How is the COVID-19 coronavirus affecting you?
OFF TOPIC discussions
Putting aside for a moment the deadly seriousness of how covid-19 has terribly effected us all in one way or another, some folks more directly and severely than others...losing jobs, loved ones, lives.
I think this horrible crisis has also caused us to deeply appreciate some of the little things we used to take for granted. Like even just being able to go to the store to pick up eggs or toilet paper. Not to waste things.
If I look at one small positive thing my home isolation period has done for me, I'd have to say it has made me both a better gardener and a better cook. In both those areas of my life i've become more resourceful in finding ways to use and get the most out of what i have, in order to get results.
I wound up growing seedlings in paper milk cartons cut in half, and in empty egg cartons, with a plain 60W garage shop light hanging overhead and Saran wrap spread over to germinate, using dirt simply dug from the yard. Didn't buy any 'starter trays', peat pots, fertilizer, or bags of potting soil. I only ordered seed, which came in the mail. I was surprised to find that much of my remaining old 2019 seeds which sat in the shed for a year still germinated by about 60%. Two months later, we're now getting lots of salads from the garden, and I've been able to give fresh bags of lettuce to some older friends as well.
I learned about food substitutions to use in a pinch when i didn't have a certain ingredient. I've gotten better at throwing together meals from odds and ends pantry items. Some items are scarce to get, so I adjust meal plans around when/if I get them.
I've developed more patience and willingness to tackle more 'from scratch' baking recipes that I previously would have dismissed as being too much work. I've also settled into the routine of making home made yogurt that we now eat all the time.
Vanilla. In our house, our bottle of pure vanilla extract has taken on Goddess status. When the quarantine started, early on I got flour, sugar, baking powder, etc, and figured I was ok for baking treats for a while. I knew I had recently bought a bottle of vanilla which was in the back of the spice cupboard. Well, two weeks later when I went to bake cookies, I found that vanilla bottle had been knocked over months before and had slowly leaked until it was... empty. 
So sad!
To my dismay I found all my local stores were by that time all OUT of most baking supplies like flour, yeast, brown sugar, and... vanilla ! So I ordered a very overpriced but pure Madagasgar 8oz bottle online. The shipping date was three weeks away. Finally a month after ordering, the vanilla arrived in the mail (i had enjoyed envisioning our treasure bottle slowly sailing on a pirate ship, bobbing over the ocean waves from distant islands to us). The aroma when i opened that bottle was otherworldly divine. I never appreciated vanilla so much as now, and I treat that bottle like the crown jewels when I reach for it.
BTW here where I am I went to the regular supermarket a few days ago, and in the huge entire toilet paper/paper towels aisle, there was just ONE lonely little 4pack of toilet paper. And big signs saying TP/papertowels/tissue "LIMIT ONE package per customer". I left that package for someone else who was maybe more in need than I. Is anyone else still finding TP and paper towels completely out of stock in stores still, after like three months now? I find it a little bizarre that tp supply still has not caught up with demand, after all this time. 
updated by @strumelia: 06/07/20 07:22:27PM
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