At Home With Jennifer Nettles: How She’s Sweetening Up Homeschooling Her 7-Year-Old & More
In addition to sharing messages of hope & light with her music, Jennifer Nettles reveals her new role of Mrs. Mom during quarantine!
Jennifer Nettles has blessed us with a number of inspiring and uplifting anthems throughout her career, from “Shine The Light” as half of the duo Sugarland, to her latest rendition of the beloved musical number “Tomorrow.” In collaboration with musical theater maven Alex Lacamoire, Jennifer had been working on an arrangement of theater songs ahead of the Coronavirus outbreak. “We finished on March 12th with the song Tomorrow being the last song in the last session of the last day… this happened to be the day that we also found out that Broadway was going dark due to gathering restrictions and for health and safety,” Jennifer explained in an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife.com. The next day, the singer decided to release “Tomorrow” to give the world a much-needed message of hope and a reminder of our resilience.
“We’ve been through hard times before and great leaders have been inspired from it and wonderful community has been forged because of it. We’ll get back to the wonderful everyday activities that we love and celebrate each other, birthdays, holidays and weddings and all those things again,” she said. In addition to her new music, Jennifer spoke to HL about homeschooling her 7-year-old son and how she’s living life in quarantine.
What are you binge watching during the quarantine? I am binge watching absolutely nothing because I have a seven-year-old who is doing distance learning, which is like a version of homeschooling. Doing that and then if you add that into me trying to get out for a walk or a bike ride to move my body and not go crazy every day, then if you add to that maybe doing a little bit of work like us on the phone and anything creative, there’s no time for binge watching. The day is done. Just staying in quarantine and the day is done.
What’s on your quarantine playlist? Ingrid Andress‘ new album is out and I did intentionally go to that to listen to on my walk the other day and then didn’t get around to it, but that is next on my list for sure.
What are you doing to workout and stay fit at home? I’m definitely not posting myself doing any sort of workout, there’s that! But I’ve definitely been going on my walks. I do my yoga, I go on bike rides. I do, there’s some apps. There’s one, I think, it’s called 8fit… I just like some kick stuff, some Tabata, that kind of stuff. I mix it up. But for me right now, moving my body is definitely a lifesaver.
How has homeschooling been going? For me, I’m just like, look, this is a scary, strange, awkward time. My kid, he doesn’t recognize it with the same weight that we as adults do, but it is also different for him. I want to keep up with as much as I can but also know that I am the keeper of ease and safety in my home, too. So, I don’t get too crazy about it. I want to make sure that I’m offering him something, but I also want to make sure that there is love and gentleness and brownies and laughter and fun, too.