Top 10 Ways to Stay Busy while Staying Home at Our Mason Apartments

Humans are social creatures. So, while we stay-at-home during the health crisis, it’s common to feel disconnected, unmotivated, and a little lost – and that’s okay. This is all new and a bit weird for us. Thankfully, there are many ways we can keep both our minds and our bodies busy while we hunker down at home. Use this time as an opportunity to delve into new hobbies, research new ideas, and try new projects. Here are some ideas to help inspire you.

1. Make home improvements

That flower box you wanted on your patio? Do that! That bedroom you wanted to paint? Now’s the time. Right now, there is no better time to make home improvements. Big or small, create a list of what needs to be tackled and make it a point to knock out one project each day (or week if it’s a larger project). By the time we’re able to socialize with friends and family again, your home will be in tip-top shape for visitors.

2. Take care of your skin and hair

Look, you’re not going anywhere fancy (or anywhere at all besides the grocery store) anytime soon, so you probably won’t be wearing makeup or styling your hair – this is a good thing! Use this downtime to really take care of your skin and hair by doing DIY facial, skin, and hair treatments. Pinterest and YouTube are the perfect places to find easy and simple masks, scrubs, moisturizers, and more. The next time you hang out for happy hour in person, you’ll be glowing!

3. Social distance but still make it a point to socialize

Just because we can’t hug our friends and loved ones or go out to our favorite restaurants together, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be communicating. Text, call, set up video meetings for happy hours or book clubs, reach out however you’d like and as often as you can. Humans crave and need connection, so try setting up weekly calls with different family members and friends. It will help keep everyone uplifted and positive talking about all the fun things you’ll be doing together soon.

4. Virtually visit animals, ‘attend’ concerts, and explore Cincinnati museums

What makes staying inside and at home so hard is that there so many fun things to do near our Mason apartments. Luckily, many of those establishments have gone virtual! Here’s a list of just of the few local experiences you can now visit virtually:

  • Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens – Get online at 3 pm each day to watch a live-stream “Home Safari” on the zoo’s Facebook page. Zookeepers will walk you around the zoo to visit and learn about the animals.
  • Cincinnati Opera – Enjoy podcasts, playlists, meditation, and a curated playlist at the Cincinnati Opera’s website for their ‘Opera at Home’ series. A nice way to bring a little peace into our lives.
  • Cincinnati Art Museum – Join the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Facebook Group where they’ll be highlighting their permanent collections as well as fun art activities you can do at home.
  • Cincinnati Ballet – Watch excerpts from past concerts and participate in live online classes via the Cincinnati Ballet’s Facebook page.
  • The Children’s Theater – To help keep the little ones entertained, The Children’s Theater is streaming performances of Casper: The Friendly Musical, Sleeping Beauty and more.

5. Find work online

Due to COVID-19, many people have found themselves laid-off or with a serious decrease in income. Spend your time looking for work online to help make up for some of the financial hardship. Peruse your local Craigslist ads and visit websites like Freelancer.com, Indeed.com, FlexJobs.com, and others. There are often jobs for data entry, writing, translation, graphic design, and more. Just beware of scams – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

6. Stay active

Carve out time at least 5 days a week to get active. Whether that’s doing a YouTube workout video, following an online streaming class, or doing your own in your living room using milk jugs as weights – just move! It’s so important to maintain our physical health while we stay at home. If it’s possible to keep social distancing, get outside and go for a walk around the neighborhood.

7. Get organized

If you’ve been putting off cleaning that bathroom drawer filled with hair accessories, hygiene products, makeup, and whatever else, this is certainly the time to do it. Use this home-time to organize and clean everything from top to bottom. When summer comes around and you can have visitors again, your home will look amazing.

8. Learn something

Why not learn something new while you have all of this downtime? Take a course or even earn a certification online. You could do it to help you better your career when we all return to work or you could do it just for fun. Coursera is offering free select courses from Yale and Princeton and The Great Courses Plus offers a 1-month free trial of their online classes of popular subjects.

9. Create fun at-home activities

Movies, puzzles, board games – all of those home activities get boring real quick. Try something new like a timed obstacle course around the house or a themed fashion show. Now is the time to laugh and bond with the people in our household and these activities will create lasting memories.

10. Make plans

We’re not going to be cooped inside forever. So, when we get back to ‘normal,’ what is it that you want to do? Now that we’ve had all of our normal, day-to-day activities taken away from us, we can easily see what we’ve taken for granted. Going forward, we can be deliberate and intentional about what we really want to do. Dream up plans for the summer, a year from now, or even five or ten!

Stay busy & stay safe at our apartments in Mason

Staying inside and at home doesn’t have to be boring. Hopefully, these ideas have given you some new-found inspiration. We want all of the residents at our Mason apartments to stay safe, healthy, and happy.

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