Joanna Gaines of “Fixer Upper” fame is speaking out this week to reveal how her family is coping with self-isolation during the coronavirus pandemic in the hopes of letting her fans know that they are not alone.
As working parents of five children, Joanna and her husband Chip have a lot on their plate, but she told USA Today that they are dealing with self-isolation well.
“It’s now two weeks into it, and I feel like (we’re) just learning new rhythms and new schedules. The kids just got finished eating lunch, so it’s like, ‘OK, go back to class,’ – whatever that means,” she said. Joanna added that while her family is “trying to make the best out of it,” it’s “hard not to feel” everything going on “and just kind of get anxiety about it.”
This does not mean that Joanna can’t see the positive side of being isolated at home with her family. She once wrote in a cookbook that her “absolute favorite purpose of food” is “that it gives us a reason to gather,” but given all of the different extracurricular events her children have had in the past few years, getting together for meals had proven difficult as of late.
“Then this hit, and now it’s we’re home all day, every day,” she said. “It’s not trying to figure out how to fit in two or three meals a week. It’s now every single meal that we’re eating is cooked from the kitchen.”
“The perspective has changed, and that is kind of our moment of togetherness – those times in the kitchen, those times around the table,” Joanna added. “I feel like in some ways (it’s) deeper now because the kids have all of these questions about what’s going on… I would say those times around the table have just felt like the sweetest, the most comforting.”
This is a message that everyone can take to heart right now. When times are tough like these, it’s important to find the positives and comfort wherever we can. For Joanna, it’s clear that the positive side of the current situation is getting to spend more time with family, which is something that many of us can also gain from this experience.
Professionally speaking, Joanna is staying as busy as ever, as she is preparing to launch her very own cooking show on the new cable channel Magnolia.
“I’ve never had a cooking show before, so, I get butterflies when I think about it,” she explained. “I can shoot with my kids in the kitchen when they’re shooting me on their little iPhones, or on my iPhone. It’s a whole other thing when there’s, like, 20 people looking back at you.”
She added that her goal for this show isn’t “perfection,” at least not at first, because she knows from experience that it will take time to develop her skills in this medium.
“Just like with ‘Fixer,’ it’s not like (in) the first episode we nailed it. It’s not like the first season we nailed it,” Joanna said. “It was this ongoing learning experience, and that’s how I’m going to look at it with the (cooking) show…”
Joanna was supposed to begin shooting her show in March, but she said admitted that “everything’s been delayed” because of the pandemic.
“As of now, we have not changed the date, and that’s basically where we are,” she said. “But it’s an everyday conversation. We don’t know. Next week may be a different answer.”
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