Simple Summer 2020

I, like many other people, did not believe that this virus situation would still have a hold on us at this point in the end of the summer. After spending my entire summer vacation planning for whatever the new school season brings, getting things moved in and organized and adjusting to life in a new and beautiful area, I haven't been able to do many of the things I have wanted to do- mainly travel and visit places with large crowds. All of my carefully laid plans seem to have been pushed to the wayside (no- I have NOT started an exercise routine). It's easy for me to look back at my summer and feel as if I have nothing to show for it...but then I stepped back and really looked at my accomplishments, however small, and I don't feel so bad about it. I think about the way our new house looked in the first few weeks we lived here- piled with junk that needed to be donated (but couldn't at the time because of virus restrictions). I thought about the boxes of mismatched stuff that I didn't have a home for and the same pile of tools that moved from room to room whenever we needed to hang pictures or something. Now, walking around my house, everything is slowly coming together. I have explored the area around us, taken bike rides on the bike path, painted a sign for our mailbox, and helped my husband with several in and around-the-house projects. The funny thing about given extra time is that our guilty work-work-work attitude makes us feel unaccomplished if we didn't spend every hour of every day with some kind of activity. I find myself trying to multitask so much that I only allow myself to watch John Taffer scream at inept bar owners if I also have my lunch and some type of activity on my lap, that way I'm not just watching Bar Rescue and "wasting" my day- I am also eating my lunch and accomplishing something. I need to allow myself to have moments of laziness and not feel guilty about it. When I look back at many of the things I have done- it actually seems pretty productive. I did break out the pasta maker and made my own fettuccine, I also made homemade salsa for the first time and I even started writing a little bit again. If we allow ourselves to start feeling guilty about every little moment "wasted" we won't learn to appreciate little accomplishments. Things are about to get super busy for the school year whether I am teaching online, in-person or both, so I need to use this time to actually allow myself to relax. Travel will happen again, but for the meantime I can spend my remaining days of summer daydreaming :)