What a Challenge Coronavirus Is!

Ok, it is no secret to anybody who knows me that I am food challenged.  I don’t like meal planning, I really don’t like going to the grocery store, I have weird eating habits, I am not a great cook and let’s just say that part of domestic life is just a real challenge for me.

So, enter coronavirus.  I live in Texas where they decided to offload a number of the people on the affected cruise ship.  The people aren’t in the city where I live but they are in my hometown and now there is a crisis that one of the people was released only to find out that she really is positive for the disease. So, back into isolation she goes after she visited the mall, ate at the food court, tried on some clothes, stayed at a nearby hotel — in essence just spread herself all over the area.  It wasn’t her fault, she thought she was clear.

I digress.

The news media, as well as state and federal health officials, are telling us to prepare to be isolated for awhile.  They are saying to have food and water stashed away for about a month.  Then they came back and said we really didn’t need to hoard water.  So, I didn’t but I don’t know how to plan to be in the house without going to the grocery store for a month.  I mean the idea of not having to go grocery shopping for a month sounds great but I don’t know how to do it.

So, I have grocery shopped twice now and loaded up on frozen things and canned things.  I doubled some things and quadrupled others.  I forgot a lot of things — cornmeal to be exact.  I don’t think I have enough to feed us for a month.  As I use the stuff up, though, I am going to make a running list of what to replace because buying these large loads of groceries isn’t my idea of fun.

What is fun though is looking at a full freezer and pantry — and filled with things we actually eat.  There are so many times I grocery shop and then don’t have anything to eat because I bought stuff we really don’t eat.  And I HAVE to mention the stash of Girl Scout cookies — I have twelve packages of Girl Scout cookies that are going in the freezer.  I am going to look at them everyday and see how long I can keep from eating them.  I mean, if we end up being quarantined or something I have to have cookies.

So, yeah, prepping for a pandemic is confusing, tiring and not much fun.  However, I have learned a few things from it and will probably try to keep my stash up so that I don’t have to do this again.  When I was a girl we moved to a new-to-us house and the next door neighbor was new as well.  It was an elderly couple and they liked to chat with my mom.  The lady, Mrs. S, told my mom that when she moved she bought all new food rather than moving food.  She made a list of everything she ever needed and she bought a certain amount of each thing and when she would use one she would make a list and her next grocery shopping trip was made up of just what she had used out of her stash.  The houses in the neighborhood had large pantries and she would rotate her pantry so she could use up the older stuff and the new stuff went in the back.  I thought it was genius.  That is what I am going to try to do.  Tomorrow I am going to rearrange the pantry and get things more organized.

Ok, that is all I am going to say about coronavirus except that I am terrified of it.  That’s all.