The year 2020 and the start of 2021 has been a time like no other. I could go on and on about the challenges we've all faced but that is not what this blog is about. Our family has been quarantining because some of us have one of those those pesky underling health conditions. So suddenly we found ourselves stuck at home for a very long time. I thought we had two choices, spend our quarantine in fear and being sad about all the things we missed or we could make the very best out of a bad situation. We were not stuck at home but rather safe at home. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. When else would we ever have so much family time.
Prior to this year we would stay pretty busy. Weeknights housework and homework took up most of our evenings, most weekends were filled with one thing or another. Even though we enjoyed ourselves along the way, it left little time for pursuing new interest and trying new things.
I've always wanted to try home schooling so right off the bat there was a chance to try something new. I didn't want to focus on just surviving, but actually work on thriving. First I limited the amount of news I watched and did not watch news around the kids. They certainly did not need to spend any time worrying about covid-19. We did let them know what was going on but in a more kid friendly way. My husband and I did enough worrying about how covid-19 would effect our family, friends and economy for the whole family. I wanted my kids to look back at 2020 not as a year of fear when everything fun was canceled but instead as a year we got to bound as a family, celebrated in a new ways, tried new things, and focus on gratitude for all the amazing things we had and how fortunate we are.
This year as a family we have had out door movie nights, played board games, put together puzzles, camped overnight out in our back yard, celebrated holidays and birthdays in creative ways, played video games, went for hikes, zoomed and google met with family and friends, did science experiments, baked together and more. I repaired the concrete on my porch, painted the house, planted my first garden, made gifts for family and friends, built a kitchen island and a coffee table and a few other DIY projects to make our house a little more homey. I started an indoor edible garden, did a lot of dishes and laundry, learn to make my own ice cream and Kombucha. I transferred 10 years worth of home movies from moldy 38 year old VHS tapes from my childhood to digital formats, learned how to clean mold off VHS tapes and also learned how to fix a broken VCR and more. Let me tell you what I'm proudest of, I memorized the entire Hamilton soundtrack. Basically I've tried to fill my time with projects because working on projects keeps my anxious mind busy learning and that makes me happy.
Now here I am trying something else I've always considered but never had the time to pursue. I'm starting a blog. If it was not for all the useful information out their provided by random people on the internet I would not have been able to learn how to do the many things I've mentioned. Blogs, volgs, podcasts, websites, forums, and the advice of people in my life I have been able to not just survive but thrive in quarantine and beyond. I want to play it forward and share with you what I have done and learned in hopes to inspire you like I have been inspired. I don't always know what I am doing but I am learning as I grow.
