{Studio} Life in the Time of Coronavirus

June 04, 2020

Even though everything feels completely upside down, most parts of my daily life have actually changed very little. I still work from home, while juggling the parenting duties of small busy boys. There's just more parenting now that they are home all the time, and are feeling sort of fragile and unmoored.

But thanks to you all I have still been pretty busy, with a steady stream of orders coming through from my website. And galleries are starting to re-open, (hooray!!) so I am fielding requests and putting together fresh collections for them for the summer. Ordinarily at this time of year I would be ramping up the production to amass huge amounts of inventory for the Sunapee Fair. But the fact that it has been cancelled has really taken a lot of the pressure off my limited studio time, which is a bit of a blessing. I think we are all operating at about our maximum level of pressure, so anything that lightens the burden at this point is probably a good thing.

I'm lucky that my husband and I are both self employed, and work from home, so we can share the parenting duties pretty evenly. (He's a mastering engineer, in case you are curious.) We split the days in half, and one parent will be kid-boss in the morning while the other works, then we switch at lunch time.

On this sample day, I'm mom-boss in the morning.

7:30am

Wake up, drink all the coffee. (sorry honey)

8am

Wake up the boys. Emmett is 10 and in 4th grade, Ellery is 6 and in kindergarten. Feed everyone breakfast, and encourage them to get dressed. Promptly give up on them doing that.

9am-10am (parenting time)

Morning zoom meetings with the kids' classes, initial pass at assignments from school.

10-11am

Quick check of my email and complete any rush tasks while boys do online assignments and educational apps.

11am - 12:30 (parenting time)

Shepherd kids through a few more school assignments, make lunch, play outside or take a walk.

12:30 - Work Time

12:30 - 2:30

Make jewelry! (Hallelujah!) Sit down at my bench, check the list of orders that have come in from my website, or galleries, and start working through them in the order they came in. I usually listen to podcasts, music, or an audiobook while I work. Try not to get distracted by my phone. Put pieces in progress in the tumbler (very much like a rock tumbler) to smooth and polish.

2:30 - 3

Admin/computer time. While the jewelry tumbles, I prepare any social media posts, respond to emails, and print out shipping labels for finished orders.

3-4pm

More jewelry production time. Take work out of the tumbler and finish the final assembly. Stringing leather bracelets, attaching clasps and ear wires, that sort of thing.

4pm

Shipping. Wrap and pack all finished orders.

4:45

Grab my mask and gloves and dash downtown to the Post Office before it closes.

5pm - Cheers!

Grab a glass of wine, take a walk around the gardens to see how things are growing, and what bugs are eating my plants today. Fume pointlessly about said bugs. Start making dinner. Hang with the family until bedtime. Rinse, repeat.

It's a good life. Weird, because of the isolation, but good none the less. We are very aware of how fortunate we are, to live in this beautiful and safe place, and to be self employed and able to adapt our lives to fit the times.

Current plan:

Keep moving slowly forward day by day, and continue adapting to the changes as they come. (We are all getting very good at adapting, aren't we?) And one day we will emerge on the other side of this crisis. Hopefully slow and steady wins the race. . .