Finding Joy on Friday

All day yesterday, I was convinced that it was Friday; it's just been that kind of week. Work has been busy, my "extracurricular" life has been busy (Zoom meetings for Girl Scouts and my synagogue board), and of course Rainbow has been home all week for school. A couple of days ago, after notifying the whole school community about a couple of additional COVID cases, the school announced that everyone would be moving to online instruction next week (the last week before winter break) and for the first week of January. I think this was a smart move; even without COVID to deal with, it's a germy time of year, so keeping the students at home prior to and after the end-of-year holidays will limit their exposure to people outside their households. I'm certainly appreciative of it, because our trip to Florida is about a week away and I don't want anyone getting sick before we leave! But the general public health situation is concerning and depressing, so today, I wanted to focus on a few things that are bringing me joy. Finding reasons to be happy in spite of the state of the world has become part of my daily journaling practice, and I'm convinced that it's helped me to maintain my sanity during this strange time we're living in. So here are some things making me happy, in no particular order:

1. First of all, later this morning, I'm taking Rainbow to get her second vaccine shot! She was unable to go for her scheduled appointment last Saturday because of quarantine, and while the school was able to schedule a make-up clinic for the students in her class who couldn't go, it's not until the middle of next week, and I wanted her to get that second dose as soon as possible so she has the most protection possible before we get on a plane next Saturday.

2. Yesterday was a great mail day for me, with a bumper crop of books coming in:

These are four of the six Louise Erdrich books I've ordered from ThriftBooks, most of them for the Erdrich-along that Mary is hosting next year (I ordered an extra title that I've been wanting to read in addition to the titles we'll be diving into), plus Amanda Gorman's debut collection of poetry that I preordered from my local bookstore way back at the beginning of the year. It was delayed from its initial publication date in October, but when it finally arrived at the shop, it took only a day to make its way to me. I'm really looking forward to digging into it!

3. Including today, I have four days of work left this year. One of the perks of working for a university is that we get a long break at the end of the year in addition to our paid time off (i.e., these are extra recess days that the university is closed and that we get paid for but do not have to take our allotted days off for). Usually when we go away, I tack on some extra days at the beginning and/or end. This year and last year, though, as a way to thank all employees for working throughout the difficult times of the pandemic, we were given three extra days off -- this year, December 20, 21, and 22. Those just happen to be the days I would have requested off for our trip and then didn't have to, so because I have enough vacation time stored up that I would have reached my limit and been unable to accrue more if I didn't use some of it this month, I decided to take off next Thursday and Friday. This will give me some extra time to get ready for our trip and to generally relax and get into vacation mode mentally. Rainbow will be off next Friday as well (they were only going to have a half day that day anyway and were going to hold class holiday parties that morning, so they just gave all the students the day off with the move online), so I'm sure we'll find something fun to do that day.

4. Finally, especially for Vera, I want to share my favorite holiday decoration in the neighborhood:

This family's Halloween display was up well into November, and I guess they just decided to keep some of it for their Christmas display!

I hope you've been able to find some joy in your life this week, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!