Show Notes
Homemade Masks Directions from our local hospital
The stores we mentioned (in case you're curious): Questions for Reflection
Each episode we offer you a few prompts to think about how that day's conversation applies to you. You might pause the podcast and answer them right then and there, but if you keep a journal (Steph and Beth both do), you might find one of these PDFs useful. Choose the orientation that fits best in your journal.
Transcript
Beth (00:03):
Welcome to the Discovering Our Scars Podcast. Steph (00:06): Where we have honest conversations about things that make us different. I'm Steph. Beth (00:09): I'm Beth. Steph (00:11): Today is April 1st, 2020, around 10 o'clock. Beth (00:15): We don't normally timestamp our episodes, but it's something that we're doing for the time being because this is coronavirus, COVID-19 season. Steph (00:25): Yes, the COVID season is what I'm calling it. COVID-19, sorry, to be exact. Beth (00:32): Let's be careful with our information. Steph (00:33): Yes, let's be accurate. Also, I'm trying not to call it coronavirus anymore because that's not accurate enough. It's COVID-19, is the actual term, the virus we are all trying to desperately not get and just be able to stay out of the hospitals. Beth (00:50): Yeah, we are two weeks into this. Steph (00:52): If not, more. Beth (00:53): Yeah, maybe more. Steph (00:54): It's hard to say the start date. Beth (00:55): It's true. I think that as of yesterday it had been two weeks that I was extreme social distancing, in my house and leaving as infrequently as possible and trying to... We haven't been eating at restaurants and that kind of thing. We, meaning my family and I, we are two weeks into that. I think you are too. Steph (01:16): I mean, I was super concerned about it for probably three weeks because right before I went to Nashville I was super concerned. We went to the store trying to find wipes for wiping down the plane and we could only find a couple. Me and my mom both got one pack of wipes and those are gone now. Definitely can't find them anywhere. We'll say two weeks for the title but I'm pretty sure we're three years in probably. Beth (01:41): Three years. A decade. We don't know. Steph (01:43): My whole lifetime, this has been a concern. I'm pretty confident. Beth (01:46): Apparently it's now April. I don't know how that happened. Steph (01:50): That's a joke. It's a joke. Beth (01:51): It should be August maybe, I don't know. What we thought we would talk about today is: Who Can We Trust? We are weeks into this, however many weeks, we are weeks into this. How do we know who we can trust and how is that impacting how we view our neighbors? Steph (02:08): I don't know about you Beth, but I've been still very nervous and anxious during this time. I'm taking each day, day by day. Days seemed to be longer also. Is that possible? Have days gotten longer? Well actually, yes, they have gotten longer because daylight savings happened right around the time of the virus. Beth (02:24): True. That's true. Steph (02:25): I think they do, they do seem longer because we have daylight for so much longer. Beth (02:29): Which is maybe how this has only been two weeks or three weeks or whatever it is, because now the days are actually like 72 hours long. Then a week happens, has a lot more hours in it. I don't know, I don't know. Steph (02:42): I don't know how time works anymore. I don't think it does. Yeah, I would say I am taking every day day by day and I'm being conscious of how I absorb information. I want to know what the latest information is. My go-to is the CDC. If the CDC says it, I'm on it. Actually, one thing, I'm very much listening to CDC, but I'm also- Beth (03:09): Let's just say she's very pro CDC. Steph (03:12): Yes, I am very pro CDC but I'm also a little concerned because early on they said, if you're not sick, do not wear a mask. Beth (03:21): Right. Steph (03:21): Did I say that right? Beth (03:22): Yeah, so they were saying if you're not sick, you don't need to wear a mask because it's not going to do you any good. Steph (03:28): Yeah. It's only good for the person that is sick to wear a mask to contain the virus inside their mask. Beth (03:35): What they were saying originally was only healthcare workers should be wearing the mask because they're exposed to so much more virus load, viral load. Only healthcare workers should be wearing masks. Steph (03:46): Now, Dr. Fauci, right? Fauci? Beth (03:49): Yeah, Fauci. Steph (03:50): Great guy, watched him anytime he- Beth (03:51): Totally trust him! Steph (03:52): Anytime he is in a YouTube video or something, I'm watching that because I trust him. Now he's saying the reason they didn't recommend for people to wear masks is because they didn't want to stop the supply of masks. I'm like, wait a minute. That doesn't seem like a medical reason for us to not wear mask. That's making me a little concerned that they've been telling us not to wear masks because of the supply. Beth (04:14): Right. Now they're saying maybe you should wear a mask because even if you're asymptomatic you could be spreading the virus. But if you have on a mask you're less likely to spread it. The problem is, how do you get masks? Do you have any extra masks lying around? Steph (04:29): We don't have any. We used N95 mask, me and my mom, for DIY projects. We've had them in the past. We recently did a big clean-out and we threw away a lot of masks. Not unused masks, just masks we had had. We're like, okay, we'll buy some new later, and we never did. The only masks we have left are a couple reusable masks that have replaceable filters that we don't have replacements for. Beth (04:54): You can't get the filters now? Steph (04:55): No, you can't. We also have these medical masks that we wear a lot, it's not N95, but it does help if we're using a chemical that has a smell to it. We'll wear those and that will help us not to breathe it in. We do have those but they're definitely not going to protect us from this virus. My mom did wear one the other day to the grocery store, better than nothing I guess. My mom does sew and so we are going to sew a couple of masks with HEPA filters inside, for working, at least, because we need them for woodworking and for working with concrete and things like that. We need to protect our lungs from that. Also, we'll probably wear them to the store now that they're saying the only reason they weren't recommending it was because they didn't want to stop the supply. We probably will wear them there too. My mom, hopefully, will be working on making those because we need them for our business. Beth (05:47): Talking about making your own masks, you need to make them in a way that they're actually useful. Steph (05:53): Effective. Beth (05:53): Yeah, they're actually effective. I happened to be on a conference call with lots of community leaders. We do it every Friday now. There was someone from our local hospital, from Tallahassee Memorial, who was saying a lot of the instructions about how to make masks are not actually healthcare worker-grade masks. Although it was neat that people in the community were making masks and wanting to donate them to the hospital, they weren't able to receive them because they weren't effective. She sent out some information about, okay, this is what you would need to do if you wanted to make a mask to donate it to the hospital. That goes again to the idea of information and misinformation. Not that people are spreading misinformation because they have a bad intent, but there's just so much information. How do you discern what's good and what's reliable, and what's maybe not? Steph (06:43): People want to help. That's also the bummer, is there's so much misinformation, people are making these masks out of fabric and then they're like, here, I made them. It's like, this is not going to do anything. I have seen some masks that are fabric that they're making as a cover for an N95 because hospitals are having to reuse their masks because they're not enough. That does cover, because that's part of why they're supposed to be one time use mask is because then if someone coughs on it, the virus is on the front of it. I have seen that where you could like throw away the front part. Beth (07:14): That's good. Steph (07:15): That makes sense to me, but you really have to do a lot of research. I mean, my mom sews. That is definitely something we thought about. Do we need to be making masks for other people? But then it gets into the, well, how do you make it? How do you make sure it's safe? You would hate to make something that could potentially get someone sick. It's a tough spot to be in because you want to be helpful but ultimately, everything I'm watching, the most helpful thing we can do is stay home. That's still what I'm seeing is if you want to be the most helpful, stay home. Don't go to the craft store and buy supplies. Don't come to the hospital and bring your mask that hasn't been sanitized and is not properly... Stay home. That's what I'm trying to do is overall is they're just saying stay home. I did go to the grocery store on Monday. I went to three places, Fresh Market, Trader Joe's, and Publix. I have to say, there was no one at Fresh Market and that felt really good. Steph (08:06): I was like, okay. They were cleaning when I got there. They had the lanes marked off. I felt very comfortable there. Trader Joe's, it's a small place, but they were doing a great job. They had the buggies clean. They had someone directing you inside. They had the lanes marked off six feet apart. They did a great job. Got to say, I love Publix. It's great. It's a Florida place. I felt very unsafe in Publix. There was a lot of people there. They did not have the lanes marked off. I felt there was a lot more to be done. I know they're working on things and I'm hoping they get there. Out of the three places I went, I was like, oh my goodness. Beth (08:43): I went to Publix recently too and stocked up on food for my family for the next couple of weeks. One of the things that surprised me is that I had not heard about there being any supply chain issues other than there was a shortage of cleaning supplies. There's no hand sanitizer and the toilet paper has been hard to get. At Publix, they're limiting the amount of fresh meat that you can purchase. That surprised me. That tells me that they see in their own supply chain that this is going to be a problem. Then my mom who just celebrated her 78th birthday, she's taking this seriously and she's staying home as much as possible. She's a widow. She lives alone. She went very early recently because they have that extra hour in the morning where senior citizens can go. She said they had zero fresh meat at her Publix. Steph (09:37): Wow. Beth (09:38): Yeah, even though she was the first one there because she wanted to go early so that everything would have been freshly sanitized and so that the crowd would be as minimal as possible. Steph (09:46): That's been a concern of mine is supply chain just for things. That leads me to say, if there's something I think of that I need now, I'm ordering it. If I can get them on Amazon, I'm ordering it because the other day I went to... We use gloves for our business. When we're working with concrete, when we're working with something that's really dirty, we use gloves and we usually buy them by the thousands. I went to where we normally get them a couple weeks ago and it's said that they're available in April. I was like, okay, well, I'll order. We don't need them right now. Then I went just a couple hours later and they weren't available at all anymore. I was like, oh my goodness. Steph (10:23): If there's something I need, I got to get it now. Obviously gloves, that's part of this whole crisis. I got that, and masks and cleaning supplies. None of that is available. It made me think for anything. If there's something I want, if I think of it, I need to order it now. Amazon is still delivering. Although I will say when I get something from Amazon, the box, I do not bring into my house. I bring it to my garage. I open it with gloves because they say that the virus could potentially be on cardboard, you just don't know. That's the thing. We just don't know about this. Beth (10:56): There's so much information out there and yet we still don't know things. Steph (10:59): There's a lot of information, but the information is basically, we don't know. That's how I'm taking things is I don't know. I'm going to try to do my best and that's all I can do is try to listen to all of the advice and the conversations and do what I can. Beth (11:16): We don't know when something that's available now is going to become unavailable. Then it's like that just exactly what you were describing, this push to, well, I better get it while I can. I'm not exactly sure when I'm going to need it, but I know I'm going to need it. Steph (11:28): I know. Toothpaste. I was like, okay wait, I have an extra tube so I should be good. How many months? I don't know. Beth (11:36): Yes. We don't know how long this is going to last. We don't know how the supply chain is going to be affected. We don't know really what the long-term impact on the economy is going to be and how that's going to have additional effects. I think that drives our desire to have more information because of all the uncertainty. Steph (11:55): Ultimately, I think we're all looking for answers and the answer to things and the answer is I don't know ultimately, which is why it makes me also like getting the things I need. I'm not hoarding, I don't think that's okay. I have my regular amount of toilet paper. Well, my fridge just told me I need a filter and I was like, it usually tells me for like a whole month I need a filter. I was like, let me order that now. Let me make sure I have it. I didn't order 12. I ordered one because it's good for six months. Stuff like that, it's like, oh get it right now. Don't wait, don't procrastinate, I need it now. I haven't really had anything that beyond cleaning supplies. That's why we went to Publix just to see if they had Lysol or anything. They don't have anything. Steph (12:40): Probably today or tomorrow, me and my mom we're going to make homemade like a Lysol spray and wipes because we're out of wipes now. My mom is going to sew some masks as well. The only thing you can't really hand make is gloves. We're rationing what we have. Beth (12:55): To make your own sanitizing solution, you use bleach or something or rubbing alcohol? Steph (13:02): For the wipes, we're going to use baby wipes and we're going to soak them in bleach or something like that. I don't have the exact recipe. My mom knows and knows how we're going to do it. I guess something when you put them in bleach, it provides the same content, but you have to be careful what you clean with a bleach solution because bleach can... She was telling me like, don't put that on your dining room table because it will eat through the shellac on the table. I was like, okay, thank you. There's definitely things to be aware of when you do that. For wiping down our groceries, when we got home on this week, we wiped down all of our groceries because they're saying it can live on packaging and things like that. Steph (13:43): Things that are nonperishable, we're leaving in the garage for a couple of days so that they are clean. Except the one thing I found this morning, I was like, oh, it's three days today. Then I was looking through it and I realized we had some salad dressing that I didn't notice. Beth (14:00): I didn't realize salad dressing was nonperishable, Steph. Steph (14:03): Yeah. No, it was small behind a big thing, a tea, and I was like, oh yeah. Well, it was actually a dip. It's like a salad dressing kind of dip. I looked in the back, it said perishable, keep refrigerated. Okay, that's in the trash. I don't need food poisoning on top of the coronavirus, the COVID-19 season. Beth (14:22): Yeah, that's a casualty of you trying to be safe with your groceries? Steph (14:27): I know. Beth (14:27): That one got lost in the mix. Steph (14:29): I will say, I'm not hanging out with a lot of people because I am social distancing. We are together. I see you, but we are six feet apart. I'm still hanging out with my neighbors, too. I think last week I talked about them potentially having corona already, the COVID-19, because they were sick a couple of weeks ago. I will say like I went to let the dogs run around in the backyard the other day. There was three of us sitting in the backyard. I was going to move because the dogs were trying to run and so I was getting closer to the rest of the group. I was like doing something weird and she's like, oh, just come right here. I was like, oh I was trying to social distance. They're like, oh, of course. They totally understood. The mom and daughter got closer because they live together. Beth (15:15): They're living in a house together. Steph (15:16): They were totally cool with it though. I just thought that was so cool that they were very conscious that they didn't make me feel silly. They completely understood and they're being very smart too. They're not going out. They're doing Instacart. Things like that. I am going to the store. Beth (15:35): I have such mixed feelings about Instacart. Steph (15:38): I do have mixed feelings too. Beth (15:39): And the shopping services. I had only tried Instacart for the very first time, maybe six weeks ago and thought it was revolutionary. This is amazing. Why haven't I already been doing this? I signed up for where you don't have to pay for each delivery. Now I have this incentive to use this because I have prepaid for this service but then I'd be like, well, now morally? I'm transferring my risk of infection to someone else so I feel conflicted about it. Steph (16:11): I don't know. Are they taking any protocols to keep themselves safe? I don't know. Is there something with Instacart where they have to wear mask and gloves when they go to grocery stores? I don't know. I don't know what the protocols are because I would feel bad too putting someone else in that position. Then again, you know- Beth (16:27): They need to work. Right? Steph (16:29): They need to work, I know. It's very mixed- Beth (16:31): I will say that I have gotten one Instacart delivery in the last, I don't think this was in the last two weeks, I would say within the last three weeks. When it was delivered, the delivery person was wearing gloves and had put everything in paper bags instead of plastic bags. That was good. But then my most recent trip when I went to the grocery store, there were several people in there shopping for, not Instacart, but the other one, Shipt. This is funny because we were in the produce section and he was not talking to me. He was talking to another Shipt shopper and he was like, you know, I'm the number one Shipt shopper in the Southeast or something. I was like, that's a weird flex. Okay. None of them were wearing any protection at all. No gloves. Steph (17:15): Talking to each other. Beth (17:15): No mask. They were not socially distanced. I was like, oh. Steph (17:20): That makes me nervous is that we're creating more people going to the stores that, I don't know, I'm not against it, but I'm also not for it. I don't know where I stand on all of it. It's a very complicated time. Beth (17:34): I did find myself when I was in the store, I was like, okay, what? How long is this buggy? How long is my shopping cart? My shopping cart is not six feet. My shopping cart can't be right up on somebody. I got to leave another maybe three feet beyond that. I'm not good at spatial distance. Then I was like, okay, I just can't be on the same aisle as somebody else. I don't know. How long are these aisles? Are they six feet? I have no idea. Steph (17:56): At Publix, if you're passing someone, you can't be six feet from them. Oh my gosh. When I pass somebody, I would look away so at least my face would be the other direction. I felt bad. Publix was the worst. I got to say just because of the size of it, the amount of people that were there. Also, I was standing six feet apart in the checkout and somebody came up to me like, are you going forward? I was like, "I'm social distancing." They were like, "oh, okay." They were confused that I was social distancing because there was no marks on the ground. I'm like, oh, but there were signs that say six feet apart, but they were tiny signs. Beth (18:35): They were tiny signs. Steph (18:36): No one was reading those. Literally, all I saw was a six on it. I assume it said, six feet apart. Beth (18:43): Right. I think it was basically, hey, if you think about it, could you stay six feet apart? It's not good enough right now. Steph (18:50): No employees are wearing masks. To me, I don't know. I feel like that's a good- Beth (18:55): I'm not sure they have them. Steph (18:56): I know, I know. That's also scary, but I feel like that's a good step is for employees to be wearing masks. I do think the CDC is considering everyone wearing some kind of face covering. I think that's a good idea. It just will help keep us a little bit more safe and also keep people realizing this is a different time. Things have to be different. When we all see each other in masks, I think that will definitely say to everybody like this is different and this is important. I don't know if that can happen, if they could ever implement that. There's people that need to get this in their heads that this is a big deal and you need to be doing your part. Beth (19:36): I have talked to people recently who really do not think it is a big deal at all and who think that everything has been overblown. Just last night I had somebody say to me, well, but when we had the whole H1N1, a lot of people died and we didn't do any of this. I was trying to explain the difference in the scale of what we're facing with this virus and how this is different because it's transmitted differently. Like with Ebola, you have to be in very close contact with someone to get that. That's not the case with this. This lives on surfaces, this lives in the air. There's an aerosol effect to it. Trying to not present myself as an expert because I do not want to be guilty of unintentionally spreading misinformation, but at the same time wanting everyone to really take this seriously. Beth (20:24): It's this push and pull of wanting to do the right thing so that I'm caring for myself and my neighbor, but not wanting to just see my neighbor as a source of contagion and also not wanting to just be angry that my neighbor doesn't see it the same way as me. I don't mean literally like my neighbor who live next door or something. I just mean like in general, neighbor, another human in the community. Steph (20:47): My fellow people. Beth (20:47): Yes, my fellow people. Because we're already divided about a lot of things and now it seems like, or at least a segment of the population, this is another thing that's just dividing us. The people who think, yeah I need to take this seriously and the people who are like, no, I can go out to the beach and we can bring our boats together and we can be not socially distanced because we're in the water and we're outside where there's fresh air. No, you need to be socially distanced. Steph (21:10): Well, I will say I'm assuming like this is how I'm going through life now. Whether this is wrong or right, I'm assuming everyone has the virus and I'm assuming I have the virus. That's how I am going through my daily life. What I mean by that is I'm not like acting like I'm sick. Beth (21:26): You don't actually think you have it, right? Steph (21:26): No, but I'm assuming we all have it and so I'm never touching my face. I'm always using a tissue if I need to touch my face. I'm washing my hands to the right degree. I'm not washing them after I touch one thing. Actually, if I'm eating something, sometimes I'm wearing gloves when I'm eating because it reminds me not to touch other things too when I'm wearing gloves and that was helpful. Then I know like it's clean but I'm assuming that I have it in the sense that I am staying far from people. I am not touching their things. Also, when I talk to people, I will talk to them but I'm also being off-center. Like at the grocery store I was not standing right in front of the person because we weren't six feet apart, there was not enough room. Steph (22:13): I was off-center from them so that there was a little bit more distance, whether that does anything or not. I was also very conscious because when we talk, particles come out of our mouth and that's part of how it can spread. If I have the virus, I've just spread it to you. If you have the virus, vice versa. That's why I'm always following these protocols. I was out in the woods the other day with Mac and my mom. First of all, there was a ton of people out there. That was not cool. It's my woods and there were too many people out there. I don't own it in any capacity, but it's mine. You guys need to get out of there. I'm just saying. Beth (22:45): How dare they go get fresh air in the same space where you wanted to be? Steph (22:49): Yes. That's the thing is they were clogging up the air. There was a lot of people out there and they, runners running, sweating, breathing hard. Beth (22:57): Exhaling. Steph (22:58): My mom, she was like, I don't want to walk the path that they just walked because the particles can live in the air. There was no air flowing like it wasn't a breezy day. We literally- Beth (23:08): The source for that is Dr. Fauci who said that in an interview with Trevor Noah, which you would normally think of him as like, I mean, he's a comedian. But this was a serious interview and had tons of information. Dr. Fauci said, this has an aerosol effect where it lives in the air. Steph (23:23): Yes. But they don't know how long it lives in the air. I haven't found the exact thing. We went on a different path trying to avoid other people's air, which is a difficult thing. Let me tell you, avoiding people's air. Oh my gosh. That was the other thing at the grocery store that I was like, I'm in people's air. I got to get out of there. Beth (23:43): Well, I actually had not thought about it until you just said it about how when I was checking out, I was maybe 18 inches from the cashier. They're not coughing, but particles come out of your mouth. It just happens. He or she is being exposed to all of that all day long. That's not okay. I did wear gloves when I went to the grocery store and the only gloves we have at our house are blue so it was very obvious that I was wearing gloves. It did help me remember not to touch my face. It reminded me to be careful. I think also it was a good signal to other people, oh, this is someone who's taking this seriously and so that was good. I was glad to send that signal, but I was really glad that I had them on as I was checking out, because you have to touch, swipe my debit card and then had to punch in my pin number. I was like, how many germs are on this? Steph (24:32): I went to three places in a row. The price was over a certain amount, so normally you have to sign but I didn't have to sign. I didn't have to touch the keypad at Fresh Market or at Publix, but I did at Trader Joe's. The only thing I had to sign it for is, do you want cash back? Which they ask you on everything, even a credit card. I was like, I don't know why they ask you, but that was the only time I had to push it. I don't know if they turned that off because normally it was over the amount where you have to sign. Beth (24:57): Normally, you have to sign. Steph (24:57): I think they might have turned that off. Beth (24:58): Maybe they did. Steph (24:59): I don't know. Beth (25:00): I wish they would do Apple Pay so I could just click and not have to touch the device at all but that hasn't been an option. I haven't gone out much so maybe it is an option in some places. I've only really been to the one store so I'm not sure. Steph (25:12): Starbucks is the best because you can just use the Starbucks app and you just hold your phone up. They scan it, don't touch it. Beth (25:17): But then people you don't know have been touching the thing that you're going to put in your mouth. Steph (25:21): Not the straw. Well, no, when I went... Beth (25:23): Because you drink tea? Steph (25:25): Yeah. You're talking about the top? Beth (25:26): Yeah, I was like, if I drink coffee there I'm going to drink out of the lid. Steph (25:28): No, I get unsweetened tea and so it has a straw, but I put a paper towel around the thing so I didn't touch where someone touched. We went the other day. I've only gone two or three times since all of this happened. You know, I do the drive through. Actually, me and my mom went the other day and we had a camera in our car because we were going to go film something at my mom's house. I put it on the dash because it's like, look, it would fit there. My mom was joking about wanting to film herself to see how many times she touches her face because we are being very conscious of it but sometimes you unconsciously do it. I was like, I'll just sit this here and start recording. I recorded this whole time that we were in line for Starbucks and we started to sing because it was a long wait. Steph (26:10): We were singing Queen songs. I was like, this footage is going to be ridiculous. I started watching us. It's actually kind of fun. It's like, this is kind of fun. I mean, because we acted like we weren't being filmed because we didn't think we would do anything with it. It's actually quite entertaining I think. Then we even started talking about religion and stuff. I was like, oh, we can't put this out there. We started talking about some deep stuff. I was like, man, do we always talk about this when we're in the car together? I had no idea. Beth (26:36): Just didn't realize it because you'd never- Steph (26:37): You'd never review what you- Beth (26:40): Roll that footage. Steph (26:41): I know, but the good thing, we didn't touch our faces. Beth (26:44): That was good because you've been really conscious about it for the last however many weeks. Steph (26:49): My favorite part is there's a scene where we're literally just sitting there with our B... You know what a B face is? Beth (26:55): Yes. Steph (26:55): Yeah, your resting B face. We're just both with our resting B faces just sitting watching the road. It's just so funny. No care in the world. No one's going to watch this, we're just like, yeah, it was pretty good. Beth (27:08): You weren't trying to fill the time because- Steph (27:10): No. We weren't trying to be entertaining. We were just like, this is us. Beth (27:14): I wonder if three weeks ago, four weeks ago, if you had known that you'd be social distancing to this degree, is there anything that you would've done differently or is there something you would have squeezed in before the restrictions went into effect? Steph (27:30): I love skiing. My first time going skiing was like 2009, I think. Then I went skiing three years in a row. I love to ski. Since I moved back Tallahassee I haven't gone skiing. It's been at least six years. Every year I want to go skiing, but I don't really have someone to go skiing with because the person I used to go with, it wouldn't make sense to go. I keep trying to find someone that would go skiing that really wants to. None of my friends want to go skiing. They're like, yeah, you could take my husband. I'm like, that's weird. Beth (27:59): That is weird. Steph (28:02): I really wanted to go this year in February and I was like really close to making it happen. I was like, there's too much going on and I didn't. I wish I had. Beth (28:11): You wish you had. Steph (28:11): If I had known, I 100% would have gone. When all this is over and it's safe to go out again, next year in February if I can go, I'm doing it because I love to ski. There is something so magical about being on a ski slope. How about you, Beth? If you knew all this was going to happen, would you have done a trip before all this happened? Would you have bought stocking Purell? Beth (28:32): Yeah. If I had realized how much I was going to need hand sanitizer, I probably would have ordered some early on. Steph (28:41): Are you really using that much hand sanitizer? I'm actually not because I'm at home so I'm washing my hands with soap and water. Beth (28:45): Yeah, even at home I'm using it. Like when I open a package I've been using hand sanitizer instead of washing my hands. I'm also having trouble with the skin on my hands just being overly dry. I'm like washing and then using lotion. Then trying to hand sanitize. Just trying to mix it up so it's not always the same thing. I probably would have bought some more cans of Lysol. Steph (29:04): Yeah, I know, right? Beth (29:05): There are some supplies like that that I just have had around but have never needed to use them the way that I use them now. I can't think of anything that I would have tried to squeeze in like one last time. One of the biggest adjustments for us as a family is we really eat out. Normally we eat out quite a lot and we've never had this many consecutive meals at home ever. Literally ever in my life I've never prepared or consumed this many meals at home. That's been a big adjustment because of all that goes into that. You have to plan it, you have to shop for it. You have to have a sense of when you're going to eat things so that you can thaw them out or eat them before they go bad or whatever. I've never been great at meal planning, so this has been a big adjustment for us as a family. Steph (29:55): Yeah, I don't know. It's like I am missing eating out a little bit, just not having to think about it and just be able to order number one or something. Beth (30:04): Right. Steph (30:04): I want the number one. Beth (30:05): Right. We're not even doing takeout. Steph (30:07): No, we're not either. It's too much to even think about. There's so many people that interact with food items. I mean, just when I think about, it just makes me- Beth (30:18): Again, wanting to show love for my neighbor and not just see them as a source of contagion, but I'm really sorry if this offends anybody, but I'm just going to be honest about it. I think the folks who work in food service, they can't afford to miss work even if they're sick. I think, oh, I've just got mild symptoms. I'm just going to go to work. I don't want to be the recipient of those mild symptoms. I'm just not doing any takeout. Steph (30:45): It's just when you think about all the people people interact with, especially in a restaurant, you interact with so many people and you don't know their story. You don't know how safe they're being. Beth (30:55): At the same time, I want them to have an income so that they don't lose their job and that their restaurants don't lose their businesses. I don't know how to do that- Steph (31:04): I know. Beth (31:04): And still be responsible to myself and to my family. It's another case we're like conflicted about how I'm balancing love of neighbor for love of self and how well I'm doing it. Steph (31:15): I think we're showing love for neighbor by staying home and taking care of ourselves for our neighbors. As much as that seems not enough or like, what? How is me not interacting helpful? I need to do action. That is action. That's what CDC is saying. That's what they keep telling us is stay the freak home. Beth (31:37): Yes. Steph (31:38): Well, that's what I'm doing. Beth (31:39): Me too. Except when I come here and record the podcast. Steph (31:46): Well, thank you Beth for coming here to record the podcast. Believe us, if it becomes unsafe for us to do this, we will not do it in person. We will figure out how to do it online. We are going to continue meeting I guess once a week. We're going to try keeping this up. We still have two episodes that we recorded that we never shared and we might share those soon. I don't know. We don't know. Beth (32:09): We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. We're just trying to figure out life now, life in this, what do we call it, the COVID-19 season or whatever. We're just trying to figure it out. Steph (32:16): The worst season ever. Is there anything you're watching to clear your brain or what entertainment are you doing? Beth (32:25): Yes, like with the rest of America, I have watched Tiger King, of course. Steph (32:29): No. Beth (32:29): I had listened to, I have to say, I had listened to the whole Wondery podcast about Joe Exotic. I had listened to that, that whole series. I had already invested a lot of hours into Joe Maldonado-Passage's story. I was thoroughly entertained by the Tiger King documentary. I don't know that you have the same reaction to it, but that was my reaction. Steph (32:53): I will say I did watch it because everyone's talking about it and I started watching the first episode and I did not like it and I stopped watching. Then my neighbors were talking about it and I was like, oh. They were talking about something that I hadn't seen because I only saw half of the first episode. I started watching it. I've watched the whole thing, but I have very mixed feelings about it. We'd have to do a whole episode on that if you want to truly hear my feelings on it. I have watched it but I hate watched it. If that makes it any better. I'm almost done with Gilmore Girls. I feel like I've mentioned that on every episode. I'm on season seven, which is a hard season because it's not good. Every time I watch it I'm like, oh yeah, this is not a good season. I don't care about these characters. Beth (33:32): What happens in season seven? Steph (33:33): Nothing. Beth (33:34): Nothing. Steph (33:34): Nothing. That's the point. Beth (33:36): I will also say that I've been a little bit jealous of all the folks who are getting to binge watch so much good content because I'm very busy even though I'm working at home. We can talk about this another time too, but having family around, even though I am used to working from home quite a bit, because I'm a grad student and I have to, that all happens at home. It is different. My ability to be productive is different. I haven't gotten to binge watch as much as I would like to. My daughter, however, has been very productive and has moved through most of the seasons of Grey's Anatomy. Steph (34:07): How many seasons are there? Beth (34:09): I think it's still on. I don't know. Steph (34:12): Infinite. Beth (34:12): 15 seasons? Steph (34:13): You can never finish because they're still going, you'll never be done. Beth (34:17): You'll never be out of this content. Steph (34:18): I know. My dad binge-watched Picard. It's a show on CBS, but he texted the family. He said, I just finished binge-watching Picard. I thought I felt really weird that he knew the word binge-watching. Because he doesn't know any... He's not really- Beth (34:37): He's more with it than you want to give credit for? Steph (34:38): No, he's not. The fact that he wrote binge-watching, I was like, I don't know how to feel about this, that he knows what that is and that he can partake in the action also. Like he knows what it is, he did it and then he told us. I'm like, I don't know how I feel about that, but he enjoyed it. Beth (34:52): Your mom is a YouTube revelation. Of course, he knows what binge-watching is. Steph (34:55): He is the opposite of my mom when it comes to technology. Steph (35:01): At the end of each episode we end with Questions for Reflection. These are questions based on today's episode. Beth will read them and leave a little pause between for you to answer it in your head or you can find a PDF on our website. Beth (35:13): Number one, think about your sources of information. How do you know if they are reliable? Number two, how has this COVID-19 pandemic changed your social interaction on a daily basis? Number three, how are you adapting to the shortages? Number four, what are you doing to practice love of neighbor during this time? Steph (35:38): This has been the Discovering Our Scars Podcast. Thank you for joining us. Quotable
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Meet StephMental Health Advocate. Author. Podcast Host. DIYer. Greyhound Mom. 
Meet BethI'm a mom who laughs a lot, mainly at myself. #UMC Pastor, recent Seminary grad, public speaker, blogger, and sometimes lawyer. Learning to #LiveLoved. 
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