Our Covid-19 Adventure: Where have we been?

As promised in the previous post, I am giving an update of our Covid-19 adventure from the perspective of This Guy Sews.

As most of you are aware, we are currently nearing the end of a global pandemic. It seems so long ago that we began hearing the mantra “Stay Home, Stay Safe.” Many didn’t understand the magnitude of the what was happening. The pandemic caused panic, and many people stockpiled supplies, which led to the scarcity of many common products. We were able to acquire enough supplies to make it through the shortages.

Additionally, many stores were considered non-essential. That meant they had to close or reduce staff to the bare minimum to maintain essential equipment/machinery and what not.

I Am An Essential Worker

My family didn’t feel the effects of the slowed economy until well into the pandemic. But finally, a reduction in hours at my job was unavoidable. Luckily for me, the reduction was only 20% as opposed to many others who lost their jobs entirely. I’m very thankful I wasn’t in that camp.

We Moved!

Covid-19 caused many to change the way they interacted with their loved ones, and we are not much different. We felt the effects of this isolation deeply, when we decided to move to be closer to my job. I took a promotion about 6 months prior to the onset of the pandemic that took me about a 90 min drive away from home. The commute wasn’t terrible most days, but leaving the house at 2am in the winter started to wear me down. I began to look at other options and the logical choice was to move.

Let me back up just a bit. We actually decided to move before Covid-19 was of pandemic proportions. We also didn’t understand what purchasing a home on the brink of a global pandemic would look like. (LOL)

In February 2020, we started looking online at homes near the new job. We were pickier this time around as with our first house we learned about some things we didn’t like in a house.

House Hunting

Because I was already commuting, I was able to look at the houses while I was in town so I didn’t have to make special trips to see houses. It was convenient. The very first house I looked at was the one we decided to purchase, but we looked at several others to make sure there wasn’t something better.

We made an offer and went through the whole purchasing process still before Covid-19 reached its peak. We closed on the house a week before Michigan issued its stay-at-home order. No longer a suggestion.

Our initial plan was to wait until school was out and then move slowly over the next few months. I could easily take a van load or two a week and get things slowly set up. The house didn’t need hardly any work. After the deep cleaning it was pretty much move in ready.

Covid-19 Affected Our Move

But once Covid-19 caused the state to shut down everything but essential businesses including schools, we decided there wasn’t a really good reason to wait until school was out to move. So, we started moving.

As you can probably imagine we just hired movers to pack us up and move us in a weekend. HAHAHA. No such thing happened. We didn’t have any help moving because everything was closed and everyone was social distancing. We moved everything with 2 minivans and one small 4×8 open trailer by ourselves.

Our Kids Also Affected Our Move

On top of all that we still had the kids with us the entire time so we actually packed twice. Every time we’d turn around the baby had the boxes unloaded. But it was fun. If I could ever recommend a time for someone to move it would definitely be during a global pandemic. You sure learn a lot about your people under these conditions.

Some positives of moving during a global pandemic. Fuel prices were the lowest I’ve paid since I started driving (almost 25 years ago). The sense of accomplishment of moving during a pandemic alone! It was a lot of work, and without a wife who is as amazing as mine is, I don’t know how it would have gone. She is a very special lady.

Covid-19: A Year Later

Now here I am over a year since we made the move. The pandemic is winding down. Things have begun re-opening. Many people have long given up on wearing masks and social distancing. People just want to get back to normal. My job is back to normal hours. Things are pretty much back to normal.

Now the real question: why did I wait so long to write this article? There are a few reasons. For one thing, the pandemic didn’t slow our family down much. We homeschool and my wife works from home. I’m an essential employee so I worked through the whole pandemic.

Another thing is that we moved. It was a long and arduous process. While the new house didn’t really need any work to move in, there were some things we wanted to do to make it our own. Every house has projects, especially ones as old as this one.

Back to Blogging

Because of all the craziness of the last year and a half, I haven’t had much time to sew or write. I have a few projects lined up to write about and some catching up to do. I’m hoping to get the blog back to a somewhat regular posting schedule. I have a serger I need to get working, some clothing repairs to do, and a gift my wife and I made for our daughter.

If you’re new to blog please check out “Sewing Room Essentials: 15 Things You Need Now.” It’s a very helpful article about the mot essential items you need to get started sewing and setting up your sewing space.

For the guys out there who sew check out “Men who sew: 5 Reasons Men Don’t Sew and How to Get Started in 2021.”

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is how to reuse the fabric from old garments that I’ve been saving. Here is a good book on how to do just that: How to Sew Sustainably: Recycling, reusing, and remaking with fabric.