How is the “new normal” affecting you?

My New Normal is Not Much Different Than My Old Normal

We got a new dog right before the stay-at-home order was issued

Instead of puppies, we adopt senior rescue dogs. What does that have to do with the coronavirus pandemic? And why am I writing about it?

I’m writing about it because Rasheed Hooda challenged Tim Maudlin to share how the “new normal” was affecting his life. Then Tim Maudlin challenged me.

Whenever we adopt a new dog, we arrange our schedules so that we are out of the house as little as possible for the first few weeks. It helps everybody adjust — us, the dog we already have, and the new furbaby.

Because we adopt seniors, we usually don’t have them for long, so we go through the adoption process every few years.

We got Scarlett a week before the stay-at-home order was issued. So our usual two-week new dog adjustment time stretched into three months.

And we’re all happy.

Seriously, our lives haven’t changed much with the pandemic. My husband and I work from home (I’m a writer, he’s a photographer / videographer / graphic designer; I write books and we provide writing and publishing services to a limited clientele), so our work patterns didn’t change.

We canceled the dinner parties and family gatherings we had scheduled. We got comfortable with meeting on Zoom. We adjusted our shopping habits and got used to wearing masks on the one day a week that we went out.

Scarlett got comfortable with her new home and family.

And every day, my husband and I give thanks for the fact that, in addition to loving each other, we genuinely LIKE each other. We like working together, we like doing household chores together, we like taking walks together, we like relaxing together. We like staying home together.

As the economy reopens, we are not chomping at the bit to get out. We’re making our event choices cautiously.

We’re eager to see the economy recover. We’re looking forward to traveling again. We’d like to plan a dinner party.

We know it will all happen in time — we just want to be safe and healthy as it does. And we want everyone else to be, too.

Here’s a little more about me:

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