And here I thought I’d be traveling

Last I wrote I planned on becoming a carry-on only traveler. I ordered travel cubes and travel sizes of my must-have cosmetics and skincare products. I felt like such a boss–headed to Texas to be part of a select group of practitioners in my chosen compliance field, chosen to serve as a facilitator of a break-out group, tasked with collecting the group’s output for white paper purposes, and stoked to be among some of the most productive minds in my field.

I wonder what they would think of me now?

How It Looks Now

I’m sitting here at 6:10 p.m. on a Sunday evening in lounge pants, a tank top and comfy fleece zippered jacket. My nails look great as my gel polish finally gave up the ghost yesterday and I could repaint all nails on both hands. My skin feels decent after a nice sheet mask.

But my hair? Pulled back to keep the out-of-control curls from poking me in the eyes and tickling my forehead. No make-up (why?!) and no real sense of urgency for anything meaningful.

I’ve become adept at Words with Friends again. And one of the most annoying ads for another game that appears between puzzles finally sucked me in and now I’m redecorating a pretend garden with a butler named Austin and our adopted dog, Champ.

Small Victories

For my students

Don’t get me wrong. I have totally revamped my in-person, 200-level business law class to be online, interactive, and (I hope) comforting for my stressed-out undergrad students. I’ve kept up with grading and I even send out reminders to my students prior to our weekly quiz deadline so they don’t miss the chance to earn easy points. I remain super responsive to their email, have purchased Prezi pro to keep my content engaging, and have begun making short, content chunk-specific videos for their review purposes. Anything they request or suggest I try because we are all in this together and if I can help them from afar, I will.

I can only imagine what my students are dealing with now. Missing friends, some missing their senior year milestones including an on-time graduation ceremony. They are home with siblings, parents who are dealing with their own stressors, and working through any number of emotions, fears, frustrations, and grief. I see my own two kids (both juniors–one in high school and one in college) finding their way to be successful in their new learning environments. And I see our WiFi struggle to support all the Zooming the three of us are doing each day.

For my family

We certainly are spending a ton more time together. Funny what a governmental stay-at-home order and viral pandemic will do for family time.

We have watched series together. We have cooked together–for each other and with each other. My oldest has treated us to her fresh baked treats and bread–she bakes when she’s anxious. I have Instant Potted my heart out and tried to produce fresh, filling dinners on a regular basis. Some nights, though? It’s fend for yourself or support a local restaurant on the menu.

This week my family goal is to institute a faith-focused portion to our together time and to loop in my mom and aunt who are missing their church families during this time. Those two formed my faith foundation (which has a few cracks now that I’m in my 40’s) and my girls could learn a ton from them. It wouldn’t hurt me either. I ordered some family-centered devotionals from Amazon along with a cute notebook for each of us to jot down things as we go. Any excuse to have a new notebook, right?

For my work

The emergency management portion of my job has been fast-paced and I feel I have finally hit a crest on the learning curve. The compliance part of my job has been running at top speed for quite some time. It will be interesting this year to try and meet all the federal requirements given that I have a fun enough time doing so when everyone is at their desks each day. I’m trying to take one day at a time, but also being realistic that I need to put in my requests for information early and often–and this month–given that we don’t know what is coming in May.

Where We’re Headed

Who knows, right? If I could pull my scattered brain together, I would be launching a podcast, reading picture books on Facebook Live for all my friends with littles, exercising twice a day, and cleaning out my entire basement.

As it is, I’m trying to convince my wounded inner workaholic that we need to have a schedule because I have reverted to grad school hours wherein I nurtured my inner night owl and completed so much work without interruption that I deserved an award.

Hang in there. If I ever get around to doing my hair on the regular again, maybe you’ll catch me on a live soon.