Flashback Friday: Re-launching Dr Bookworm, the blog
Happy new year! It’s 2023, and like some of you, I still feel like I lost a few years due to the pandemic.
Yet, here we are, we keep plugging along and find a new normal. Some of you may have gone back to normal a long time ago. I’m still questioning exactly what “normal’ means.
As a re-introduction to me and the blog if you’re new here, I’m just a girl who loves to read, who is raising two kids who also love to read. This blog was started in 2016 to share our love of books and reading.
The pandemic sidetracked a bunch of my creativity but I decided a few weeks ago, on December 23, 2022, to re-launch the blog.
December 23 is significant as it was exactly two years since I received my first Covid vaccine. In those two years, there has been a lot of controversy over vaccines. But what I remember most about getting that first covid vaccine is the feeling of relief. The previous nine months had been stressful, to say the least. And while some may say the lockdown wasn’t warranted, I’m not so sure. Hindsight is 20/20 and we knew next to nothing about covid in March 2020.
I’m musing about the beginning of quarantine likely because I’m horrified at how zero covid in China has turned into a free for all, which means a ton of deaths. No matter how they’re spinning it. There will be a lot of deaths, especially in the elderly, just like what happened in Hong Kong last winter.
I also looked over my early pandemic journal/quarantine journal that I wrote in Spring 2020. It’s a great reminder of why I didn’t get as much done when I saw a lot of other people in ‘quarantine’ pick up hobbies, clean out their houses etc. A good lesson in not comparing myself to others. We were very lucky in that the four of us had each other, we had shelter/food/toilet paper and so much more.
But I also had a lot of anxiety about what was going on. I had anxiety for the first time in my life about job security too. That’s right! Even though I’m a physician, those early months of the pandemic were super slow on the pediatrics side of things and in our office we all worked less hours.
You’d think that would mean I had more time for writing and the blog, but I was too busy trying to source groceries, making masks from leftover fabric, and looking out for my kids’ mental health (and my own). On my days off, I had my phone alarm going off for both Mini Me and Little Lion’s break times and lunch times so that I could help them get snacks and food. We also would take family walks in our neighborhood and local parks and the beach.
One moment that in particular sticks with me is the very first weekend of ‘shutdown’. Normally Mr. Bookworm and I would have sort of a slow start to our weekends, reading or writing while waiting for the kids to wake up. And then running around like mad to all our activities. But on this particular Saturday or Sunday (March 14 or 15, 2020), we had done all our leisurely things and were dismayed to find out it was only 930AM! And so we pushed on, playing Mad Libs with the kids in our backyard, soaking up the fresh air and sunshine.
While we have learned so much about Covid and SARS-Cov-2, we still have so much more to learn. And I can say that I don’t really have any big regrets for that time. Having said that, I’m very happy to get back toward a new normal. And get back to writing and blogging.
Side note: Since I’m pictured with Professor Llama Pants above with my llama dress, I have to recommend the latest in the “LLama destroys” series by Jonathan Stutzman and Heather Fox , a trilogy about a silly, hungry llama and how his actions cause a butterfly effect of chaos. The latest book is Llama Rocks the Cradle of Chaos, which is the next picture book I’ll be purchasing as I enjoyed the first two books so much. See below for our read-along of LLama Destroys the World, see here for our review of Llama Unleashes the Alpalcalypse.
