Lockdown is well underway *again here in Melbourne so it’s a perfect time to see how others are doing it!! Here’s a sneaky peek at ‘Lockdown Life’ from Melbourne’s best local biz cheerleader, charity fundraiser and all round good human!

Liz Paganoni – Life Loves & Liz 

Staying home and not having to interact with others face to face, is the stuff Liz’s dreams are made of. Mostly. Wow. Is Liz a crazy lady? Sort of! She is an introverted homebody, so lockdown isn’t that uncomfortable for her in all honesty.

I’m now going to stop referring to myself in third person, because ‘weird’, and delve a little deeper into the situation. I’ll start with a brief introduction. My name is Liz. I’m a wife to Tom and mum to three babes, Ella (11), Alex (10) and Anna (about to have an iso 7th birthday).  We are a fairly regular family. We work hard, and we play hard! We enjoy spending time with friends and family, we love food and drinks and hanging out together.

When Lockdown 1.0 hit, we were in the midst of a bit of a health crisis. Given it wasn’t mine, I’m not going to go into it any more, but suffice to say ‘Lockdown’ was somewhat of a blessing in disguise. We were able to block out all outside pressures and work through what happened as a family. Gone were the external pressures of work, school, sport and social things that pretty much kept us busy 7 days a week. So, it was a great chance to heal. On the flip side, not being able to access outside help was hard. Thankfully, with the assistance of a medical team (via phone), friends and family and plenty of messages, we were able to deal, and I am actually somewhat grateful for the lockdown. It was like a giant pause button had been pressed and we had time to stop.

Lockdown wasn’t all healing and dealing though, we also had the time to do other stuff, like clean out the pantry…and the plastics cupboard….and all the other totally boring stuff that ordinarily, the craziness of life helps you to put off.  

For the kids, not going to school was HUGE. They’re all baby nerds and absolutely love school so they were devastated at not being able see their teachers and friends every day.

When the whispers of no school first began, we whipped up some lists and schedules quick smart and got into a great routine. We all had chores to do every day, we all had time allotted for exercise and we all made time for work. The most important aspect for us was the exercise component, making sure the kids (and I) got outside each and every single day for fresh air and movement. It’s easy to forget how much incidental exercise kids do every single day at school, before school and during play times as they run around doing whatever. 

On the subject of school, we are really lucky. Our kids LOVE school (I’m yelling that out because that is how they actually feel about school), so remote learning wasn’t all that bad for us. Ella and Alex are very self motivated, sat down every day and smashed out their work. I’m so grateful for these two and how well they did over the period. Anna was a bit harder to work with but at that age, it’s to be expected. She’s in grade 1 and I’ve discovered she likes things done a certain way, at a certain time on a certain day. And boy, if you deviate from this unknown schedule, things are not going to be done! However, she must have learnt something as her reading has skyrocketed right up to grade 2 level.  #Winning

I could probably write a 1000 page thesis on my thoughts about lockdown and iso but BORING. I guess my main points about getting through lockdown (which is actually me living my best homebody life) are these;

• View it is an opportunity. An opportunity to ditch all the external pressures that take up so much time. An opportunity to bond as a family. An opportunity to clean the bloody plastics cupboard out.
• Schedule your days. Schedule in chores. (The kids are home more thus can do more chores).  Work in exercise/movement time (we found 2 x 1hr blocks within the day worked for us and work/school blocks. Having a schedule means you don’t turn into a PJ wearing couch potato *not good for your physical, mental or emotional health.
• Set goals. This time round I’ll be walking every single day working up to running. You can check up on me on Strava if you like (Liz Paganoni) and keep me accountable! Walking each day means I have at least an hour away from the kids, self care, which helps me stay sane. 24/7 with the kids is hard right?! I also have work goals too. Lockdown is a great opportunity to work on things you might not normally have time for.
• Make friends with online shopping…. and your local bottle shop. But also make sure you have AFD’s each week…because, balance! Buy from local businesses who have probably had the worst year ever between bushfires and COVID. You have plenty of time on your hands to find rad new biz’s to support after all! Spread the word of the local businesses you use. They will love you for it and you’ll feel good to.
• Check in with others. Introvert or not, you still need to interact with others. A text convo here, a Zoom chat there, it benefits both parties. Make it a goal to chat to a different person each day?

Lockdown is hard but we’ve done it once and we can do it again, as long as we support each other. I believe in you all. And if I can help in any way, please let me know.

Liz xxx 

You can follow Liz and her journey through life, loves and Lockdown via her website and on her socials below xx