Looking for the Silver LInings

One of my former Ivy Tech colleagues posted on FB today about trying to keep her students on task and involved while caring at home for her young daughter.  At the end of her post she mentioned the silver linings and how she wouldn't want it any other way.

I have been thinking a lot about this.

Silver linings.

We are blessed in so many ways.

Some of our silver linings through this pandemic scare that we are living through...

1. Time to work on projects that are always pushed aside because we are on the go so much

2.  Sleeping in---I love to wake up without the alarm, but I am still setting it for MWF workouts at 8.  But other days I can sleep in----and take naps if I want to.

3.  Cooking at home.  I know we eat out too much.  Several people have mentioned to me that we eat out constantly, and we do work 'stop for breakfast, lunch, or dinner' into our 'go into town' plans frequently.  But it has been nice to cook more.  We needed to eat down our freezer for the meat from the steer Blaine butchered and we were getting 1/4 of it.  While we like to support the local restaurants with carry-out or delivery, we try to do that only once or twice a week. Therefore, eating in has become the norm.  I have been digging out old recipes to try again, and it has been fun to experiment with some new ones too.

4. Sewing time - It is no secret that I like the sewing room, and that it was a plus when we bought the house.  But I really like the way it is set up with my being able to sew, to press seams and fabric, and to leave everything where it is when I need to do something else.  I am working hard, most of the time, on some quilt tops.  I have made the quilt for Nick's graduation gift.  I made a new valance for the sewing room window.  I am working on quilts for Tessa's and Lynnlee's beds out of the same fabric.  I finished Amanda's table runner.  I just enjoy being able to escape to the sewing room and sew to my heart's content, and just leave it when I am tired of it.  No need to put anything away.  Just leave it. 

5.  Time to work outside.  After being away last spring (Myrtle Beach, a trip to Ohio, and the Las Vegas trip), followed by Gary's House Arrest all summer, so much of the yard work that we wanted to do just didn't happen.  Now we can work outside when the weather is warmer.  We can clean up the flower beds and work on controlling the black raspberry patch.  We can beautify the gazebo.    Fortunately we don't need to plant many annuals...just a few baskets around the deck and a couple of hanging baskets on the porches.  But there will be time to do that without having to run to ball games, babysit, and go to end of the year programs (not that we don't enjoy that, but it will be nice to have this extra time.)

6.  Family time for Megan and Hilary.  I have seen so much improvement with Owen and his development.  I have seen more leadership from Landon.  I think part of that is because they are home more and not running here and there all the time. They are eating meals at home, enjoying their yard and ours, and taking more time to just enjoy each other.  The same can be said for Megan and Matt and the kids.  Megan is more relaxed and  even though I am sad for Matt and his baseball season, it is good for them to be at home and bonding more as a family.  We miss seeing them, but coming together as a family is so important!

Silver linings.  So we can't go anywhere.  This is week 5 of staying at home.  But we are all healthy.  We have food.  I have so many projects to work on.  We are blessed.