Looking on the Bright Side During a Pandemic

First, I never dreamed something like this was possible. Shutting down schools, sports, concerts, bars, restaurants and swimming pools because of a deadly virus. It’s like living in a horrible movie like Outbreak. So now that this has happened, and I’ve had to go through a quarantine, I realized a few things:

• Although I miss sports, I can live without them (sort of). I definitely miss sports and find myself watching old sporting events just to have some competition to watch. But I also like the fact that I’m not planning my life around a live sporting event, and that has been a freeing feeling for me. We’ll stay a little longer when we’re camping, or I’ll play with the kids more because I don’t have to rush off to catch the game. So having more family time has been a big positive for me.

• The house has never been cleaner. We did a deep clean in our house and cleaned more often because we were home more and had less to do. Plus, when we’re home all the time we tend to look around and think, we should clean that! Who wants to sit around in filth?

• I am catching up on movies and TV that I’ve always wanted to see such as Scoob, Friends, Tiger King (which I would not recommend) and Irresistible (which was very good). I’ve also had some time to fit in some really cool video games that never seemed to fit in the schedule before such as PGA Tour Golf, Call of Duty Warfare, Apex Legends and Wreckfest.

• I’ve been reading more and learning more about the software that I use and some cool things that my phone or tablet can do. I picked up a new skill. I am now a certified drone pilot, and I look forward to getting some great video footage with that new skill.

• I’ve done more cooking than usual because we are eating out less and staying home more. I learned how to make some new dishes like beef stroganoff and really good loaded nachos with cacique oaxaca cheese, cacique queso fresco cheese and blue tortilla chips.

• I’ve rediscovered some old hobbies like building legos, playing board games, ping-pong and making cat forts.

• Since our kids had school from home, I’ve never been more connected with what my kids are learning. It’s been frustrating to deal with some of it but also enlightening. I have a greater appreciation for teachers now that I’ve gotten a glimpse into their world.

So what’s really cool is that something good came out of something bad, and these are some great examples. Everyone stay safe moving forward, and look at some of the positives that came out of these unique times, and be sure to remember some of them as we slowly get back to normal.