Life Lessons - Part 1

Hello!  What has it been, a year or more?  Maybe not quite a year, but certainly a long time.  Many apologies.  I have a habit of letting life get in the way of life!   And no, it is not the Coronavirus that has recently kept me occupied.  I am surviving that just fine.  However, I have learned many things during this time.  In fact, so many that it will take several blogs to get through them all.
First, I discovered that I am a trend setter!   I always thought I was leading a pretty good life.  I can work from home and have for several years.  Suddenly, the rest of the world has had to adapt to my lifestyle.  And, they are finding out that working from home is a lot more difficult than they thought.  For years I have fielded comments about being a “stay at home” mom and comments about how I wasted my college education.  Well, my job is not so easy as a “stay at home” mom.  The moms who have mysteriously been able to juggle career and home who are now staying home with their children are struggling to adapt to this foreign existence.  I would be in the same boat if I had to suddenly leave my family to go out and work in order to practice social distancing.  Seriously, in my house with so many people in our family social distancing is not reasonable!  It has been disheartening to continually hear how horrible this quarantine is.  Um … news flash ... this is my regular life.  
Working from home takes a lot of discipline and balance.  You have to be committed to doing the necessary work for your office.  Not so easy when you aren’t getting up and going to an office.  There are a lot of distractions to deal with at home, including just feeling like it is always the weekend.
The biggest hurdle is when you have children.  Now you are trying to take on the role of being their teacher – new appreciation and kudos to teachers!  You have to stop what you are doing to feed them, change them, play with them and still get your work done and maintain a somewhat clean and functional home.
To be honest, I am concerned about a couple of my grandkids surviving this quarantine, and not because they have gotten sick.  I think their parents aren’t going to hold up to the challenges these kids offer up.  From temper tantrums to hunger strikes to reversal of “potty training” to nudity, it is a lot to handle!
I also seem to be setting a hairstyle trend, but I must admit that I am not so crazy about this.  Okay,To be truthful . . . I color my hair.  Those who actually know me aren’t too surprised by this news because they have seen my hair perform like a Barbie doll’s.  It grows, gets short and changes color fairly regularly.  However this is an extreme that I have not seen since I had babies.  I found out back then that I should delay changing hair color or getting a perm until after giving birth.  Hormones do crazy things to your hair.  Under these circumstances (i.e quarantine), I have discovered that time also does horrible things to your hair.  I have begun looking like a reverse skunk.  Instead of a dark stripe down the middle of my head, I have a grayish/white/brownish one.  There also seems to be a bushiness to the eyebrows that I haven’t seen in ages!!!  I remember when Brooke Shields had those “full” eyebrows!  I miss my daughter-in-law greatly.   The “Hairdresser” has been raised up on my list of essential people!!  I love her to death even when my hair doesn’t need help, but dear God let this virus end soon.  I am more quarantined by the condition of my hair than the virus!  By the way, just who decided these people were not essential!!!!!????  interesting how the politicians all seem perfectly coifed!
Seriously, I do hope that many people are discovering that they can do without some things, but cannot live without others like God and family.  I truly believe that God is hoping we get the message and get our acts together!!!  Time to revamp ourselves a lot.  Put God back at the center of our lives and families; not just on Sunday but every single day!  I pray that you are all staying healthy and safe.  More to come……
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