When the reality of life in the time of Covid first sunk in, I imagined that I would never sell another hat again. After those initial few days of panic, I made a list of all the things I could do other than earning money that would contribute to our household. I confess, I was really enjoying the fantasy. I would turn my entire yard into a garden…. finally get the house clean…make all our clothes… make curtains… paint the guest room…preserve food…the pioneering list goes on and on. I was ready to time travel back to 1805.

Two things happened that put a damper on this scenario. First, after a week of being the perfect wife, with dinner on the table at 6, granola made, dishes washed, house cleaned…I totally lost my shit. This was entirely on me. I was the only one putting pressure on myself. I also learned that if I take creativity out of my life I become a not very nice person.

The second thing that happened was that I wrote a little post on Facebook asking people to share my page and that little post got shared over 3000 times. I suddenly had a lot of hats to make.

I am nothing but grateful for the orders and to the people who shared that post, but I felt a bit of a loss as I slipped back into busy, busy, busy mode. Those first few pandemic days had given me a bit of clarity into what was truly important in life (not the house cleaning part). And so, I decided to take control. After two demoralizing years of watching the deer eat all my plants, we hired a friend to fix the garden fence. Best money I ever spent.

I now make sure that gardening is a weekend priority.

My hedge of Rugosas that I planted from tiny little shoots are coming along swimmingly.

And every morning Lego and I go for our long walk. I’m finding the world extra beautiful these days. I Love the energy and diversity that tourists bring to Lunenburg, not to mention sales, but I’m also loving the peace of a quiet town.

I know that there’s a lot of hardship associated with this pandemic, but it has brought some unexpected gifts.