The Virus Diary: How is This Day Different?

 


2020 is OVER!  2021 is HERE!  Woo Hoo!  It's a New Year!

While I am glad that 2020 is over, the world hasn't changed overnight. There is still a pandemic going on.  There is still chaos throughout the country (and indeed the world). But it IS a new year and I feel hope.  Hope for better things.  Hope for sanity.  Hope for kindness.  Or as Paul McCartney once said (sang): "hope of deliverance from the darkness that surrounds us."  (And boy have we been surrounded.)

The thing is, 2020 kind of ended the same way 2019 did.   I took a long hot bath (thanks to the tub stopper that hubby got for me for Christmas.  You may think a tub stopper is a lousy gift, but I asked specifically for it and trust me it is NOT.  Nothing like a nice long hot bath where the water stays in the tub to wash away the stink of 2020.) Hubby and I at home and son out celebrating.  (Only this year he wasn't at a party.  He went out to dinner with his girlfriend and then rung in the New Year at her house.  The good thing is that she lives within walking distance so I didn't have to do any driving.)  Hubby and I stayed home and watched a movie (Soul which in typical Pixar fashion had me sobbing and was especially poignant after the year we've experience), ate (and in my case drank) too much and watched the ball drop on our tv (like everyone else).  We were happy to kick 2020 out and then waited downstairs watching The Odd Couple marathon until our son came home. Then it was time to crawl into bed and SLEEP. (I LOVE sleep...I don't do it enough!)

I "allowed" myself to stay in bed until nearly 8!  (Yes, that meant I missed the first hour of CBS This Morning.  You know how I rarely do that!)  I didn't have my coffee until at least 8:30 (gasp!) and didn't make breakfast until after 9! (I no longer go to the trouble of shaping the Raspberry-Cream Cheese Crescent Danish into a candy cane shape.  I didn't even use raspberries...blueberries and blackberries were on sale at the produce market and to they got thrown in along with some raspberry preserves.  May not look photo perfect, but tasted just fine.)

I didn't actually get out of my pjs until nearly 11.  At which point I decided to take advantage of my $15 Kohl's cash and my $4 CVS dollars out for a spin.  I was resolute NOT to spend more than my allotted cash in Kohl's.  Well that resolution went out the window faster than...well pretty fast.  I happened upon a pair of pants for just over $15.  I SHOULD have stopped there, but the guys need new underwear.  I bought a couple of pairs for them last weekend, but was hoping I could find the requisite cotton white boxer briefs that my son requested.  (It is a LOT harder than you think.)  No such luck.  But I did find a sale on bras.  What says New Year better than new bras?  Needless to say I spent my $15 and then some.

I fared much better (financially that is) at CVS, buying a needed box of band aids with my $4 and paying only sixty eight cents.  (I have a ton of change...I'm not sure where I got it all from.  I am NOT hoarding it; I want to get rid of it, but I rarely use cash these days.)

I spent a good hunk of the afternoon of the first day of this New Year not unlike I spent the last day of 2020:  volunteering at the thrift shop.  The shop is closed until February, but there is still a LOT that needs to be done...cleaning and organizing.  We need to pack up our Christmas shop (not that there is much left this year...everyone seemed to get into the decorating mode this year) and price items.  We will be cleaning all month long (and I have to admit that I'm a little nervous as to what might happen in February when we reopen and people start dropping off donations again.  We LOVE donations, but during this pandemic people have been going hog wild with the cleaning and leaving bag after bag and box after box outside our door.)

Finally, as the first day of this New Year wraps up, I made a spaghetti dinner (and had plenty of red wine) for the family.  Since we didn't have a meal together to end the year, I definitely wanted a dinner to start the new one.  I made sure we did so in the dining room AND that we got around to reading all the slips of paper from our gratitude/thankful jar.  Again, I think it's important every year to look back and realize how much there is to be thankful for...even in a year as bad as 2020.

As this first day of 2021 ends, I'm ready take a nice hot shower, put on some comfy pjs and climb into bed.  No more staying up past midnight for me...I KNOW I'm getting old (getting?  I'm there!) because I really look forward to crawling into bed, turning off the light and falling asleep to whatever mindless show I happen upon.  (I AM turning into my mother.)  

It may be a new year, but some things will never change.

Happy New Year...onward to day two...and to days that get better as the pages on the calendar turn.


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