A fond memory I have is of my weekend routine when I was in my early twenties. I lived alone, and for the first time in my life I had a job that gave me weekends off. I liked to get up on Saturday morning, start laundry, and go to the gym to work out. From there I’d do my grocery shopping and run any other errands I had, and then return home to finish the laundry I’d started and to clean my little apartment. Although the place was nearly 900 square feet and spacious for a one-bedroom, it didn’t take much more than an hour to thoroughly clean it. I don’t love the experience of cleaning, but I do love the finished product. I would put on music and light a fragrant candle, so the experience wasn’t unpleasant. Once I finished, I’d take a shower and get ready to go out either on a date or with friends. Sundays were usually just spent relaxing at home, reading a good book or catching up on TV shows while I snuggled with my cats on the couch. It was a simple life, and a very satisfying one, at least as far as I was concerned.

Even though that was over a decade ago, I still remember the happiness I felt during the time in my life when I had that little routine. I know that I am a person who finds the greatest joy in simple pleasures, and I like that about myself. Having more things, even when they’re nice, just increases my anxiety. When I moved out of that cozy apartment and into a lovely, brand-new house a year later with my then-boyfriend, I thought that living in that lovely home with him would increase my happiness. Instead, I found myself feeling very stressed out – by the high price of the mortgage, by the tensions in my relationship with him once we were living together, by feeling very trapped in a job I had grown to hate but that paid me well.

Longtime readers of my blog know the rest: I ultimately left that big house in California and that relationship behind. I’ve learned that I crave an uncomplicated life and have spent the last several years building just that. My relationships with my husband and my friends are loving and free of dramatics. The home Bill and I share is much smaller than that first house I owned, and I love it so much more. Our little place is cozy and comfortable.

My routine these days looks different now than it did in my little apartment, but in many ways it’s the same. I like to get up first thing in the morning and exercise before work. These days my workouts take place in my living room and not in a gym, but I still feel just as accomplished when I finish them. Because I work from home now, I have more free time that was once spent commuting and I can put on music, light a scented candle, and clean the house during the weekday (and now I have Bill’s help!). Our condo is spacious for a two-bedroom but we’re able to do a pretty thorough cleaning in about an hour. On Fridays on my lunch break I pick up our groceries curbside, which is a lot quicker than doing the shopping in the store. Weekends are a relaxing time for us; we can sleep in, and watch movies or go for a drive or take a long walk together.

It’s a simple life, and a satisfying one.

This week we will be saying a very gleeful good-bye to 2020, which I think most people can agree was NOT the best year ever by a long shot. And even though there was a lot that made me sad and broke my heart this year, there was also a lot to be grateful for, and good lessons to be learned. So in that spirit, I decided to make a list of 10 good things that happened to me in 2020, so I can close the door on this year with positive reflection.

I got to spend the last six months of Oliver’s life working from home and seeing him more. Prior to 2020, I commuted for hours each week in horrible traffic and my workdays were long. But in 2020, I worked from home exclusively beginning in March and that has allowed me to spend a lot more time with my sweet kitties. Although losing Oliver was by far the worst thing that happened to me this year, getting all that extra time with him when I otherwise would have been at the office meant SO much to me. I think he loved having Bill and I around more and the memories we made with him this year bring me so much comfort.

I practiced gratitude. In the early days of the pandemic and as it has worn on, it’s easy to focus on all the things we’ve been forced to give up, but I choose instead to look at how much I still have. I deeply miss spending time with friends and family, but we’ve found many creative ways to see each other either in socially distanced ways or virtually. I feel such a deep appreciation for all of the blessings in my life and I make a point to spend time every day just to reflect on those things.

I reassessed my priorities. Although I loved my life prior to this year, I admit that the day-to-day was busy, exhausting, and relentless. Being forced to stay home made me realize exactly what things bring me the greatest happiness, and what things were really just clutter that didn’t especially add to my life. Even when things do go more “back to normal”, who I am and what I make time for will be different.

I got to enjoy my home more. Bill and I bought our condo in 2018 and I’ve probably spent more hours here this year than we did in the first two years combined. It’s been an adjustment having our home also serve as our gym and our office space, but we’re making it work, and I am extremely grateful for this place.

I improved my financial health. Having more time on my hands gave me an opportunity to assess our monthly bills and to restructure them, including refinancing our mortgage to get a lower interest rate and save a ton of money per month. I also paid off my credit card and car and am debt-free (minus the mortgage, of course) for the first time in my adult life. Paying off debt was a huge accomplishment for me and it gives me so much peace of mind to finally be out of the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. My goal going forward is to set a little money aside every month, so that by the time I need a new car I can either pay cash for it or put down a big down payment.

I stuck to a workout routine and got stronger. When our gym closed, Bill and I knew that we couldn’t just sit around or our mental and physical health would decline rapidly. We committed to getting up before work and exercising four mornings a week (on Fridays we get up and do our housework so that the house is clean going into the weekend). We also made a habit of taking daily walks – we started off going after work, then switched to lunchtime walks as the days got shorter and colder. Although it hasn’t been a perfect practice, we’ve been extremely consistent and I’m really proud of us. I feel stronger and healthier because of our efforts and I’m excited to continue our routine in 2021.

I became less high-maintenance. I was one of those people who wouldn’t leave my house without my hair and makeup done, and for work I would usually have on a dress or a nice sweater and slacks for the office. Now I have my “nice” leggings that I wear as part of my workday outfits, and I’ve only worn makeup a handful of times since March so my skin is better. My hair is longer, healthier and shinier because I rarely heat-style it anymore. There are definitely days where I feel plain but for the most part it’s nice to have a simpler routine.

I got to eat In N Out for the first time in years. Bored and needing something pandemic-friendly to do, Bill and I drove to Oregon in November, waited in the drive thru line, and thoroughly enjoyed a lunch of In N Out Burger while sitting in our car in a Target parking lot. It may seem silly to drive four hours each way for a fast food burger, but I’m still a SoCal girl at heart and wow did it taste good!

I discovered a love of cooking and made new dishes I was really proud of. Growing up, my mom did teach me the basics of cooking, but she didn’t really enjoy it the way she did baking and our family wasn’t particularly adventurous when it came to food, so cooking was more a chore so you didn’t starve than a fun activity. When I got older and did find a love of trying new foods, I still wasn’t inspired to try and learn to cook things (in part because my boyfriend at the time, who was quite talented at cooking, was also quite talented at being unsupportive and was very critical of my efforts when I tried to make anything, so I learned quickly not to bother). Although I have since discovered that I’m not actually a lousy cook and taught myself some basics, this year was the first one in which I really found how much joy I get in making a nice meal. My friend Jeanette got me a really nice cookbook for Christmas and I’m already bookmarking the recipes I want to try first.

I got to see beautiful new places in Washington. Bill and I love to travel and were a little sad that we couldn’t take any vacations this year, but we made the best of it by planning and taking day trips in the car. We spent time on the Olympic Peninsula, drove up north for a picnic lunch overlooking the very beautiful Diablo Lake, and saw the abandoned Vance Creek Bridge (to name a few highlights).

Not for the first time in my life, I feel like I am living through history in the making. Years from now, kids in school will learn about 2020 the way they now learn about the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001, and they’ll try to imagine what it was like to be alive for events they either were too young to remember or weren’t alive to experience at all. They’ll hear about the COVID-19 pandemic and learn about how different countries around the world responded. They’ll memorize statistics about how many people got sick, how many died, how many businesses ceased to exist. They’ll learn about protests against police brutality and racism, and I can only hope that they’ll also learn about how real change came out of them and how police were made to be better trained and better held accountable and that as a whole our country took a hard look at systematic racism and began a years-long effort of policy and social changes that moved us closer to real equality in America.
Even though there’s so much upheaval and uncertainty right now, we still go about our daily lives. It’s strange to be simultaneously engrossed in updates on the pandemic and on protests, and to also have normal daily tasks to focus on like picking up groceries or finishing a report for work. I think about how it must have felt to be alive during other historical events, like World War II. The war is raging and all you want is for life to be more like you remember it before the war, more normal, but even though what’s playing out is terrible and hopefully ultimately makes things better the normal that you remember is gone forever. That’s how I feel now, like the “normal” I knew before March 2020 is never coming back.
It’s exactly the same understanding I had as I watched the footage of planes flying into towers when I was seventeen years old. Things will never be the same after this. 
Right now, normal is working from home and mostly interacting with my family and friends digitally rather than in person. I have a select few people outside of my own household that are in our little circle now, people that I feel reasonably comfortable seeing in person. We’ve gotten used to making plans with friends that let us follow the social distancing guidelines: meeting up at a park, or in someone’s yard, or in the adorable gazebo in front of my condo building. Normal is washing my face masks as part of laundry day, then putting them in their individual Ziploc bags and stowing them in my purse so that I always have a fresh one at the ready if I am out and need to run into a store or if there’s a crowd of people where I wasn’t expecting one to be. I own enough of them now that I have a variety of colors and I know which brands fit best on my face. Normal is really weighing the risks of doing things that I used to not even think twice about, like whether it’s a good idea to get my hair done by a stylist or go to a store in person rather than ordering from their website or whether I feel like I can appropriately social distance on the deck of a favorite restaurant or if I’d be safer just getting my food to go and eating at home.
When my husband and I set foot into our lovely condo for the first time, on a Sunday morning two years ago, I instantly fell in love and knew it was where I wanted to live. At the time I had no idea just how special the place is, how grateful I’d be for this open and comfortable home that is now also serving as our work spaces and our gym. Bill and I are able to both do our jobs without interrupting each other, we have a nice-sized deck that lets us enjoy being outside together and also gives us the feeling of doing something fun and different when we opt to get takeout and then eat outside as a treat for ourselves. Sometimes I feel a little cooped up, but I guess that after being at home most of the time for five straight months that feeling is normal.
And so, we’re grateful and we’re making the best of it.
I have no idea what “normal” will look like, post-pandemic. Will wearing masks in public just become part of everyone’s routine? Will I ever really go back to working in an office building, or am I home for good? What I hope will happen is that people won’t forget about this year, forget that it became a luxury to enjoy a glass of wine on a restaurant deck or to hug a friend or to go to a party. I hope that we’ve discovered what’s really important and that we’ll live differently because of this.

Although it depends somewhat on where you are in the world, odds are you’re in quarantine right now as we experience a pandemic. My company put out orders to us to work from home a month ago, and in the state of Washington the stay-at-home order from our governor was just extended through May 4th. Work has definitely been keeping me busy, but two months (or maybe even more) is a long time to be at home.
For anyone like me who is suddenly finding themselves with more time on their hands, all this time at home can get boring, so I thought I could help out by coming up with a list of fun and easy ideas to do while in quarantine. I encourage everyone to try them all and report back on the wild success of each one.
Give yourself a makeover. Just because you’re not going out doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to look fabulous! Now’s the time to give yourself that haircut your normal stylist always discourages because “that really just wouldn’t go well with your face shape” (as if a Mohawk doesn’t look good on EVERYONE). It’s totally okay if you don’t have nice scissors, just go get the ones from that block of knives in the kitchen. It’ll be fine. If you’re doubting your own abilities, you can soothe those nerves with a few alcoholic beverages first. You’re going to look so pretty!
Sign Up for Nextdoor and become your neighborhood’s unofficial sheriff. Depending on the positioning of your home and windows, investing in a pair of binoculars (that you ordered off of Amazon, NOT that you bought in a store…but you know that!) may be optimum. Watch your neighborhood like a hawk and immediately take to the Internet to report any instances of walkers who aren’t maintaining six feet of distance, people riding bikes on the sidewalk, or any other mayhem you observe. Be ever-vigilant. Ignore any haters; or, even better, accuse them of being toilet paper hoarders. You do not need to know if this accusation is true because it’s the Internet and you can say whatever you want.
Create a YouTube channel and post a video of yourself reacting to the movie Frozen. Then share the link on all your social media accounts so that your family and friends can have a lovely time watching you croon ‘Let it Go’ while tears flow uninhibited down your face after you’ve consumed a bottle and a half of Merlot. Trust me, you will become super famous and everyone will love watching it. I suppose this would be a good moment to give the disclaimer that I’ve never actually seen that movie but I’m still confident in this idea.
Call your mom and confess all of your more sordid secrets from your teenage years. Mom will have a blast hearing that crazy story about the time you told her you were sleeping at Janet’s house, but really you were getting drunk on Smirnoff straight from the bottle and puking in a field. Note: if you still live with your mom it might be a good idea to skip this one.
Play a game of Monopoly with those you’re quarantined with. It’s the wholesome game that never ends badly.