What a whirlwind of a week, right? When our marketing team sat down last Monday during our weekly meeting, we briefly mentioned how we were slightly concerned about COVID-19 and then went on about our meeting and our day. Now, at the end of the week, things have drastically changed with schools shutting down, international travel bans in place, and church gatherings canceled for the time being. It seems like a totally different world than it was over a week ago. 

Since it looks like a lot of us will be home more over the next few weeks, we reached out to our amazing community and asked for YOUR suggestions for the best shows to watch on Netflix, books to read, and activities to do at home. Our MSC Besties came through with an amazing list of ideas and we're rounding them all up here so that you have a resource to refer to over the coming days! 

We know that this time feels a bit uncertain and scary, but we are reminded every day about the goodness that we have in our own community here. Thank you for continuing to pour kindness into the world and for supporting our small business during this time!

Best Netflix Recommendations:

Love is Blind - A recent favorite for the MSC Marketing team. A new twist on a reality dating tv show, where the men and women meet and date each other in separate"pods" where they cannot see each other! They can only talk! Once they make a connection with someone, they get engaged, sight unseen, before meeting in real life and facing real-life together! After 4 weeks, they decide if they want to get married or not! Be warned - it's addicting (and much better than the most recent season of the Bachelor)

Next in Fashion - If you love Project Runway, this is for you! It has an even more "feel-good" vibe to it and all of the designers truly root for each other and want the best for each other. The fashion shows are so fun to watch!

Glow Up - Think "Project Runway" but for Makeup Artists! And once again, the contestants are genuine and drama-free. It's a feel-good competition, filled with awesome makeup!

The Good Place - A comedy starring the one and only Kristen Bell, who plays Eleanor Shellstrop. She wakes up to find herself in "the Good place" after her death, a place where only the most ethical and best people end up. She panics when she realizes that she's been sent there by mistake and does everything she can to keep her secret hidden so that she can stay. It's funny, quirky, and has great messages about how people can change and improve themselves for the better.

Schitt's Creek - When filthy-rich video store magnate Johnny Rose and his family suddenly find themselves broke, they are forced to leave their pampered lives to regroup and rebuild their empire from within the rural city limits of their only remaining asset - Schitt's Creek, an armpit of a town they once bought as a joke. This show is funny, quirky, and tackles the dynamics of a dysfunctional family that's forced to come together.

Anne with an E - A show that is described as a coming-of-age story about an outsider who fights for acceptance, for her place in the world and for love. The drama revolves around a young orphaned girl who, after an abusive childhood spent in orphanages and the homes of strangers, is mistakenly sent to live with an elderly spinster and her aging brother.

New Girl - After a bad break-up, Jess, an offbeat young woman, moves into an apartment loft with three single men she's never met before. Zooey Deschanel shines as Jess in her quirky and lovable way and this show will have you laughing constantly!

Parks & Recreation - Filmed in a similar "documentary" format as The Office, this show is about the absurd antics of an Indiana town's public officials as they pursue sundry projects to make their city a better place. If you liked The Office, you'll enjoy this!

Designated Survivor - A low-level Cabinet member becomes President of the United States after a catastrophic attack kills everyone above him in the line of succession. If you enjoy political dramas, this one is for you!

Stranger Things - When a young boy disappears, his mother, a police chief, and his friends must confront terrifying supernatural forces in order to get him back. If you haven't had a chance to jump on the Stranger Things train, now's your chance! It's a great suspense/thriller without being TOO intense!

Heart of Dixie - New Yorker and new doctor Zoe Hart accepts an offer from a stranger, Dr. Harley Wilkes, to work in his medical practice in Bluebell, Alabama. She arrives to find he has died and left half the practice to her in his will. 

Gilmore Girls - A cult classic! A dramedy centering around the relationship between a thirtysomething single mother and her teen daughter living in Stars Hollow, Connecticut. Time to open up the endless debate: Team Jesse or Team Dean?

Virgin River - A VERY popular recommendation from the MSC community! After seeing an ad for a midwife, a recently widowed big-city nurse moves to the redwood forests of northern California, where she meets an intriguing man. What happens next? We've been told it's very Hallmark Channel 'esque!

Good Girls - Three suburban mothers suddenly find themselves in desperate circumstances and decide to stop playing it safe and risk everything to take their power back...via bank robbery!

Book Recommendations

Where the Crawdad's Sing - One of the TOP recommendations from the MSC community and for good reason. It's an amazing read!  The story is set in the 1950s and revolves around a young woman named Kya Clark, who is from extremely rural North Carolina. Known by others as the Marsh Girl, she lives alone in nature—but the draw of other people, and specifically love, brings her into contact with the greater world. This novel has a mystery at its core, but it can be read on a variety of levels, with a lot of themes and messages on family, love, and judging others.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. 

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Little Fires Everywhere - In a small and seemingly perfect suburb of Cleavland, Ohio, Elena Richardson encounters Mia Warren—an enigmatic artist and single mother—who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town—and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides.  Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

A Man Called Ove - Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse.

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundation

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn, New York demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family’s erratic and eccentric behavior―such as her father Johnny’s taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy’s habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce―no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans’ life lacked drama. 

The Light Between Oceans - After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. 

Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

Activities to Do at Home

• Play Board Games
• Adult Coloring Books
• Hair Mask
• Bake a Treat
• Start a Journal
• Scrapbook
• Read a Book
• Yoga
• Paint Your Nails
• Learn a Hand Craft (sewing, knitting)
• Spring Clean
• Build a Blanket Fort
• Marathon your Favorite Movies (Harry Potter, Fast & Furious, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars)
• Paint
• Jam Shesh/Dance Party with Your Favorite Music
• Online Shop (we've got you covered there!)