Well it won’t sound odd to anyone, but 2020 has certainly been a year so far. While there has been a lot of horrible things it has been comforting in a way knowing that this isn’t just something going on in our home.
In a short note here are some of the things that have happened in our lives in 2020.
- Moved into our first home
- Started a second job
- Worked every single day for two months straight
- Got a contract with second job
- Quit first job
- Husband gets laid off
- Province goes into “stay at home” and work final two weeks of first job from home
- Start second job contract
- Get lay off notice from second job
- Work two weeks of second job from home and then both of us are laid off
And that was only the first 4 months of the year.
Now I wouldn’t be lying to say that there were some hard times in those months. We shed some tears and we were scared before things such as the CERB were announced because we had just moved into our house and had a mortgage for the first time ever. But then things started falling into place and we started to understand that we were going to be okay and could start enjoying this time that we had at home.
The bright spot in being at home is that we could spend time getting rooms set up the way that we wanted them to be and have done a lot around the house. Though our bathroom reno had to be put on hold and I haven’t had a bathtub in almost five months hopefully that will be rectified soon. I am now in full force planning for our den which is going to be my office for the time being and hopefully you will see that soon. If you want to check out the rooms we have finished and I have blogged about you can check out the posts here:
This month I will be posting about the dining room, with my favourite table ever and where I am writing this post right now.
I also became quite the plant collector, at home with eleven new plants and in both my little backyard garden and in our community garden, which was closed right at the beginning of planting season, but fortunately has reopened.
Now fortunately both my husband I have gotten a little bit of work, which is more limited for me, but does help and it is nice to not be on government assistance for a little bit. We both have made a deadline of August of when we are going to start figuring out our next plans as things may be a bit clearer for me, though I may not be going back to my job until 2021.
I figured now would be a good time to look back on the goals I made for myself for 2020, back at the beginning of the year, when there are so many things that I couldn’t have expected. Here is what I stated on January 1st of this year.
Consistency – I want to focus this year on finishing the things that I start and making great habits throughout my life whether that is working out, meal planning, or anything else.
One thing that has been good about spending all my time at home is that there is a lot of time for me to make consistent habits. While there are good days and bad days (or weeks), overall I have had quite good consistency with taking care of my health, both mentally and physically as well as creating some habits I hope will continue on into the future.
Take time to relax – Over the past few months I have really found solace in my weekly yoga class and found that it has done well for my mental health. I want to make sure that I keep making space in my life for relaxing and taking care of my mental health
Obviously I am not going to a weekly in-person yoga class any more but I am making time to do it at home, even completing a 30 day yoga challenge in May. While I would have loved to have a bathtub for relaxation as well, overall it was nice to have some time to do nothing, after a crazy few months with no time to even think as I was working two jobs and had barely any time at home.
Open up my home – Nigel and I will be moving into our own home this upcoming month and while my brain has been filled with furniture and paint colours, more than anything I am excited to have people over and fill it up with the people that I love. It is our goal to have monthly open houses and I am excited to get those started
I don’t know when we are going to be able to have the Open Houses that we were hoping to have, and fill our home up with people, but it is nice to know that our home will be more complete when that time comes. Before the pandemic we were able to have a few people over and now that (at least in our area) things are getting a little bit better we have started to have small groups of people over and I really do love hosting.
Cook more – Early in our marriage I did most of the cooking, but with how our schedules have changed I rarely cook and when I do it is easy stuff on the weekend. I want to put more effort into the things that I make in 2020 whether that is doing better with my planning, making more ahead, and planning better meals for the weekend
Now this is a goal that has really been accomplished. Since we are both home all day we have been putting effort into meal planning and alternating who cooks dinner which means that I am doing it a lot more than I did in the past. I have been doing a lot of baking as well which I have shared some of my favourite recipes here.
Read – now this won’t be surprising to people, but what may be surprising is that I am not setting myself a lofty goal. I don’t want to feel like I have to read a certain number of books to be successful. I want to read what I want to read and when I want to read it.
Reading is definitely still a favourite pastime of mine. Though there was a long time that I wasn’t able to visit a physical library I really started to embrace reading on my tablet, through the program Libby which is a great way to check out books virtually from the library. My local library is open for drop off and pick ups now so I am able to get some physical books again which is nice, but I also had the chance to read some books from my dad which I didn’t have time to before. I am really loving my decision however to not set a high reading goal on Goodreads as I never look at the number apart from when I am writing my monthly reading post.
Continuation – There are goals that I have started in the past such as my journey to be more vegetarian, to work towards a more zero waste lifestyle, and to get rid of the things in my life that are not serving me. I would like to continue with these previous goals and continue on an upward trajectory with these items.
This goal is a hard one to speak to, but overall I think I am doing well on them. Since we are spending all of our time at home it is harder to bring useless items home and we definitely had a big load of things to take to the thrift store once they opened again. We have not been buying more meat than normal, but since we are helping to take things from the freezer at camp home there is meat that coming home in that way that will need to be thrown out if it isn’t eaten. In terms of zero waste it is harder since bulk items can’t be bought in our own containers and we have been buying groceries online as it was gifted to us, but since we aren’t able to buy these items in store it means grocery bags are coming into our home for the first time in a long time. I am trying to not beat myself up over that however and find new ways to use the bags and know that I still am trying my best.
2020 is certainly not what I expected. In some ways it is a lot worse, but in other ways I think it has been good for the two of us to have this time of slowing down, of spending time together, and of enjoying this weird time in our lives.
fivestarredlife.ca 