Naturally, as a scrapbooker, I find that just like everything else in my life I have the urge to document what is going on. Even if I don't make scrapbook pages from all of this, I do like the idea of documenting our experiences and the strange and unfamiliar world we are currently living in. It's just that habit I have created of recording the big moments in my life and this is definitely a big moment.
If you are wanting to do the same and document it all, I've put together this guide to help.
Quick disclaimer - I know that not everyone wants to document it all: the good, the bad, the ugly. This is truly an awful situation. Stay-at-home orders and quarantines are the new norm. Businesses are closed and millions of people have lost their jobs. People are dying. Hospitals are becoming overwhelmed. The economic results and possible outlook are terrifying. The future is more uncertain than ever at the moment. So, believe me when I say that I understand why someone would choose NOT to document this. I'm not suggesting you do or don't document it. I'm just putting together a guide that helps you if you want to use it. I do truly believe that journaling can be a great stress-reliever and very therapeutic.
If you have anything you want to add that I've missed, please do so in the comments.
FACTS
Anytime you are journaling about something historical, you will probably want to include some facts, statistics, and news headlines.
Links and resources:
This website has a collection of COVID-19 articles arranged by date, starting on December 31, 2019.
This one has an interesting graph that shows how quickly it spread. It animated so it's not something you can scrapbook, but it's still interesting to see.
You can read each report all the way back to the first one on January 21, 2020.
This page is filled with links and information.
This is a live tracker/map of the global spread of Covid-19.
This website shows total number of cases, deaths, recovered, etc. It also includes the total numbers for each country. I've been taking screen shots everyday of this website and it's been interesting (and scary) to see growth and spread.
My first screen shot was on March 14 (on the left) and in the US we had 2,499 cases. At the time of this writing, March 31 (on the right,) we have 164,744 cases.
It has the latest amount of cases and deaths in each state.
This page has a list of all the sports, events, concerts, etc that were closed due to Covid-19.
Reddit is full of great resources, articles, statistics, and so much more. It's been one of my daily go-to places to read news and explore what the interwebs has to offer.
If you don't know what Reddit is, it's a large collection of forums. (And I mean LARGE!) There are specialized forums called "sub-reddits." There is a wide range of topics/sub-reddits from news to humor to entertainment to science. There's even a scrapbooking sub-reddit. People share links to articles, photos, gifs, videos, share opinions, and ask questions to start discussions. It's my favorite place on the internet!
Here are the COVID-19 sub-reddits that have lots of information and articles.
r/supplychain - This sub-reddit posts a daily update that has lots of interesting information. It's one of my daily reads.
r/CoronavirusMemes - for some humor.
This website has page called "Today's Front Pages" that has a large collection of the front pages of hundreds of major newspapers.
Facts Personal Documenting:
• Look on Reddit for your own state or city sub-reddit. You can potentially find lots of local information there.
• Keep a journal were you can jot down headlines, dates of importance, things that were canceled, etc.
• Go to Facebook pages for your local information. You can go back through posts from your city, your favorite local restaurants, grocery stores, government officials, news channels, etc. and get dates and information that you might want to document.
PERSONAL JOURNALING
Use these journaling prompts to help you document your life, thoughts, and feelings during the global pandemic. You can also use these to interview your kids, your family, your friends, or your coworkers to get different perspectives.
• Write about your daily life. You can go into great detail or you can create a "day in the life" bullet list of your daily activities. Do this everyday.
• Have your kids write about their daily life too. I have mine spend about 15 minutes a day writing about their new life during our stay-at-home order.
• Make a timeline of COVID-19 and how it changed your life. Think about important dates like the day your kid's school closed, the day you had to start working from home, the day the grocery stores ran out of toilet paper, etc.
• What is happening/has happened in your community?
• How has your community come together to help one another?
• Who are you most thankful for right now?
• What do you miss most about life before COVID-19?
• Make a list of the things you had to cancel or will have to miss because of COVID-19.
• What was the hardest cancellation you had to make?
• In what ways did you celebrate a birthday, anniversary, or holiday during this time?
• Share your opinion on COVID-19. Do you think we are doing enough? Do you think we are not doing enough?
• Do you know anyone who has tested positive? When did start showing symptoms? How did you learn the news that they were sick? How are they doing?
• Have you been sick or tested positive? What was it like? Write a daily list of symptoms.
• What worries you the most?
• What are you most hopeful for?
• What are you most grateful for?
• What are you doing to keep a positive attitude?
• How have you changed since COVID-19?
• Do you feel like you are enjoying the little things right now? Explain in detail.
• Are you happy with how the government has handled things? What about your local government officials? If not, what would you have done differently?
• What do you think we can learn from all of this?
• What do you hope changes in the world after all of this?
• What is the greatest challenge you are facing right now?
• Where is the first place you will go after this all over? Why?
• What supplies (food, toilet paper, medicine, etc.) have you had trouble getting?
• How are you staying touch with loved ones?
• What are some unique measures you have to take to communicate or interact with your loved ones?
• Make a list of all the books you have read. Movies/tv shows you have watched.
• What do you look forward to most each day?
• What did your kids think about their school closing? Were they excited? Were they scared? What events will they miss?
• Are your kids doing home schooling or online school? What is that like for them? Do they enjoy it? How much time do they spend doing school work?
• How do your kids spend most of their time right now?
• How have you explained what is going on to your kids?
• What kind of questions have your kids had?
• Is your job considered essential? How do you feel about that?
• What do you do to manage your stress during this time?
• Write a thank you letter to a doctor, a nurse, a small business you support, a truck driver, a grocery store worker, etc.
• How do you find humor during such a dark time?
• What are some quotes or headlines that stood out to you? Why did they stand out to you? What are your thoughts?
• At the end of each day, write down one thing you are grateful for. Don't use the same thing twice.
• Write about the moment that the COVID-19 situation became very real for you. What was it that made you realize this is a serious situation?
• What has the COVID-19 pandemic made you realize?
PHOTOS
Personal Photos To Take
• Household items relating to COVID-19 like hand-sanitizer, toilet paper, food, soap, medicine, etc.
• Your grocery shopping experience. The parking lot, empty shelves, social distancing lines, lines out the doors, etc.
• Your kids participating in online school.
• Family activities at home.
• You working from home.
• Visiting family/friends and keeping social distance.
• Empty locations nearby - empty parking lots, restaurants, playgrounds, streets, shopping centers, etc.
• Signs on the doors of business explaining why they are closed.
• Selfie with a mask on.
• Your daily activities. You could do a "day-in-the-life" set of photos.
• Take family photos that show the social distancing recommendations.
• FaceTime or communication with loved ones.
Photos From the Internet
Take screenshots or download a picture from Google searches or other websites.
• Look at hashtags on Instagram. #coronavirus #covid19 #washyourhands #socialdistancing
• Look through r/pics on Reddit. I've seen lots of photos showing empty streets in New York, San Diego, Las Vegas, and many more places.
• Take screenshots of empty stadiums or sports arenas.
• Take screenshots of conversations or comments on social media.
• Take screenshots of texts you have received.
• Take screenshots of closure announcements from schools, businesses, events, churches, etc.
• Search Google images for:
- coronavirus
- COVID-19
- social distancing
use either COVID-19 or coronavirus (both will have different results) for the following:
- COVID-19 empty shelves
- COVID-19 empty streets
- COVID-19 hospitals
- COVID-19 statistics
- COVID-19 infographic
If you are looking for more positive, sense of humor stuff:
- COVID-19 funny
- COVID-19 memes
• Take screenshots of emails you've gotten from various companies.
I think that's all I've got! That was a lot of information! I hope you find it useful in some way and if you want to connect with me on social media check out my...
I'll leave you with a favorite quote I've seen floating around the internet...
This is a great resource for journaling and scrapbooking during this difficult year and 2021 is not starting out much better. I started a combo junk journal/scrapbook/art journal in early March. Yes is this is a difficult time, but keeping the journal and being creative really helped me cope and continues to help. Stay positive, it will get better!
WOW! THANK YOU!!! I gotta get my butt in gear! I thought I was saving a lot of things but YOU are SO awesomely thorough that I kinda feel a bit lame! However, I've taken videos & photos of our Facetimes w/ our grandkiddies & have a shared album called, "Lockdown Pics & Videos".
Thank you for this! Here's a couple of links I found that are interesting. I wanted to find Missouri's daily counts, and this one is even broke down by county when you hover over it:
https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-timeline-missouri/63-98439849-3152-4f54-80d0-43fe6f50f01e
Also, I am wanted to document the terminology being used (social distancing, pandemic, etc.) and I found this:
https://www.kff.org/glossary/covid-19-outbreak-glossary/
Thank you!
Thorough list. Thank you for putting this together for us and prodding us to document, document, during this crazy time!!