Friday Five answers (Jan 1 & Jan 8)

[why_me_why_not]

The Friday Five from Jan 1

1)What was the best thing about 2020? Not necessarily the best, but one of my favorite special things from 2020 was being part of a virtual campfire singalong with the band Kansas during GISH in August. But there were some great things in 2020, like the weekend at States for wrestling (and the family time that weekend), my youngest graduating high school and starting college, several loved ones getting married, we added like 5 new furbabies to our family. Lots of good things.

2)What lessons from 2020 will you carry into 2021? Roll with it. There are so many things we can't control, gotta be adaptable. (to be fair, that was our lesson for 2019 too, lol, and it carried over and worked so well in 2020)

3)How did you spend your New Year's Eve? Hanging out with my kiddos & their girlfriends. Reading. Watching some GBBO.

4)Legend says what you did at midnight on New Year's Eve/Day is what you'll do all year. So what did you do? I was laying in bed with a book, cuddling with the furbabies and listening to the kids outside at the fire. Not a bad way to pass the time; I'd definitely take it.

5)What are you most looking forward to in 2021? Hugs. Seeing people outside my circle. Going back to in-person church. A couple weddings, a couple babies.

The Friday Five from Jan 8

1) What act of kindness have you witnessed (or done yourself) recently? It feels like it's the opposite of humble to talk of an act of kindness that I did, but it's what comes to mind. On Christmas Eve, I had to go to the humane society to pick up a couple of foster cats. It was pouring down rain and cold and gross. As I was leaving, there was a man walking in the rain and I waved at him just to be polite but he started talking to me and said he was trying to get to Walmart to meet up with someone for a job. From there to Walmart is about 20 miles. So I offered him a ride. Which actually doesn't feel like a big deal, so idk. But I haven't been many places to be able to witness any acts of anything, lol.

2) What is your favorite memory? Favorite memory altogether? That's difficult, idek. I've got a lot of great memories that I can call up, I'm not sure if I have one that's more favored over the rest.

3) What activity always seems to energize you? Exercise? Lol. I always have trouble getting motivated to walk or hit the treadmill (or go to zumba, in the Before Times), but once I do it, I feel fantastic and have so much energy.

4) Did you do something recently that made you laugh at yourself? What was it? I laugh at myself all the time. I'm an idiot and do lots of laugh-at-able things!

5) What is your favorite inspirational quote? I should have a good answer for this, but I don't. So I'll go with this, from my all time favorite song (Soulshine by the Allman brothers): "You gotta let your soul shine!"

Comments

[sjh2009]

Lol, I spent new year in bed with my cat, watching the London fireworks on tv!

I miss things like church too. We're in Lockdown#3 here in England, all four parts of the UK have different regulations and it's been really weird. Our churches briefly opened but for very limited numbers of people and booking was required. Some are open for services and some for private prayer only and some not at all. I'm avoiding the city centre though at the moment as our infection rate is so high and we have these more transmissible mutations.

Do you foster cars regularly? I'd love to but I care for my elderly mother and she lives with me. Her glaucoma is bad and she doesn't see well so I'm afraid she'd scare them by not seeing them. My 17 year old cat has kind of adapted to her and tends to keep out if her way but she still gets the odd gentle toe poked in her or he tail stepped on (my mother does walk carefully to make sure she's gentle if she does walk into Plum).

I love your quote, it made me smile :)

[why_me_why_not]

No one knows what they're doing in the US. It seems like not only does every state have different guidelines, but each locality has a different standard of enforcement, and there is no restrictions on traveling between places. It's such a huge mess. Here in Virginia, religious services basically have an exemption but are supposed to adhere to certain guidelines (restrictions on number of people, wear masks, etcetc) but they're not. And it seems like the ones I know who have gone back to in-person worship have all had cases of COVID. My home church has a relatively small congregation (maybe 50 people on an average Sunday), including a lot of elderly or high risk, so we've unanimously decided not to go back into the building yet. We've actually had better attendance on zoom than we did in person, so that's something. We don't want to go back to the building and not be able to actual feel like it's church, y'know? We won't be able to have nursery, have choir, hug, have potlucks. We'd rather all find other ways to connect and stay safe/healthy. (Plus, the local YMCA has been using our church building during the week since mid summer to run a day camp for kids of essential workers, so we don't want to cause them any problems with extra folks running in/out of the building.) But I do make sure to go by the church building every couple of weeks and walk through the rooms and say hi to the ghosts, which probably seems weird but it feels right.

We do foster cats regularly! Well, technically, my neighbor does, but it's kinda a group effort. They stay at her house and she's responsible for them, but we all help take care of them and I do transport (the shelter we work with is about 45 minutes away) and all the kids help socialize the kittens. The two foster cats that I picked up on Christmas Eve are actually going back to the shelter on Saturday because there is a potential home for them. And we're picking up a foster dog! We don't do many foster dogs because the yards are no longer fenced in (big flood in 2018) but this one is 18 years old (!!!) and blind and deaf, so he's kinda perfect for us. We end up with a lot of hospice dogs.

Cats are pretty adaptable, especially kittens, but they can be a handful and would definitely get underfoot! Usually literally! Getting to play with/help socialize the kittens is a substitute for my nieces that can't have cats of their own. Also, the shelter (which I always refer to as Planned Pethood, even though that's just the clinic side) has cat rooms where you can legit volunteer to just go sit and play with the cats. Maybe something like that could be an option post-COVID!