A Spring Without Flowers

A Spring Without Flowers

I didn’t have to wait for spring to come this year. It came when it was supposed to. Maybe the winter was mild, maybe the anticipation of our trip to Tobago made the rest of the cold months go by faster.

The tulip and daffodil greens came up, and I saw buds forming. The forsythia bloomed. One lone daffodil bloomed earlier than all the rest. It was visible through the back windows of the house, and I checked on it each day, eventually watching it wilt, and waited for the others to bloom.

They never did.

Five Things Bringing Joy During Quarantine

Five Things Bringing Joy During Quarantine

I already did a little round-up of things that were making me smile, and I wanted to do another post with a few more things that have brought me joy or kept me afloat lately.

Deadly Spin

Deadly Spin

Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out On How Corporate PR is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans, by Wendell Potter.

Maybe you’re thinking, why in the world would I want to read a book with a title like THAT during a pandemic?!

Well, here’s why.

Shifting Winds

Shifting Winds

Something different happened this past weekend. Lockdown could be summarized as weeks of mental torpor and fatigue, wishing I was inspired to be creative while I was stuck at home. With few exceptions, I crept through the occasional project with little enthusiasm.

Friday came. Finally, I had the energy and inspiration to start a sewing project – one I’d been planning for a long time but hadn’t had the bandwidth to get started on. It came out just as I’d hoped.

The next day, I tackled a wall mural that I’d been planning for months. It was a group project with the kids. We had our moments – like when I hit my head on the door frame while doing some of the detail work on the mural, but somehow, every kid (except my oldest, who didn’t care) got to help paint a section of the mural or consult on color choice.

When you live in a house with others, sometimes when another person experiences a mental shift, it’s like the wind has changed direction and everyone can feel it.

Five Things That Made Quarantine A Little Easier

Five Things That Made Quarantine A Little Easier

I’m a homebody and an introvert, but being home all day, every day with my kids during lockdown with no breaks and almost no adult interaction beyond the Chaplain has been a hit to my mental health. Through it all, though, there have been little things that pepped me up when I was falling apart. Here are five of my favorites from the last week or so: