This has truly been a year unlike any other. I now think of life in terms of before March 13th and after March 13th. Life came to a complete and sudden stop on March 13th. Everything changed! We were scared to go out, we were terrified we'd get sick with Caronavirus, we quickly found ways to adapt to eating at restaurants outside, picking up curbside delivery, and of course, wearing a mask wherever we go. Toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning supplies and many kinds of food were all hard to find for many, many months. It was and is such an insane and surreal time for all of us. School became distance learning and Jeff's office, as all of them in our area, shut down and moved the employees to working from home. Everything was all about zoom meetings, virtual get togethers, and being isolated from social gatherings, birthday parties and travel. The month of March seemed to go on forever. April felt like it would never end. It didn't matter that it was Spring Break as nothing could be done to take advantage of the time off from school. Each day blurred into the next and it became a joke that no one knew what day it was anymore. Camp got cancelled for the kids and it was a huge blow. Our community pool opened and we were able to visit it once the county we are in went to Phase 3.
Bedtimes went out the window! Once there was no reason to get up for school, there was no real reason to tell the kids to go to bed at their reasonable usual time. Ian was averaging 1 to 2am. Ugh! And Sam was not going to bed before 11:00pm easy. Jeff and I routinely went to sleep before the kids each night.
During the Summer, we managed to make a week at OC,NJ with the Reber's a reality. It was surreal being together and not having any of our parents or extended family join us. We had a great week and loved that we could have this to break up our summer. We also booked a segue tour in Philadelphia and went whitewater rafting in West Virginia. We became more outdoorsy than we've ever been.
I started my days taking 5 mile walks with Lucy. It was the best! The weather was exceptional and being outdoors came easy. We got a hammock (gift from Mom-mom!) and spent many hours relaxing on it. That hammock on our deck became like an extra room for us. Much needed extra space and fresh air.
I met friends in their driveways or on their deck for brunch or dinner. It was the only safe way we could socialize. We got a firepit (another gift from Mom-mom!) and spent many, many evenings enjoying the fire place with friends.
The kids and I started a new tradition and each Saturday or Sunday, we'd get popcorn from our local movie theatre and watch a different movie each weekend. It was awesome and gave us something to look forward to. Plus, I got to introduce the kids to more of my favorite movies.
We managed to do some awesome updates to the house and finally got recessed lighting in our dining room, kitchen, living room and both the kids' bedrooms. What an amazing difference that has made. We also got a new dishwasher, refrigerator (hello French doors!), 2 new couches, all new dishes, and a new lawn mower. What a surprise that we were able to make all this happen.
And with all the extra time we had on our hands, Samantha repainted her bedroom and I repainted the master bedroom and the bathroom. I made over the master bedroom and redecorated with new bedding, lamps and curtains. It looks amazing! The best was cleaning out the shed and emptying no less than 20 huge storage bins. The shed looks amazing and is so organized. I also undertook a huge photo organization project and made a phenomenal system to store photos from the past 50 years. And I cleaned out my closet & drawers and got it super organized.
Lucy loved us being home 24/7 and it soon became all she knew. We had never been home like this before. And in the same vein, Lucy became an emotional support therapy dog for real. Jeff and Samantha leaned heavily on her for comfort during some of the more trying times of being stuck at home while doing work and school.
In some ways the pandemic gave us so much (better finances - we couldn't do anything else to spend money on. Ha!), much time spent with the four of us together and, a slowed down pace of life that really let us appreciate everything we had to be thankful for. I had the unique opportunity to go down to Orlando and be there for my sister and her family for the birth of Alexis. Originally, it was not planned that I'd be down there, but Lori really needed the help with the 2 girls so that Ben could be with Lori for the birth and stay at the hospital. Additionally, Samantha and Ian each were able to take a trip and spend time at Lori's house during the beginning part of the pandemic. Since school was virtual, they could do it online in Orlando and not miss any of their classes. Ian used his extra downtime and wrote, wrote and wrote some more all these awesome tv shows and movies. He has ideas that just don't stop coming. He wrote a full series about Jewish Sleepaway Camp Mockumentary and entered in many different screenwriting contests. And Ian worked on his stand-up routine and got to perform for a high school theatre teachers in the backyard of one teacher's house in June. It was pretty awesome and a good experience for him.
The other thing quarantining gave us was the opportunity to binge watch so much tv! It was insane the amount of shows I could plow through.
The pandemic also took a lot away from us as well - spending holidays with either Jeff's family or mine, trips down to Florida to visit the extended family, kids getting to go to sleepaway camp (Ian was going to attend for the whole summer), and many opportunities for socialization with friends and the kids getting to experience school in person. Additionally, all chances for Ian to perform in school plays was cancelled. He was one of only 2 freshman to get a part in "Chicago" ! Unfortunately, this play never made it even to rehearsals. And one of the bigger disappointments was Samantha not getting to do all the traditional 6th grade promotion ceremony stuff at the end of the school year. School ending very suddenly in mid-March was hard to swallow when you realized there would be no graduation ceremony or end of the year party.
Ian got his driver's permit in December and has been racking up hours behind the wheel at a crazy pace. He drove a combined 5 1/2 hours on our drive to and from Vermont. And did 3 hours while in Vermont. Ian is doing great, but could really use help with parking.
I know we will all be too happy to see 2020 to end and hope for a better year in 2021. With the vaccine now widely becoming available, it looks like we will be able to get back some much needed normalcy.
Travel this year:
January: Ian traveled to NYC with Dagan to visit a camp friend for 4 days
January: Robyn and Sam travel to NYC for the day with Susanne and her girls
February: Robyn and Sam travel to Orlando for 5 days
April: Robyn in Orlando for 8 days
April / May: Ian in Orlando for 13 days
May: Robyn and Sam in Orlando for 5 days
July: Week at the beach, OC, NJ
September: Jeff and Robyn in Chincoteague for 1 night
December: Vermont with the family for 5 nights
This past year I discovered both kids struggling with distance learning for entirely different reasons. Samantha had a hard time focusing with her ADHD (inattentive type) and either found the teachers going too fast and couldn't keep up, or moving too slow and getting extremely bored. It also was a big disadvantage to starting a new school and have never met her teachers or even took a tour of the school to see where her classes would be. Everything, including the ramping up program, was all done virtually. Samantha hardly knew anyone in her classes and had to figure out how to adapt to a virtual environment.
While Ian had a hard time with distance learning because he is so social and loves being around his friends and actually attending school. So much of what he loves involves showing up and participating - musical theatre, improv, play rehearsal, dance classes. It was very hard for him to adapt to being 100% virtual.
Once it was figured out how to proceed safely, Ian was able to do dance classes in person. He takes 6 classes a week! and absolutely loves them. Ian also continues with his voice lessons and does this 2 times each week. His singing has improved so much. It's really awesome to listen to him sing. He is in his last year of religious school and attends this virtually. Samantha does do horseback riding in person and this has proven to be a much needed activity to get her out of the house. Her Sunday religious school is in person, but the Tuesday class meets online.
Ian also got himself a job and will be portraying Spiderman at children's birthday parties. He contacted the company all on his own and went after this opportunity. And with a few buddies from school, Ian started a podcast. A new episode comes out each Friday. It's actually pretty funny and sounds very professional!
I am a firm believer that this pandemic will either bring your closer together or accelerate any problems you are having. There is no way you can come out of this the same as when you started. All this time together with the same person is a huge social experiment in getting along. There is no opportunity to leave to go to work, or take a business trip, or have a girl's weekend or anything else that would bring a natural separation. And with no end in sight, month after month after month, it really does wear on your psyche and make you emotionally burned out. Even the most optimistic person will become depressed at the state of things. So many people lost so much, so many businesses will never recover, Broadway will be shut down for more than a year, travel became almost non-existent. At the time I am writing this, over 300,000 people in the US lost their lives to COVID-19. It is truly astonishing and tragic how much has happened since that first day in March when it all came to a dead stop.
I feel so blessed that Jeff and I managed to keep it together and become closer through all of this. Our house is on the small side, so time together was our only option. The kids had their moments of trying to adjust, but did well and somehow we managed to thrive under these quarantine conditions. We were fortunate to have our jobs and be financially secure. We made many donations to our local food banks and did our best to keep the smaller restaurants around us in business by doing take out many times over the past several months. The best feeling for us was when restaurants opened again at the end of May, and we'd eat outside on their patios to give them business and leave huge tips for the waitstaff as a way to help them for being out of work for many months and not having a lot of people showing up to eat out. Or leaving big tips when ordering take-out. And when Ian was finally able to get a haircut again, I paid his favorite barber for the 3 haircuts he missed by not being able to go because they were forced to shut down.
The Year Ahead in 2021:
Ha! I can say all I want about 2021, but who knew 2020 was going to turn out like it did? My biggest wish is for a vaccine and that everyone I care about and love gets vaccinated. This is the year of Samantha's Bat Mitzvah and I desperately want everyone to be able to travel and make it for this wonderful milestone. Additionally, my dad turns 75 this year and I want us to be able to go down to Orlando and celebrate with the family. I want to hug everyone and not let go! Or worry, one of us is sick and infecting the other. And lastly, I so very much want Ian and Sam to attend camp. This will be the last year that Ian is able to go and it is so important that he gets this time with his camp friends and has one last year to make memories.
I plan to keep up the walking and get back to the awesome groove I was in doing 5 miles each day. Somehow I stopped and really miss the amazing benefits walking gives me.
My New Year's Wish:
I wish for our newly elected President to unite this country back together. For all of us to realize we are on the same side and love is much better than hate. I hope we all find many reasons to smile and enjoy the little things. May 2021 make all our wishes come true. Happy New Year!
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