Five on Friday – Pandemic Blessings
Has fall arrived where you are? We are having brief blasts of cooler, dryer air and it has felt amazing. I’d love to say the leaves are turning beautiful colors too, but most of our trees just look like they are dying a slow death. Ha! Regardless, it’s Friday so let’s celebrate what we can!
It’s hard not to get stuck in a rut during our year of pandemic craziness isn’t it? Add to it all of the hate in our world and a presidential election and it’s enough to feel like hope is lost. Regardless of the pain that has been felt this year, I refuse to let 2020 go down with zero positives. Today I’m sharing a few pandemic blessings I’ve been able to hold onto that keep me looking on the bright side.
5 Things the Pandemic has Given Me
One | A new front door! Well, technically the pandemic didn’t provide the door but the time I had to sit around at home and finally pull the trigger on upgrading this door after 17 years made it a reality. It’s amazing what a simple change can do to my overall mood every day when I pull into the driveway! What the pandemic has given me is a reminder that my home is a place I feel safe and loved.
Two | Lazy Saturday mornings. I didn’t realize how much I had missed being home on Saturday mornings until every weekend looked the same. Typically in the spring and summer we are on the road watching baseball all over Texas and sometimes out of state. While I miss not seeing my boys play, it has been a nice little break. The plus side, for the first time in years the mileage on my car is almost “normal”.
Three | A new appreciation for things I typically took for granted; my gym, girls nights, dining out, my work family. I am not very self motivated to work out on my own so I missed my gym classes like crazy but not as much as I’ve missed some of my best girls. Finding new ways to stay connected (hello Marco Polo) was important.
Four | The chance to dive into my faith. While 2020 has given me some beautiful things like a sweet new grandbaby, it has also taken away some things I treasured like my sweet Mamaw. Add to that a rough 6 months with my own moms health and my head and heart were both full of hurt, worry, anger and confusion. For the first time in my life I had days where I really just had zero clue what to do. Do you know what happens when you flounder? Satan attacks and he did not waste any time at all firing at me. Finding truth I could fall back on when I felt zero hope some days has made all of the difference.
Five | A love for listening. In the early days of the pandemic when working from home was the norm, I found a love for long walks and listening to both podcasts and audio books. I’ve never been good with listening comprehension so sometimes it takes me twice as long because I replay a passage multiple times to truly absorb or even take notes, but the practice of listening and tuning out everything else has been good for me. Somehow hearing an author speak the words has brought even more life to their story and I can’t get enough. Right now I’m listening to You are the Girl for the Job and spoiler alert, I am and YOU are. Highly recommend this listen!
So what about you? Has there been any positive revelations for you from the time we have spent living through a pandemic? Will there be things you no longer take for granted?