By Laura Miller

If you’re anxious about surviving the global pandemic COVID-19, you’re not alone.

Coping with the anxiety associated with a global virus is completely out of most of our depth of understanding.

At the palm of our hands, we are receiving updated information of virus-related deaths and infected celebrities approximately every ten minutes. Quite frankly it’s frightening. For this reason, the reactive nature of what we are seeing on social media, in our grocery stores, and even with our loved ones, is something that we’ve never experienced in our lifetime.

As a harbinger of hope, I’ve contacted some experts who specialize in coaching their clients/patients through anxiety and depression in hopes that they can help us from screaming about the end of days all over social media. Here’s what they had to share. 

Devon Estes

Devon Estes, M.S., LPC or Licensed Professional Counselor:

• The key is to challenge our fears with the evidence.
• Follow the recommendations and guidelines of real sources like the CDC, WHO, and looking at the practices of other quarantined countries.
• Avoid memes and social media banter; it’s misleading and emotionally provoking either to over-respond or under-respond.
• Err on the side of caution within reason and don’t wait for someone to FORCE you to be cautious. One of the best anxiety management techniques is doing the thing that’s causing us stress.
• Shop for what you need for 2 weeks or so, devise a plan, create safer habits. Worst case scenario you are over-prepared, when has that ever been a bad thing? Once you have prepared, practice the DBT opposite action skill.
• Do things that produce emotions opposite of fear: Relaxing, calming, and joyful activities such as reading a book, working out, watching tv, playing games, crafting, cooking, etc. Social distancing doesn’t mean you have to become a recluse. Practice safe habits and do what you can while you can. One day at a time.

Baron Stewart

Baron Stewart, Mindfulness Meditation Coach: 

This is a time in everyone’s life where mindfulness can unbelievably be helpful.

With the rise of stress and anxiety in people across the world, having the ability to calm oneself down to a state of peace and tranquility is absolutely necessary. It all begins with taking a deep breath! Deep breathing can naturally transition the mind from an emotional state to a logical state of mind. By becoming conscious of each deep breath, we can become conscious of each thought. 

We can choose a new thought and feeling of our choosing! For example, someone  can substitute a feeling of “I’m scared” to “I’m thankful”. After each deep breath you would repeat in your mind, “ I’m thankful”, and with the power of repetition, you will change your thought process and bring yourself to peace. Let’s all come together and become mindful of our breathing and mindful of our power within! 

Many of us have survived things in our lives that within those moments we didn’t think we could recover from. Let this be one of those things that catapults you into a renewed understanding of self.  

We are keenly aware of the severity of this virus and as always please adhere to the health and safety guidelines precautions by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). 

Laura Miller

Laura Miller is a Freelance Writer, Event Coordinator, and Project Manager who has always used creative expression to promote joy and laughter in a world bogged down with serious people, and serious situations. She is a “dreamer and a planner,” and truly believes that without both, you should stay asleep. Follow her on Twitter at : @80sbaby_83.

Today’s Sick-O-Meter lists 5057 cases of COVID-19 today in Illinois.  Actually, I believe those are yesterday’s figures, so we can expect a few hundred more by day’s end.

I’ve stopped watching both the federal and state government’s updates on the virus.

What’s the point?  My watching is not going to change the outcome or my personal situation.

My personal situation is physically healthy but I am sliding towards fiscal disease.  I am not working and have a mortgage and other bills to pay.  Thanks, COVID-19.

I have one friend I am desperately worried about.  She has called and is hyperventilating.  She is prone to anxiety and is worried about her own wellness and her sons, both of whom are adults and still working and are adults and living away from her.  She lives alone, and while still working remotely she has to go into her job site to finish monthly reports.  She is afraid to go in. There is little I can say to calm her down.

“I can’t even hug my sons,” she blurted.  “I’m just here by myself.”

Many of us are.

There is only so much cleaning a person can do or feels like doing.  Same with home projects.

The Novel Coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, is only spread by humans, so the thinking has been to keep humans apart as much as possible.  Supermarkets do this by placing X’s on the floors, there are no large gatherings allowed, and every “non-essential” business is shuttered and sinking into insolvency.  We are alone together.

Nun wearing mask, 1918. NY Times

Soon the US Center for Disease Control  CDC is expected to announce that masks are necessary for everybody when in public, reversing the advice given previously that masks are not needed because they do not stop the transmission of the virus and because we, as laypeople, just are too darned stupid to know how to put a mask properly.  This sentiment has been dutifully echoed by a media here in the US that never bothered to question the efficacy of masks to fight the spread of COVID-19.   The World Health Organization WHO stands by the advice still that people do not need to wear masks.

What are we to think with contradictory messages coming from the same source?   Are we to believe that new data suddenly appeared to change the official advise, or will w believe that somebody’s been lying to us from behind their masks?

What will my friend think all alone in her house, having been to the supermarket without a mask just two days ago?

I came home from shopping at Aldi a couple days ago.  Actual driving and shopping took about 40 minutes. Not too bad, considering.

I spent another hour in a tizzy, washing and sanitizing the groceries once I arrived home. This was the latest trick I learned from a video on WGN, our local news station. A Minnesota doctor gave a thorough procedure of washing store-bought items to avoid any chance of the items carrying the coronavirus.

CRAZY TIMES = CRAZY ME

Have you ever heard of such a thing?

Where am I?

I’m on Earth.  Listening, hoping, fearing, and praying like many others.

The washing and sanitizing is done.  Food put away.  Counters cleaned once more.  My hands feel tight from all the soap and water, so I grab my hand cream I keep in a kitchen drawer and reapply it for maybe the fourth time this morning.

Back upstairs, to the loft where our home office is located.  I work remotely all day, exchanging heartfelt messages with co-workers and laughing over silly things while we try to keep things lively and not fret over the daily news blasts.

Finally, it’s 5:00 and I log off from the computer.  It’s Friday, yet somehow it seems different.  No plans to go anywhere.  Just stay at home.  My plans include eating and watching television.  Many Fridays I can’t wait to do just that.  But now, everyone is looking for an outlet.

WASH YOUR HANDS!

My husband arrives home – with more groceries!  Grocery shopping is his newest hobby.  I think he prefers the European way of shopping – only picking up several things every few days.  Except he’s forgotten the warnings I told him early this morning about picking up more germs at the grocery store.

“Look, I brought you some red wine,” he says so nicely, holding a bottle of cabernet sauvignon.

I look at him like he’s nuts.  I raise my voice, “I told you not to go shopping.  Stop touching that.  It’s contaminated!”  I run into the bedroom, shutting the door with meaning.  I’m so annoyed that he’s bringing germs into the house. And who’s going to clean all that food?  Me, that’s who.

Where’s my phone?  I need my Calm app to meditate and decompress.  The anxiety and worry plus being shut within the house for two weeks now is getting to me.  I need to relax and not become upset over groceries of all things… because this is just the beginning.  And we all need to get along.

COPING

The next morning my husband convinces me to go with him just for a drive.  He knows me well.  “You don’t even have to get out of the car,” he promised.

The first stop is for an oil change.  He drives to the dealer, and I follow in my own car.  This way he can leave his car, while we run errands in my Chevy.

I gave him the stink eye when he jumped into my passenger seat.  “Since when is an oil change an essential errand? Couldn’t this wait?” I demanded.

“They diagnosed the funny sound I kept hearing and determined the power steering pump needed replacing.”

Okay, that’s important.  I concede that it’s a good thing we dropped the car off.

“Now I just need to run into Pete’s and get milk and potatoes for my mom and dad.  You can wait in the car,” he suggested.

I watch him run into Pete’s, dodging the rain puddles on this gloomy day.  The skies are an ugly grey. Why can’t we at least have sunshine here in Illinois?  It’s the end of March, for goodness’ sake.  I grab my phone and scroll through for social media updates and news briefings.  Nope, I’m tired of everything I’m seeing.

I look out the window and watch a store employee picking up trash in the parking lot.  He uses a long grabber stick to snatch the junk people leave lying on the ground.  He tosses everything into an empty grocery cart.  Everything is soggy, making it grosser than usual. The worker walks next to my car.

Should he be that close to my vehicle? Oh my goodness, Heidi, get a handle on yourself!

I peer out my rain-soaked window and see inside his cart.  Plastic grocery bags, soda containers, burger boxes.  And so many latex gloves.  All in the latest colors.

Across from me is a couple loading purchases into the trunk of their car.  The husband wears blue gloves.  Except, his wife is bare handed.  What is wrong with people?  Following disparate protocols is like… well, like an Independent marrying a Republican.  They just cancel each other out.  What’s the use in even trying?

I think back to the wine my spouse brought home and how I freaked out that he touched it.  I’m losing my mind.

MOVING ON

My husband returns with the groceries for his folks and we move on.  He runs the food into their house, while I sit in the car and play a brief meditation on my Calm app.  Breathe. Relax.  Focus on yourself.  The here and now.  I cannot control outside events.  Breathe. Relax.

My husband finally exits his parents’ home and hops back into the car.  “They should be done soon with my Honda. We can go back to the dealership and wait for it.  Do you mind running by the Dunkin’ Donuts so I can bring the guys some doughnuts?”  He smiles at me.  Sometimes I forget how handsome he is when I’m aggravated.

It’s back to the dealership, where he asks me to wait for him just in case the car’s not quite ready.  I don’t mind waiting inside my car.  At least I have the radio, and I don’t have to walk outside in the cold rain.  I’m immersed in my phone again, when he knocks at my window.  I unlock the door and he gets back in.

“It’s nearly ready,” he said.  “Boy, everyone’s paranoid and there are signs all over the place telling people to keep six feet back.  I had to sign the paperwork for my car, and I reached way over to the cashier window to sign for it but had to keep my feet on the yellow tape on the floor.  I tell ya, I felt like John Belushi in The Blues Brothers movie when he picked up his belongings at Joliet prison.”

I couldn’t help it.  I grinned, looking out my driver’s side window so he wouldn’t see that I was warming up to him.

“Not only that,” he went on, eyes twinkling. “I was telling the guy that I had to cancel my hair appointment.  I said, ‘my hair’s so long, I’m starting to look like Farrah Fawcett!’

“And you know what the kid said back to me?”

“What?” I asked.

“’Who’s Farrah Fawcett?’”

I burst into laughter.

And that, my friends, is how I’ll be managing these stressful days.

Thank you for reading – PIZZA FOR BREAKFAST

With all the movies and TV shows recommended via social media feeds, you’d think Netflix concocted this virus in a lab themselves. I mean, dropping Tiger King in the middle of this “stay the hell at home!” order across the country and world?? Netflix, you knew EXACTLY what you were doing…

But kidding aside (because COVID-19 is no laughing matter), I have a plea to the millions, heck, billions, around the world sitting on their couch or looking out the window wondering if COVID-19 will lay siege on their home by way of the mail delivery person or pizza boy: BINGE READ instead of BINGE WATCH.

Hear me out…

How do you feel after watching episode after episode or installment after installment of a TV show, movie, or miniseries? You feel like you have to “eat” more. “One more episode.” or “What else can we watch?” This is addictive behavior, ya know. That’s what today’s TV shows, like drugs, are designed to do: make you crave more.

Now, TV, for instance, has never delivered stronger writing and production. The product is top-notch. This is nothing against our creative brethren in the film and TV production industry (aka “Hollywood”), but this request/soft demand is more a response to the environs in which we reside today.

Sitting at home and consuming film or TV isn’t exactly “good for the cranium.” Sure, a nice respite of your work at home (or worse layoff) is required at times. For screen-oriented entertainment, there are inherent truths we cannot forget. You consume film and TV by sitting and watching and listening.

As the late acclaimed writer and thinker David Foster Wallace put it, “Television is really darn easy. You sit there, you don’t have to do very much.”

You are a hard drive for download. There is no interactivity, nor real stimulus other than emotional firings of the brain.  In other words, it just revs you up. And when the credits are rolling, your brain enters that addictive state — “I want more.” Heck, Netflix doesn’t even GIVE you the option. They just auto-launch the next episode or related show. Hence, the extended, and fruitless, binge sessions.

Open the page…

Have you read in healthy sessions lately? Perhaps an airplane or during a daily commute? Well, that’s gone. So, maybe before you put your head down at night?

Another question to ponder: Have you ever thought about replacing whatever time you watch TV with reading? Non-fiction, fiction, poetry, etc. Doesn’t really matter.

I implore you: Try BINGE READING. Read that book sitting on your nightstand or end table. Engross yourself. Reading is a very personal experience (more on that at the end).

The art of the written word isn’t about the author and all the hours and energy he or she invested to deliver XX amount of words for your provocation or enjoyment… screw their egos. But what about the conversation? A conversation that is a true escape for your mind. A world, a life, a character, a place, a distant land not ravaged by lockdown.

Your brain fires off dozens of levers for imagination, inspiration, motivation, understanding, empathy, compassion, and more. Reading delivers dynamic elements — both right and left sides of that noggin — that you can USE as fuel for your own work and purpose and fun. Oh, and stories on the page can be quite entertaining! How many times have you heard, “The book was so much better than the movie.” There’s a reason for that…

During this COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps one of the greatest gifts we could give our minds is the gift of time in order to read the written word… instead of absorbing light emission activity generated on a screen. Maybe it’ll also deliver a stabilization. There is a great big, world out there. Let’s read all about it. And by the time we’ve filled ourselves with prose and poetry, the world will reopen for us to experience again.

And I leave with you this from Carl Sagan:

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

***

If you’re looking for something to read, one of The Creator Studio’s members, David Salvi, wrote a new science fiction novel, CANAAN (2020).

This science fiction adventure is a thrill ride from start to finish.

Purchase Here (Kindle or Paperback): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086H2FKV9

Miss our adventures in Tombstone Provincial Park (Yukon), Dawson City (Yukon), Kluane National Park (Yukon), or backcountry hiking? Not see my escapade on the side of the mountain? Overlook the time we watched three grizzlies fishing? Check out parts 1-6 of the Klondike road trip at the links!

Alaskan cruises have definitely risen in popularity over the years, and because of its location on the Chilkoot Inlet Skagway is a stop on most itineraries. My family did an Alaskan cruise when I was 14, but I hadn’t yet discovered my interest in the Klondike Gold Rush so its historical significance was wasted on my brace-faced ass. Now that I’m a little older (the little wiser part is debatable), I was ready to look at Skagway through a different lens on our recent road trip through the Yukon and Alaska.

Not a bad view from the ferry

As a consummate travel planner, it’s hard for me to not have every detail mapped out ahead of time, but the key to a great road trip is having a flexible mindset and our journey to Skagway is the perfect evidence for why that is. We knew that we were going to Skagway, but we decided two days before to take the ferry there from Haines. In retrospect, that’s really the only way to do it because the hour-long ferry ride gives some pretty spectacular views of glaciers, waterfalls, and mountains. It’s also not like a typical ferry where you’re just standing on a deck the whole time. It was more like a mini-cruise ship with cabin rooms for people doing multi-day jaunts and viewing areas on either side of the ship. We parked ourselves in lounge chairs under some heat lamps (it was low 50s and had a misty rain) on the solarium level and got a first row view of nature’s best.

Most of our fellow shipmates (ferry mates?) were hikers who looked like they were getting ready to take on the famed Chilkoot Trail. Originally a Tlingit trade route, the trail experienced a boom in foot traffic at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush (1897-1898) and thousands of people took the 33-mile trek from Dyea, Alaska up to Lake Bennet, BC aka the Klondike. Even in the best of conditions the trail is not for the faint of heart, and the best of conditions by Alaskan standards is still pretty tough. Hundreds of people died on the trail, went bankrupt, or simply gave up and went home. To this day there are dozens of artifacts people abandoned along the trail route, and the hike is referred to as the “world’s longest museum”. Jack London did the trail, and it was the setting for his classic, Call of the Wild, so if you’ve read the book you probably have a good idea of the conditions they faced.

Check out the dame in the 2nd floor window

Not looking to be heroes, we decided to skip the hike and spend our time in Skagway eating fresh  salmon, drinking local craft beer, and soaking up as much Gold Rush history as possible. When we disembarked the ferry, it felt like we were stepping back in time. The main drag of downtown Skagway looks like it’s frozen in the year 1898, the year Skagway was booming as a provisions stop for those looking to make their fortunes in the Klondike. Although the streets are now paved, the sidewalks are still wooden boards and the buildings colorful and “old-timey”. Nowadays, the population is around 1,000 and the town thrives on the tourism that comes in with the mega cruise lines. It was late in the year for cruises, so stores were advertising their “end of season” sales where all the old people could get 40% off their kitschy t-shirts of cartoon prospectors holding lumps of gold near their crotch that say “I found my gold nuggets in Skagway!”

Salmon sandwich aka heaven on a plate at Skagway Brewing Co.

We had lunch at the Skagway Brewing Company, a huge space that had equally awesome beer and merch store (seriously, the merch was so good). We both had the Chilkoot Trail IPA and El tried the Spruce Tip Blonde ale, and we both had our first taste of fresh Alaskan fish. I had a grilled salmon sandwich that has spoiled me for life (seriously, I haven’t had salmon since b/c my expectations are too high) and El had halibut fish and chips that were so flaky they practically fell apart on their own. After lunch we strolled down Broadway St., got a magnet to add to our collection, and got called at by can-can girls dangling their legs from their seats in the second-story windows of a saloon, enticing people to come to their show. Sorry, ladies, if you’re not Diamond Tooth Gertie’s, I want no part of it. We also stopped in a shop, Inspired Arts, with locally-made jewelry carved out of mammoth ivory. When you hear the word “ivory”, your first thought is probably of the unethical and illegal trade of elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns. Mammoth ivory is so abundant in Alaska/Yukon that a coffee shop we visited in Dawson City had an actual mammoth tusk mounted on their wall.

The Visitor Center definitely scratched my Gold Rush history itch and taught me all about the different trails (Chilkoot and White Pass) people took to the Klondike, how the Gold Rush took off, the people like Jack London and Martha Black who were associated with that period of history, and the impact that period of history had on the Tlingit (pronounced “Clink-it”) and Tagish tribes. Spoiler alert: It was mostly negative. El and I also spun the ‘Wheel of Fate’ where we learned that if we had attempted the Chilkoot Trail in 1898 I would have turned back on the trail and El would have turned back at the rapids. I’m surprised my fate wasn’t “slip and fall into the river” given my tendency to be a klutz.

One of the characters we learned about in the Visitor Center was the legendary con-man Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith, so we decided to check out his and others’ graves in the Gold Rush Cemetery. Apparently the townspeople of Skagway got fed up with Smith’s schemes, and he was shot dead in the street after crashing the meeting of a vigilante group trying to stop him. What a legend. A display at the cemetery’s entrance tells the stories of the people buried there, and boy are there some doozies. Take Ella Wilson who was famous in the Red Light District and was killed due to “an anonymous strangling”. Or “Unknown Man” who was killed when the dynamite he strapped to his chest exploded when he tried to rob a bank. The cemetery itself isn’t the most authentic because the tombstones have been updated so their writing is legible, but it’s worth a visit for the stories alone.

Much like how we wanted to see the spot where gold was first struck in the Yukon, we wanted to see the Chilkoot Trail at its source, so we drove up the mountain to the trailhead that overlooked the town below. Signs put up by the NPS gave information on hiking the trail but also provided details on the partnership between different tribes and the US government to give a true historical account of the Gold Rush. My inner nerd was more than satisfied by our visits to the Visitor Center, the Gold Rush Cemetery, and the Chilkoot Trail, so the rest of our time in Skagway was going to be dictated by craft beer and fish.

We had originally planned on camping in the RV park for the night, but given the dreariness of the weather we booked a room at the famous White House B&B, a super cute space located close to downtown. We checked into our room, grabbed a cookie from the communal jar, and made our way out for the night. Our first stop was the Happy Endings Saloon, which was deceptively NOT a brothel but rather a sports bar that had a huge banner out front that advertised how “Cornhole changes lives!” Not only were they showing the Chicago Bears game on one TV, but they were playing a National Park Service live-stream of ACTUAL BEARS on another. It was so meta.

No quickies for these two at the Red Onion Saloon

Next up was the infamous Red Onion Saloon, a bar that now offers “quickie” tours of its former brothel space for $10. We had missed the last quickie tour so we saddled up at the bar for a beer. The place was packed because the former governor, Bill Sheffield, was there for a book signing.  A woman in a can-can outfit read out a list of his accomplishments, which included making Skagway a tourist spot by expanding the railroad, sang the Alaskan state song, and then followed it with some song about a knife going through hot butter. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

We started chatting with the bartender at Red Onion and learned that he was actually from Duluth, MN, and his sister-in-law graduated with Elliot. Later that night we found ourselves chatting with some of the workers of Skagway Brewing Company, and they also happened to be from Minnesota. Apparently Minnesota isn’t north enough for some folks!

As we made our way towards Skagway Fish Company at the cruise ship port, a guy in a straw hat and old-time car from the 40s honked his horn and drove down Broadway. I said to El, “Wait, I’ve seen that guy before”, and I looked down at the Skagway Visitor Center brochure I had in my hand. Sure enough, the same guy was on the cover. Me in that moment:

via GIPHY

After keeping our nautical restaurant streak going at dinner, (El got some pan-seared salmon and it was my turn for halibut fish n’ chips), we made our way back to a practically empty Skagway Brewing Company. We were two of only seven total people sitting at a small bar on the first floor, and we were the only ones who didn’t work there. It being the end of the season, and most visitors were already back on their cruise ships, Skagway becomes a ghost town around 9:30pm. So if you’re looking for a wild night out in September in Skagway, you’re gonna be disappointed. Fortunately for us, El and I are freaking old and were a-ok with heading back to the B&B after a pint.

Downtown Skagway

When we made our way downtown for breakfast the next morning, we saw two additional cruise ships in port and Broadway St. crowded with people holding their selfie sticks. When we went down for coffee earlier at the B&B, the manager we talked to made it seem like there wouldn’t be any more ships arriving because it was so late in the season. She herself was planning to head back to NY until the following summer, so we were surprised to see so many cruise-goers taking a chance on a late-season Alaskan vacation. We got a tasty breakfast at the Sweet Tooth Cafe, where the food was classic and the servers dressed like it was still 1898. Satisfied that we had maximized our time in the town, we loaded up our car and started off on the last leg of our Klondike road trip.

Skagway may seem like just another stop on a cruise itinerary, but it has so much more to offer than just a $10 t-shirt or quickie tour. The town is rich with history if you know where to look, has some of the freshest seafood you’ll ever eat, and its people take its responsibility of making sure the Gold Rush era is accurately portrayed and includes more than just the perspective of the white prospector seriously. In short, Skagway deserves your attention as a must-visit travel spot…

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We got the updated S&P Dow Jones CoreLogic Case Shiller Chicago area home price indices this morning along with the indices for 19 other top metro areas and averages. Keep in mind that this data is for the 3 months ending in January so there is no effect from the coronavirus scourge reflected yet in the numbers. Yet, this home price data is pretty disappointing for Chicago.

First, although the Chicago area had a 0.6% year over year increase in single family home prices, that was the lowest rate of appreciation among the 20 metro areas tracked. New York, with a 0.8% increase, was second from the bottom of the list. The Chicago area also compares poorly with the nation as a whole, which appreciated by 3.9% from last year.

Second, condo prices broke the 86 consecutive month winning streak of rising prices for both single family homes and condos with a 0.4% decline. So that’s the first condo price decline in more than 7 years as you can see in the graph below. The rate of appreciation for both single family homes and condos has been on the decline now for a couple of years so this was not totally a surprise.

Chicago area single family home prices have shown annual gains for 87 consecutive months but condo prices fell for the first time in more than 7 years.

Case Shiller Chicago Area Home Price Index By Month

If you look at the graph below of the monthly index levels you can see how price levels are flattening out. That’s pretty depressing when you compare them to the red trendline that I calculated from pre-bubble single family home prices. We are currently 29.3% below that line.

We also remain pretty far below the bubble peak with single family home prices falling short 15.6% and condo prices 8.9% below the peak. That also means that single family home prices are lower than they were during the entire period from June 2004 – November 2008 and condo prices are lower than the period from April 2005 – December 2008.

Of course, we have bounced back from the bottom quite a bit. Single family home prices are now up a total of 38.5% from the depths of the market while condo prices bounced back by 50.7%.

You can also see the seasonality in the numbers from the graph, with us currently still in the winter down cycle. Single family home prices fell 0.9% from December and condo prices fell by 0.5%.

The Chicago real estate market still has a long way to go before catching up to bubble peak prices.

#CaseShiller #ChicagoHomePrices #HomePrices

Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.

How to Adapt When Social Distancing Upends Your Social Structures

When you’ve suddenly added the roles of teacher, head chef and janitor to your usual responsibilities as a leader in your company and parent to your children, it’s time to reassess some of your normal expectations. In short:  you’ll need  to let go of some of your control and perfectionism.

You’ve carefully built social structures into your life, to help you meet your goals and get it all done. But now your office, daycare, child’s school and recreational activities have all been moved to one location: your home.

There are a lot of resources about how to effectively Work From Home (WFH), which focus on the leader/worker. In fact, LinkedIn notes:

“Since January 2020 ‘remote working’ searches on LinkedIn Learning have tripled as both employees and managers increasingly look for advice on how to navigate the challenges of working remotely and managing a remote workforce.” 

LinkedIn offers a free 16-module course.  That’s good as far as it goes, but a missing perspective seems to be the impact on parents who are working from home with their kids, who are now also at home. Given the closure of most schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents are often required to also home school their children.

The Type A parents who are now at home are often perfectionists.  In the conversations I’ve had with leaders/parents this week who have suddenly made this transition, it’s proving impossible to keep up all the old “guidelines” and optimize every element of the situation.  For example, many parents want to limit screen time or  make sure family meals are as healthy as possible. But unless there is a way to bend the space-time continuum, a new perspective needs to be taken.

Balancing vs. Optimizing… Put Aside Perfectionism (For Now)

If you can’t optimize work, school and home life any longer, you can balance them. Your new coping strategies are patience, flexibility and managing expectations. Accept that (for now), life can’t be perfect.

While many Type A personalities typically maintain highly-organized work spaces and home living spaces, we no longer have the luxury of separate spaces. One home can’t be perfectly organized when it’s now the singular space for living, working and schooling.

Being available to your kids during working hours may be necessary, despite workplace demands.  As a parent, you don’t want to send the message that Mommy and Daddy are not available, despite the fact that we are living through a pandemic. It’s necessary to manage expectations with colleagues, and ask for compassionate understanding.

But sometimes you’ll just have to get a little work done in peace. Let those screen time guidelines slip a little bit. An extra viewing of Frozennever hurt anyone, and it can get you through a Zoom videoconference. Perhaps that broadcasting-from-home BBC dad would have benefited from turning on some Peppa Pig.

And after a stressful day of managing WFH with kids, you can take some joy in being the hero parent who opens a can of SpaghettiOs for dinner. It’s what they really want anyway, and you can always make a healthy meal tomorrow. The important thing is that you will help your family get through these troubling times safely and feeling loved.

My daughter spent the past couple of weeks at our house, but she headed back to her home for the rest of the shelter in place today. For the few days she was with us, which seemed like months when we lived through them, it felt like we were safe as a family. There were walks with the dog, cooking, a trip to the grocery store, shared viewing of old “House” episodes, and a shared anxiety.

We worked through the stages of grief together—denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. I’m sure we’ll cycle through them again and again. But our first group landing on acceptance meant a huge grocery shopping trip and packing her up to go home.

We realized, without really saying so, that this is the way life is going to be for awhile and we best get on with living. She has lost her job for now, but she still has her apartment and her intense home workout schedule, her roommates, and all of the rest of life’s business.

My husband and I have become online teachers, and we are grateful to have our jobs, our students, and our communities.

I was teaching via Zoom when she left, and for that I am grateful. I’m sure I would have cried had I watched her car leave the driveway. My world is tucked in her grocery bags, among the oranges and carrots. I cannot bear thinking about this invisible beast of a virus licking and spitting her direction. Foolishly I imagine I can protect her if she’s home.

The house is so quiet now. Not as quiet as walks in the neighborhood, where I feel like a character in Stephen King’s “The Stand,” but quiet. It is a relatively peaceful quiet for now. It is punctuated by my dog barking at other dogs and my husband playing drums in the late afternoon.

I’m trying to get on with my life in ways that work for me. It’s a steep learning curve.

I’ve arranged a socially distanced walk with a friend for Wednesday, several Zoom sessions with students and colleagues, and have a to do list I’ll never ever finish. I feel like I’m walking in slow motion most of the time. I can’t get things done. My concentration is splotchy. My emotions are mostly suppressed.

During my Zoom session with students today, they asked if we’d be meeting like this weekly. I told them that most of our work would be asynchronous. I confessed that I scheduled the meeting today mostly because I needed to see that they were ok.

What I saw was people like me, struggling with anxiety and depression, fear, exhaustion, hope. They want to do school work, to write, but they want to go to their jobs and get paid and to feed their families even more. They have children to care for, life to cope with.

Sometimes it feels like moving to online courses is hardest for faculty, but I think the students struggle just as much or more. We are, at least, in control. They are at the mercy of our skill or lack of skill and of our mercy or lack of it. Suffice it to say that mercy is more scarce than I would have hoped.

My writing in this post is much like my brain’s functioning at the moment. I start down one path and then end up somewhere else.

I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m trying very hard to pivot. To learn how to find the closeness and contact with human beings that is so natural face to face, inches or a foot apart. I’m trying to learn how to be a teacher and a mother when neither students nor daughter are nearby.

Landing here on acceptance of life in a pandemic means becoming a new sort of person and contributing to a new sort of community.

Here’s hoping that you are finding the peace and connection that you need and that you are, most importantly, healthy.

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