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Living a Quarantine Lifestyle – When You Never Imagined It Could Happen to You

Author: Christine Munoz, VP of Business Development, Estimatica Cost Estimating, Inc

Last week our owner Josh shared how his family lives a quarantine lifestyle year-round. He and his wife decided to transition to full time work from home and homeschool their children a few years ago, and they have never looked back. A lot of Americans have been thrown into this lifestyle and it hasn’t been an easy transition for some...and by some, I mean my family and me. Let me explain our background.



My husband works in the industrial waste industry and prior to this global pandemic, left the house by 5:30 am and came home around 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday. I became a full time mom and wife, since we moved to Houston 10 years ago. Our oldest son started public school fulltime, at age 3 due to learning and physical disabilities stemming from birth. When our oldest son started school, I was home with our infant son and he started school at age 4. For their entire lives I have worked only from home and part time for Estimatica, formerly Precision Estimating Services. I love spending my time with my boys more than anything, but let me say this - our boys love being in school and even more...I love them being in school. I love being able to drive my boys to school and go back home to take care of business. With this set-up, I am available for volunteering at their school, never miss a doctor appointment, and I get to surprise them with lunch visits – my boys and my husband.



Summers are even more incredible because I soak in all that quality time with our boys being home; when they go back to school things return to normal. Immediate quarantine and a completely different lifestyle has not been easy, at all. I was not prepared for it, but initially chose to make the best of it and I had good intentions and high hopes when all of this started. I made a daily schedule and EVERYTHING. Before their school started sending home schoolwork, I spent hours printing off work sheets that were grade appropriate and modifying them for our oldest son. We stuck to the schedule for about 3 days...I think. Upon each attempt to complete the given work, my kids informed me that I don’t teach the way their teachers do – obviously. The first week I was asked to teach my second grader multiplication. Say what?!?! That went over well. <Insert eye roll here> Thankfully, he has an amazing teacher, plus, Zoom and YouTube videos have become our allies.



So, let's go back to my stay at home wife/mom duties...the cleaning, cooking, budgeting, and laundry all still needed to be done; now add teacher, coach, and referee <full time instead of part time>. Teachers do not get enough credit and they deserve to be paid $1 billion dollars a year. Although, I consider staying at home my “full time job” and I work part time, balancing the two, now fulltime jobs, with the kids home, has added another level of normal – and stress – to my routine. I’m up earlier to savor and get my work done, in the peace and quiet. I’m enjoying this part of quarantine. I work, prep for the day, get a load of laundry done (it NEVER ends; how are there so many dirty clothes when we don’t go anywhere?!?!), and drink a few cups of coffee. It's been my escape during all of this. I love what I do for Estimatica and carving out and prioritizing these few hours a day allows me to get my work done. When the kids are working on their tablets, I log on, and do another hour of work. It has become a routine and the boys understand Mom is working and this is the time to entertain yourselves.



Here is what we’ve learned during all of this: It’s A LOT of togetherness. You’ll either love your family more or want to run for the hills. We’ve started and finished home projects that were on the back burner because we just didn’t have the time. We’ve played together more as a family. We have learned that we are a mix of “homebodies” and “out of the house people”. We love staying home and going all the places. We’ve worked hard to build a home we love to be in, but we also thrive on social interaction. We love going out to eat and spending time exploring our city. Those can’t be done while social distancing. We have ALL learned I am not a teacher. Weird because, growing up I always thought that’s what I wanted to be. Ha! Scratch that...turns out business development is my jam. We’ve learned that we took simple things like grocery store runs, park trips, and traveling to see our families and friends for granted. We’ve learned that the choices of some can affect the lives of many. We’ve also learned that opening a beer at 1:30 in the afternoon is ok. Here's my advice, figure out what you need to do to decompress. I need a few minutes of alone time every day so that I’m a better wife, mom, and business developer. That may mean my husband takes the kids with him to train our Labrador or it may mean a drive to the park to just sit in my car and look out at the bayou, or I may hide in my bedroom for 20 minutes. You just need to figure out something that works for you.  



Our President and Governor outlined a 3 phase plan to reintegrate back into our “normal” lives. Will we jump right back in? No. Will we continue the quarantine lifestyle? No. It will undoubtably be a mix.  YES! Our schools will most likely be closed for the remainder of the year, so I will play teacher and continue remote learning. We will slowly start going back out and doing the things we love to do as a family. We will start seeing our friends again. We will go see our family out of town, but we will also socially distance ourselves and respect other people's worries and concerns.



I hope this has made you realize you aren’t alone. If this isn’t your normal, just remember it will get better. You may not ever go back to your old normal, but hopefully this time in history has made you a better and more understanding person.



Cheers to those that can handle this full time; its 10:20 in the morning and I’m wondering if its too early to have a drink.