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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

As a professor, I am asked to make my schedule one year in advance. Seriously? Who the heck knows what childcare, teaching/virtual teaching, social distancing, etc will look like in a year AND I'm supposed to plan? I'm sitting here at 10 pm...in bed typing this because...well, I'm tired of never having time to do something that I want to do. I learned of this project yesterday when I rushed out the door to take my massively moody 2.5 year old and 7 month old on a ride to get them to nap. On the ride, I "treated" myself to a little NPR and this is where I found out about this project. I've wondered for a year now how other people are doing but have not known. I teach communication studies and ironically...I have not been able to communicate very much with others. I've taken the pandemic very seriously...first, as a pregnant woman in her late thirties with a 2 year old and now as a mother of two very small children. I continuously wonder...what are people doing? why don't they call? or text? Am I in the minority for profusely using grocery pickups? Anyways...getting back to the original question. How is the pandemic affecting my life right now? It's making me very tired. This week I got my second vaccine shot. I was blessed in receiving a shot as an educator. This week, I've struggled with aches and pains from the shot. I've also struggled with fatigue and a cranky toddler. I had to ask my husband to stay at home the day after the shot to take care of the kids. I didn't feel guilty. I mean two pregnancies, a pinched nerve, and pandemic later and I FINALLY got a day off to not take care of the kids! It's too bad I was sick! Man, society really has no mercy for women, does it? Today, we had some sunshine so we walked and biked and I convinced my toddler to ride in the stroller so I could talk to a colleague from work about work related stuff. The call was probably only about 15% work and the rest was catching up. He's an old friend and we really hadn't talked much on a personal level in several years. The chat about other things other than work was refreshing. I NEVER get to do that anymore. I'm full-time daycare and full-time professor. When would I have time for a "social" life?!?!? I felt he also enjoyed it too. Which left me after the conversation saying, "I bet he is a little lonely and our chat about takeout Indian food was refreshing break in the monotonous day of teaching and grading inside his home!"