It’s a good thing I love my room or else I would have gone stir crazy by now. This is my 11th/12th day of isolation and all I have with me are my cats for company. I miss hugging my girls but I have to be careful just in case what they had initially was not Covid (but I seriously doubt that was not Covid because I got it from them). So being an introvert is an advantage during these times of isolation and hunkering down in place because we have logged 23,000+ new cases today again. I could amuse myself and live in this 10 (or 15?) sqm room and not feel resentful. Having 400+Mbps of internet is also a God-send during these trying times.

We survived the weeks by ordering food via Grab and ordering groceries through the Puregold app. I love Puregold! They assign you a personal shopper and they call you when they don’t have stocks of the items you wanted and they call you again when the orders are ready for payment and delivery. It was so seamless. Now I just have to figure out how to buy fresh vegetables and fruits via this vendor on Facebook whose store is in Nepa Q Mart. I also need to figure out how to have the Monterey Community Market to deliver to me.

I learned that Southstar Drug delivers the next day, which is much better than Mercury Drug–my orders from that store never came.

I am also so thankful that we didn’t live in a condo. I would have gone bonkers with all that confinement if we spent the pandemic in a condo. Here in this apartment complex at least we have a small courtyard in front of our front door where we could sun ourselves if we wanted to.

Once I get out of Covid isolation and get better, I will fix my container garden and add plastic vegetable pots in our kitchen/cooking area that gets great natural light. I will tack them on the walls. Or have some in hanging planters.

Meanwhile, my kids are now regularly doing chores since one househelp left my household because she got pregnant and went to live with her boyfriend. Twin I can now cook simple stuff like instant noodles and fried egg. She and Twin A now regularly wash dishes and clean up after themselves. Twin A used to be very messy and her spot was a pigsty. When we transferred her computer desk under the stairs to be nearer to her sister, she cleaned up and matured a bit. In a blink of an eye they would be teenagers soon.

I’m thankful that it’s just the four of us right now (my girls and I and one househelp). Covid is manageable this way.