All tagged COVID-19
Besides getting late night munchies at Taco Bell or Carl’s Jr. as a teenager and young adult, I never fully appreciated the convenience of a drive-thru until I moved to Minnesota. We had arrived to our new home in August which gave me plenty of time to get the lay of the land while running errands with a baby before the first snow came down in November. It didn’t matter, I still struggled for years whenever I schlepped the baby(s) around for errands.
I waited until the last minute to decide which habit I would work on for the 365 days in 2021. I knew that I was already going to try to ride the Peloton bike once or twice a week and I knew that I was going to try to cook more meals. But I needed something that I could do every day; a habit for 365 days. It had to be something small, almost like a “no brainer” or hard to skip. In doing this habit daily, the year’s effort would add up to be significant. More importantly, the habit should have the potential to continue for years.
For so many years, I have kept the tradition of listening to Christmas music non-stop starting the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas night. In recent years, I have added another “Day After Thanksgiving” tradition. I pull out all of our Nutcracker items to mark the beginning of the celebration (more like fear) of my daughter’s upcoming dance schedule. Prior to COVID, the weeks leading up to Christmas were ONLY about Loyce Houlton’s Nutcracker Fantasy at the State Theater. The mugs, sweatshirts, decorations and the coveted fuzzy sock/slippers which have Nutcrackers printed all over them come out of hibernation to help me get in the mood. I’m giving credit to the socks for keeping me grounded during the whirlwind of a season.
Our Thanksgiving Day dinner menu this year is: turkey (Martha Stewart’s brine recipe), mash potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole (Trader Joe’s recipe), gravy, corn, cranberry sauce, rolls, pumpkin pie and apple pie (with ice cream). It’s basic, yet fancy enough for us because we only eat these foods in this combination once a year. Each of these menu items have a unique scent and anyone who enjoys eating these foods would welcome their scents like a warm hug.
For years my friend Christy and I would laugh about doing things that were the opposite of being thoughtful. We would chat about people who didn’t care about others - wouldn’t it be so liberating to only think about ourselves? Whenever we shared stories that included someone being selfish we would say, “Let’s put that on the Un-thoughtful List.”
In full disclosure I was trying to decide between writing about National Fast Food Day and World Kindness Day. Believe it or not, after the 2020 election, I have been super weary about the concept of kindness. Half of America is so filled with hate that it would seem almost too ironic to write about kindness. Besides, fast food is such a great topic. The choice was hard.
During the Stay-at-Home order for Covid I thought that I would have all this extra time to read. I envisioned myself as one of those people who would curl up on the couch and read a book during my “down time.” Seven months later, I still do not have down time. When George Floyd died and all of America wanted justice, I knew this was a big issue but I didn’t know what to do to help. I knew one thing, throwing another book onto the pile on my nightstand in hopes to read it someday wasn’t going to work. Some of the books on my nightstand have been there for 2 years! In this case, I needed to learn about racism asap otherwise I wouldn’t understand the civil unrest that was happening all around me. I immediately loaded my Audible library with two books: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi.
I am about to admit something very unthoughtful. Up until a week ago, I would judge family members when they would ask me what they should get my kids for their birthdays or Christmas. I have been very narrow-minded in thinking that they didn’t know my kids well enough to have their own gift ideas for them and I felt resentful that they had to ask for help. I felt like they were taking the easy way out; wanting me to give them the answers to the test. I considered this “cheating”. Boy was I dumb for thinking that way!
I procrastinate. It’s not due to lack of drive or inability to get the job done. I procrastinate because my sense of time management is ruled by deadlines. If my due date is in a week, I will put out all the fires that are happening in the moment and then I will squeeze my project in; barely making the deadline. I’m not proud about this but it is how I operate.
When I was deciding on what thoughtful topic I wanted to write about this week, I had many choices. National Dive Bar Day (7/7), National Pina Colada Day (7/10) and National Mojito Day (7/11) all fall within my weekly parameter of Tuesday 7/7 to Monday 7/13. Lately, my posts have been very much celebratory of the national days; fun and light-hearted. In fact, National French Fry Day is on 7/13 and who doesn’t love a good french fry?
It must have been during my junior year in college that I learned the importance of drinking water. I wish I could say it was because I was interested in physiology and studied how the body works but it was because someone told me that drinking a lot of water helped prevent hangovers. Also at that time, I was participating in beauty pageants so I received the vanity advice: water helps keep the weight off and the skin smooth and blemish-free.
National Creativity Day has been celebrated on May 30th ever since 2018 and according to Nationaldaycalendar.com, Hal Croasmun and ScreenwritingU wanted this day to be recognized as a way to “celebrate the imaginative spirits everywhere and to encourage them to keep creating.” Maybe I’m not the only one, but I never knew this national day existed. Now that I know about it, I feel like more than ever, we should be embracing and celebrating creativity. Over the last few months our lives have been about creative work space and situations, creative parenting, creative remote learning, creative graduations. Where would we be during this COVID-19 era without creativity?
