The Donkey Made Me Do It

Little changed for us in 2020 aside from suddenly being required to wear masks and having to limit our outings to grocery getting, lottery ticket purchases, Michael’s craft store runs and school drop offs (and pick-ups if we remembered; Heath always remembered).

We learned about social distancing, about coughing into our elbows and about how for all this time, with the exception of surgeons, we have been washing our hands wrong. We spent holidays on our own as a family of four and ate like a family of six. I threw away less food at the beginning of the pandemic, a time when I wasn’t sure how procurable it would be. After gaining ten pounds in the first four months mostly due to the proximity of my home office to our kitchen, coupled with a lack of exercise or discipline, I decided I had an opportunity to gain control of something and that in and of itself was appealing this year. I lost twenty two pounds, easily (said no one ever). To be serious for a moment, if you find the weight I’ve lost I am not interested in a reunion so just throw it away. It was work, commitment and consistency. It was a reprioritization of my time, it was making time. It was cold garage workouts wearing a hat and mittens and multiple layers of clothing. It was climbing so many stairs that my legs began to truly appreciate the elevators of times gone by. It was worth it.

To pivot slightly, I refocused on my writing and joined a group of US-based writers for workshops via Zoom that have expanded my mind and have improved my writing (maybe not this, but other pieces probably). I started wearing sweaters, Lululemon pants and wool socks exclusively, my work from home uniform – this was not a conscious departure from or an active rejection of fashion per se, my closet remains stocked with items that will likely serve me well if we ever return to a time when that matters again. I started using the purple shirt wearing shrugging woman emoji, a lot. 🤷‍♀️

Heath ran 250 kilometers in December (I haven’t run 250km in my entire life) and he watched all twelve seasons of Murder She Wrote (250+ episodes). Olivia at age five has decided when she grows up she wants to be a builder “like the Property Brothers” and reported this to her Kindergarten class. I watch a lot of HGTV, primarily the Property Brothers it seems. Declan, at three years old, continues to master all things Mario Brothers. We added a kitten to our family, a Russian Blue named Bob Hill. Bob Hill is pretty good when he is not attacking our feet. Of note, he broke the leg off of a glass octopus Christmas ornament recently that I doubt did anything to deserve that treatment.

Long story short, 2020 was a year that tested us (and we passed). We discovered that we have everything we need (including but not limited to our health, food, our home, each other and every streaming service you could imagine – Netflix, Crave, Prime, Disney+ and Apple tv) and the stuff we could live without, but choose not to, is delivered expeditiously to our front door (too many chocolate eggs, dental tools, stretchy pants, crafting supplies, dye, exercise equipment, etc). I didn’t make a single loaf of bread, a declaration most fitting to close off 2020.

2021 is another year to do a bunch of worthwhile things, so let’s do those things and post photos of us doing those things on social media. I wonder what the ‘bread’ of 2021 will be? Macramé? Bird house building? Making clothing out of curtains? The year is young, there’s plenty of time to decide.