer than I thought it would to cut the liners to the right size). But in the end, I’m very happy with having one big cleaning project done and my fridge looking so nice!
I think the motivation for the cleaning was because I have been trying to be better about cooking. And having a clean and organized fridge does help me want to cook. If I can store my ingredients where I can find them, that helps.
I’m sure that some of you are laughing at me for making such a big deal out of this, and I know that this isn’t something that should be life-changing. But it was something I was putting off for longer than I should and I’m so glad that I did it. It made me feel very accomplished and took up a lot of time, 2 things that I really need to feel these days.
You Might Also Like
A Big Cleaning Week (or An Excuse to Organize)
Feeling Like A Fresh Start (or Spring Cleaning and New Toys)
Spring Cleaning (or Needing To Declutter Again)
Slowly Spring Cleaning (or Tidying Up My Way)
Is It Too Early To Be Spring Cleaning? (or Out With The Unused)
Spring Cleaning (or Feeling Pampered)
