A smile on my face

I’ve decided to go out today with a smile on my face. It’s the weekend and going to a park with my kids and my husband, why shouldn’t I be happy and smile? No-one knows that I’ve slept three hours last night, two hours the night before (yes, four month old baby sleep regression and growth spurt is very much real!), so I do feel tired, it’s pissing rain, my son is jumping into every single puddle he can find. But I choose to be happy and be grateful and show it with a smile on my face. Yes, we’re still very much in the middle of a pandemic, a lockdown, but we’re healthy and are able to go outside and that’s something. This all will pass and I’ll look back and remember that they were tough times but also good times. We’ll have a story to tell.

Stay positive and keep going.

Staying positive through the pandemic

While most of us are heading into further lockdowns with more restrictions due to COVID-19 there just doesn’t seem to be an end to it and staying positive is more important than ever. I often find motivation in some quotes and here are a few to share:

Reflecting on 2020

Up until the very end on 2020 there have been so many newspaper articles, podcasts, jokes, conversations and new year wishes where people were looking forward to 2020 being over and welcoming in 2021 with the expectation that everything will be better. However, one week into 2021 and many people are feeling disappointed. Did many of us expect a light switch to be flipped and everything would suddenly be better? The COVID-19 pandemic is still very much present in our daily life, while restrictions and lockdowns are still in place or again being introduced.

Will 2021 be better? Who knows.

Even though we‘re happy 2020 to be over and it was a very tough year for a lot of people, no doubt, is there nothing that we can be happy and grateful about? Was there anything that you’ve learned or experienced that made 2020 somehow acceptable? Perhaps you

• Found a new hobby
• Learned something new
• Improved your cooking, cleaning, organising skills
• Spent more time with the family
• Connected more with friends and loved ones by phone
• Read a good book
• Got a pet
• Joined a (virtual) club or networking circle
• A DIY project
• Or just learned how to adapt in this new, tough situation that makes you feel like if you have survived 2020 you can do anything 💪

For me, 2020 was a good but also a tough year. I was pregnant, gave birth in September (now I apparently have a „pandemic baby“), and this was the joy and highlight of 2020. What made it tough was looking at the same time after our super active toddler (while at home for 4 months due to lockdown), juggling work and child minding, managing everything with 2 kids because due to COVID we couldn’t get much support from our families. Even though we did lose a family member to COVID, in general the rest of the family is doing quite well and we try to support each other especially the older family members as much as possible, even just by picking up the phone and giving a call.

It has been tough but I‘ve tried to see the positive side and be grateful for what we have and it made 2020 not such a bad year afterall.

Even though I‘m already kind of dreading 2021 as in January we have more restrictions and a lockdown, while I take care of two little kids at home, I will still try to make the best out of it for myself, for the kids, for our relatives and for everyone around us.

Life will throw everything at us: the good, the bad, expected and unexpected and it’s all about how we roll with it so bring it on 2021!

Stay positive! Stay strong!