Covid 19 reflections. (Maybe you dont care, but that s ok, I wrote it anyway)

It is probably the worst thing I can say, but... pause, there were some good things that came out of the covid 19 pandemic (the first wave).  For me that is.   For me.  I cant say that for over 200 000 people who died from it.  My hat on my heart for them.  

A.  I played a lot more sports with my kids and cooked for them more and helped them, often, with their homework.  The last point is not so new. I always helped my kids with their homework.  I helped them with the subjects I could help them with, usually Math and English.  And I was cooking for my kids at least once a week pre pandemic,   but during pandemic, I was cooking more often when it was my full week.  Or at least a couple days in the week. 

Cooking is a strange beast.  On one hand you get stressed out about what you will cook, And then the  amount of time you put into it and the amount of time it takes them to eat it is about 10 to 1.  Ten times longer to prepare it than to eat it.  BUT, but but but, if they like it, then it is all worthwhile. 

I cook simple stuff, as you may have read from my last post. If not, then here it is .  I am satisfied with the simple stuff I cook and during the pandemic I was able to add a couple more recipes and perfect a couple older ones.  

As I have mentioned in one or two other posts, I loved playing more sports games with my girls.  Although on further reflection I have to say we did not return to the football after the couple days we played it at our apartment in town.  I dont know why that was.  I thought once the girls were staying just about all the time at the weekend house in a small village we could play it more often in a big field just past the back yard.  But besides one or two throwing the ball sessions we never played football again.  I am a bit saddened about that. 

However we did play a lot more two square.  And that was fine because my older daughter played

more with us on that one.  She doesnt always join in in the sports games.  I dont know why not.  But she liked playing two square.  She won more. I guess she likes to play stuff she wins at.  Who doesnt?  So I am satisfied.  My younger daughter gets caught up in a new game and demands to play it more no matter if she wins or not.  Thats ok, I kept up with her and played as much as she could.  So that was nice.  When I can get them off their video playing and watching TV it is a good thing.  Especially to be outside.  

B.  When I was home by myself at our apartment in the city and my wife was taking care of the kids I had a lot more time to take care of things I put off for a long time.  Although I didnt put my old old photographs into a photograph book. I hope it doesnt take another pandemic to get to that (its a bad joke).  BUT I did get back to writing.  As you can see, I put out 4 posts in April alone and two more in May and I am pushing myself to keep going and publish more. I will surpass my worst years of publishing and have more than 11 for the year, but I wish I could get it up to 19 or 20.  27 was my best year in 2014, if I am not mistaken.  Writing is very satisfying, especially finishing something. 

I also got back to one of the books I am writing. I finished a major section and also I have to push myself to keep going on that and get it done.  That is more difficult because you have to find the right mind set when you are writing a book.  You have to find your mood for the book and put yourself into the book again.  You cant just sit down and start writing. You have to see where you left off and get yourself back into the spirit of the story.  But I did.   

I did stuff for my job which I hadnt been doing. And I accomplished those things.  When you have such a terrible character like I do which really pushes himself NOT to finish something, it is a great hurdle to get back to something and FINISH it.  You know I often stop a project when I have 80% or 90% done, just for some destructive reason, IDK why. I sabotage my work by just not completing it.  And during the pandemic I got stuff done.  Keep going, just keep on keeping on.  Cross it off your list.  And I did.  Not everything, by far not, but some things.  And to get back into the habit of writing is also a good thing that happened.  Now I just have to push myself to do it more often, or to keep it going.  

So that is about it, really.  Just small things that made me happy that I did. 

To be sure there were some personal bad things that came out of the pandemic, but I prefer to stay positive and see if I cant use the momentum of the time off to push myself to progress, difficult as that is for me.   

I started out listening to "Live Dead - Dark Star"  for this post (album cover pictured at the beginning).  But that was a bad idea as I cant do anything when I am listening to that album.  It makes me cry it is so beautiful and I have to just sit and listen to it for 23 minutes.  So then I changed it to the new Pat Methany album. This is a great mix of jazz and fusion tunes and I can work with it going too.   Although I like to put down albums that I have on CD or Vinyl here, I dont have this one..... YET.  But I will. I will get it on vinyl some time soon.  This one, 2020 new album from Pat Metheny.  He is one of the best. RIP to Lyle Mays.