Is the pandemic over or not? It can be hard to tell. Every restriction seems to have been lifted and everyone we know is living their best lives. It’s been an interesting time of ups and downs. Shelter in place, wear a mask indoors and outdoors, wear a mask indoors only. Keep the kids home, send them to school, virtual school isn’t working and so on. It’s enough to make your head spin. It’s definitely been a lot to say the least. Wherever we go from here, there will be some things from this nearly three year journey that will be sticking around for us.

For one, we’ll be keeping schedules light. I can be easy to dive straight in to all the things since everything is open again. But it was nice having the kids less scheduled. It was good to have more family time. For them, they were able to really dive into their creative sides and enjoy the freedom of trying new things without it being a commitment.

One thing that we love is how close everyone seemed to get during that time. Checking on those you love is something we all really took seriously. It felt more urgent. We all stayed pretty tight with family and friends during COVID-19. With so many people getting sick, it made the brevity of life a real thing. We’re keeping up the habits of checking in with the people we love and doing it often.

Ease. Going with the flow. When you live through a pandemic it’s easy to keep things in focus. Keep the main thing, the main thing. Not letting every little thing flip you out and adapting an ease about as much as possible is a much needed skill and one we’re hanging on to.

Around here, we’re considering these the new years resolutions. It certainly feels like we’ve stepped into a bit of a new year. Let’s hope we’ve all learned something. It may not be like it was in the before times, we don’t even expect it to. Moving forward with gratitude and trying to make everyday better than the last.