A Reminder to Be Grateful
The last few weeks have been pretty heavy, so I wanted to make this week's post something light and less serious. When the Coronavirus first broke out and people started panicking I wrote a post about what fear can do in our lives. One of the major things was that grocery stores looked apocalyptic with the shelves completely bare of most essentials. That lead a lot of us to get creative not only for fun once we were stuck in our homes for social distancing. I also mentioned these things a few weeks ago in my post about our ways of coping. I figured why not follow up with all of that and talk about the pros of being quarantined for so long, rather than focusing on the cons.
Back when the supermarkets were looking scarce, it made me turn to making more of our own food. If you know me at all you know I always do a Sunday meal prep, except that week there was literally no excess food in the store. I ended up having to bring peanut butter and slices of bread to work to make toast for my lunch that week, and the bread was homemade. We have a bread machine so I just used that. But that is what prompted me to start making a lot of things from scratch. Through this social distancing period I have baked and cooked from scratch more than I think I have in the last couple of years combined! I encouraged you readers a few weeks back to do just this. Making your own food gives you a huge feeling of accomplishment. Yesterday I made my very first loaf of sourdough bread from scratch, which was a very long and tedious process, but when I had avocado toast on it this morning, it was even more exciting to eat because it was a result of all that love I put into it. I have made homemade gnocchi twice, cupcakes from scratch, and numerous other homemade recipes. My garden isn't producing vegetables just yet but I can tell you tomatoes fresh from the garden just taste so much better. When you start making and producing your own food, it gives you a much bigger appreciation for what goes into it. I am not a parent, but I feel like letting your kids help in the kitchen helps start this appreciation within them as well.
Although gardening and cooking are also considered hobbies, I wanted to go into other kinds of hobbies as well. That has been a huge plus for me for being home so much more as well. I have been reading so much more than I used to. In the process I found a new series of books that may have taken over as my favorite series, and overall just found a love of fiction again. I even decided to read a lot more poetry and as a result I have been writing a lot more poetry as well. I have decided to venture into writing other forms that I never really thought I would enjoy previously. I am considering reviewing the poetry book I am currently reading in a future post as well. It has really been quite a luxury to have all this time to read books just for pleasure (yes college professors I am looking at you making us read 200 pages of dry novels in a 2 day span) and to be able to dedicate a good amount of time writing as well. Pictured are all the books I have finished and the one I am currently reading since this social distancing began, and my poetry notebook (shoutout to Nicole for the amazing birthday gift!) that I write in. When life gets really busy it is so easy to let these kinds of things get pushed aside until they are almost the forgotten dusty toy in the back of our closet shelf. I am sure that is an even bigger issue for people with spouses and/or kids. If you have that extra time take it, because you may only have that opportunity for so long.
Overall I am just encouraging you all to be grateful for this time you have had, even if you had to be forced into it kicking and screaming. I will be honest when I first was sent to work from home I did not even remotely imagine I would still be at home in June, three months later. I am not complaining though. I am grateful that I have a job that I am overall able to do from home pretty efficiently and that other than the location change, things went on fairly normally. In the process I have spent so much time with my family. The virus has delayed my moving out plans a bit more unfortunately, but once I am in my own place I won't have nearly as much time with them so this was a nice thing. I even talked to my sister a lot more often on the phone during this time frame. Those are especially the things that we can be grateful for. Take some time to consider yours and consider them before you complain about not being able to go the the gym still or your vacation being postponed. Most importantly, the extra time we have had to do these things are just an extra perk to the bigger picture which has been keeping ourselves and others safe during this global pandemic.
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