By: Elizabeth Weber and Mackenzie Lotz
With over a month in quarantine and warmer weather on its way, Investigative Committee members Elizabeth Weber and Mackenzie Lotz share how they have spent their time. Elizabeth’s Time at Home Life at home has been filled with the outdoors, school work, meetings and Netflix-watching. I have taken countless walks with the dogs, worked on countless projects and painted many canvases. On the other hand, my mom has continued to work diligently to provide excellent health care to her patients. She is a Family Physician working at the local hospital. With Mom’s work, stress is a little higher at our house and we have taken many precautions in order to make sure we all remain healthy during this time.
Dr. Kim Weber
Another part of my home life is living with three dogs and a cat. Each dog has their own unique personality and provides joy to this time at home. For example, Mia, an English Shepherd, can throw a toy for hours. One day, she had a splinter in her foot in the morning and was limping, but by the afternoon, she was racing the streets like a greyhound. The pups bring a lot of excitement into our lives and allow us to have a new adventure every single day.
Mia
A lot of projects have also been completed at this time. My mom and I are avid gardeners, so this year, we built a temporary greenhouse. This will allow us to plant our seeds early and protect them from any frosts or cold weather late in the spring. I built the greenhouse with my dad, but it took a couple of tries due to the misreading of directions (it was not my fault!). Overall, this project will help us for many more years to come and allow us to plant earlier in the season.
Raised bed in our greenhouse.
Finally, I have been spending a lot of time outdoors. A few weeks ago, our Magnolia tree blossomed and created beautiful flowers. Our yard is also full of Virginia blue bells which is also a wonderful sight to see in the spring. Despite missing the beautiful spring in Oxford, I was excited to be home to see the flowers that I would see every spring growing up. Besides taking time to smell the flowers, I hammock a lot or do my homework outside. I have also attempted to stress sustainability in my home life. I am currently taking an American Environmental History class and love to share the information with my family. EcoReps has also remained in full swing and has done the “See a Plant, Grow a Plant” competition remotely. Being able to continue to go to meetings that I would normally go to when at school has been a blessing and I have enjoyed staying in touch and learning more sustainability tips and tricks each week.
Magnolia flowers
Overall, being home has created a different set of circumstances; however, I believe that it has connected us even further. When we return to Miami, I believe that Love and Honor will be stronger than ever and I am very excited to get back to campus! Mackenzie's Time at HomeMy days have been less than exciting and full of an unhealthy amount of “Criminal Minds”, but I still try to go outside every chance I get. Each week, my family comes up with a craft that requires going outside and getting just a little bit messy. For those of you that watch “Princess Diaries”, I recommend channeling your inner Mia Thermopolis Renaldi, Princess of Genovia (and her mom of course!: last week, my family did “dart painting”, like the mother daughter pair did in this iconic movie. This was super easy to set up and take down, and it looked amazing when it was done! The basic tutorial: 1) Find a wooden board and paint any color you want, 2) Fill balloons with paint and tack them to the board, 3) Throw darts and enjoy!
Dart painting
My brother and his friends have also been quite active, and occasionally that involves the participation of the whole family. For their quarantine activity, they came up with a timed scavenger hunt throughout our city with various questions and pictures needed to complete it.
A highlight from this scavenger hunt.
Finally, like any bored college student, I addictively scroll through TikTok, where I happened to come across an activity involving sidewalk chalk. I created this on my driveway for my brother to try, as well as a duplicate on the sidewalk for neighborhood kids to have fun with.
A still from one of my Tik Toks.
Staying busy has been more difficult than I thought it would be, but it’s ultimately been a very creative experience. Don’t get me wrong--I miss Oxford with all my heart, but I think with the perfect combination of Tik Tok and too much free time, we can get through this quarantine thing no problem.All photos courtesy of Elizabeth Weber and Mackenzie Lotz