Been a year!

Well hello everyone! I hope I find you all safe and sane. Feel a bit sheepish. Last time we spoke was June 2020. I said I would keep in touch but just a little less often. Apparently, that meant complete and total silence from me. To be honest, there was nothing to share. Nothing new and exciting. Everything was good. Everything was routine. Everything was just the same day after day….. Doesn’t make for an interesting conversation.

But here we are, a year later. I felt like I needed to write something. Mark a year of living in a pandemic. Mark an event in our lifetimes that will forever impact us. A diary entry? A report? A story? Or maybe an inventory of all the things we have done? Where to start?

As they say, start from the beginning. And a quick laundry list will be the least painful for all involved.

February 2020: Blissfully ignorant. Packing for NZ.

March 2020: Vacationing and living the dream in NZ and then the end of normal as we knew it.

April 2020: Back in Canada. Quarantining. Blogging. Unemployment. Family time! Puzzles! Cooking! Cocktail hours! Virtually living. In shock?

May 2020: Walking! Mother’s Day! Smoking’ meat! Gardening! Blogging. Hand sanitizer. More cooking. More cocktails. Too many puzzles. Family time. Backyard visits. New normal.

June 2020: Death Marches (formerly known as walking). So much family time…. Still blogging. Father’s Day. Picnics. Biking. Still cooking… Badminton (tense moments between some family members). Pool time. Done with online school. Stormy times out in the world.

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July 2020: Canada Day Games! No more blogging. Still cooking all the &^%# time. Backyard camping! Outdoor movies! Balanced family time. And lots and lots of death marches. Living the covid dream.

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August 2020: Monkey’s Birthday! More outdoor movies. Filmed Grills and Cocktails for a conference. Camping for real! Glorious pool time! Biking, hiking, death marching, running. And still cooking but now with a theme which helps, sort of. Pool comes down for the season…. But badminton is back, as are some quiet times between some.

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September 2020: First haircut since the beginning of the year! Anniversary hike and dinner (just the two of us. Made the kids stay upstairs while we ate lobster and steak). Back to school! Monkey voted class president! Themed dinners are actually fun.

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October 2020: Peanut and the hubby’s Birthday!! Baking an apple pie in the park. Thanksgiving Dinner. More themed dinners. First round of close contact quarantine time for Peanut (2 weeks. can’t leave the property). Halloween – sort of. And snow….

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November 2020: So much house time. Second round of close contact quarantine time for Peanut (another 2 weeks. Can’t leave the property). Themed dinners are something to look forward to. And we are back in lockdown. Online schooling until the new year… hooray…

December 2020: Online school. Christmas decorations. Christmas tree cutting. Christmas baking. Christmas music. Christmas lights. Christmas skating. Christmas everything…. Oven door explodes (yes – it really did). Roller coaster building. Record snowfall. Snowshoeing. Hot chocolate. Roasting chestnuts on an open fire (yes – we really did). Christmas morning.

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January 2021: Happy New Year! Can’t be worse than the last right? Oh wait… Peanut dislocates her elbow (first trip of the year to emerge – they actually recognized me). Themed dinners are still going on (what the hell was I thinking). Started to work again!

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February 2021: Themed dinners are getting a little old (ran out of themes). Another round of quarantine for Peanut (also getting old). Living vicariously through friends in NZ.

March 2021: My birthday! Remembering my last birthday. Eating too much cake (my little nephews made it and it was actually really good). Blogging?

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I look at the list and see a lot of family time and smiles. It wasn’t all good times, especially during badminton, but all in all, we can say we have made the most of this year. We had time as a family. Time to do work around the house. Time to eat hot meals together. Time for walks. Time to think (maybe too much of that). Time to play games. Time to be creative. Time to watch movies. Time to sleep in. Time. A whole lot of precious time. If there is one thing that I take away from this past year, I need “time”. Maybe not in the quantities given but definitely more than we had pre-covid.

I am finally starting to think about life “post covid”. Finally. Finally, I can see light at the end of the covid tunnel. I am getting excited about all those thoughts. I am excited to see friends and family again. Not from a sidewalk, but up close and personal. Even hug them! I am excited to be able to have people come into our home and share a meal with us. I am excited to meet friends and dress up for a night out on the town. I’m excited to go to a museum and wander around like I know what I’m looking at. I’m excited to sit and watch my kids play sports while I cheer them on like a mad woman from the sidelines. I am excited to have something to write about. I’m excited about everything that doesn’t involve social distancing, hand sanitizer and masks. I’m excited about a lot. However, in all this excitement, I haven’t forgotten about what I loved most about this last year – Time. I will make sure to take some, make some and create some.

Someone better remind me though about “time” because we made lemonade out of lemons and I definitely threw in a bottle of vodka. You know, to be safe.