Category: COVID-19

My year of living COVIDly

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 10 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters   

In Italy, where my sister Bev and her husband Marco live, the government ordered a nationwide lockdown on Monday, March 9th last year. The country’s COVID-19 count there had exploded  from under 10 cases to over 9,000 within weeks. On the same day, we here in Canada recorded our first confirmed death. Three days later, hockey-mad Canadians were stunned when the NHL cancelled the rest of its season.

Suddenly, this was really happening.        .     .   Continue reading “My year of living COVIDly” →

Have I been a closet introvert all this time?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 18 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

Except for those blissfully naïve months of January and February when we had no clue what was about to hit us, 2020 has seemed like a dumpster fire called All-COVID, All-The-Time. Everything we knew and loved changed in ways few of us could have ever predicted. But I’ve noticed another big change overall – and that’s been in me.

The more I hunkered down inside my little apartment this year, the more I began to like hunkering.     .           .      .
 Continue reading “Have I been a closet introvert all this time?” →

Christmas lights amid the dark of COVID

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters 

Normally, I’m the kind of festive season fan who delays All-Things-Christmas until the week or so just before Christmas Eve. That’s when we start hanging the twinkling lights outdoors, wrapping presents, and cranking up Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.

But it’s 2020 now. And suddenly the season is feeling very, very different.     .      .   Continue reading “Christmas lights amid the dark of COVID” →

Pandemic decisions: Bailey’s, bubbles and bikes

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 19 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters   

“We humans are wired to pay attention to urgent threats, and so this global pandemic captures our attention in a way that a distant threat like climate change does not,” as the Harvard Business Review reminds us. And while my own attention was being captured in ruthless fashion this past year, I had to make a lot of decisions, both big and small – based on how COVID-19 was affecting my life.     .          .   Continue reading “Pandemic decisions: Bailey’s, bubbles and bikes” →

Productive uncertainty: beyond the sourdough

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 14 Comments

sourdoughby Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

At our virtual Toastmasters meeting recently, my friend Uma presented an interesting speech about something I’d never heard of: ‘productive uncertainty’.  It’s apparently a well-known concept in education, but given all the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic over the past months, it also fits what I’ve been thinking about lately.  .         .        . Continue reading “Productive uncertainty: beyond the sourdough” →