2020 has been a different year, a year that went by without travelling, without being every where around the world. No family visit, no flying nothing. A year that we spend alot of time together as a family indoors.

Covid 19 or corona as we all blames it. Is it actually that bad? Well, from my side, i learn alot more things about myself as well as my other counterparts around me. A year that we really reflect on how and what we can do or should do to make us a better person. A year where my boys learn to get along with each other. A year that i celebrated because i do not need to stress over what to bake for the children’s bday at the kindergarten. Its sucks for them i know but… hey, everyday is birthday for them.

I often complain that the apartment we are staying is too small for our growing family but when i start reading about the other housing people in my hometown are living in, I should be more than thankful to have the amount of space just shared among us. We have all the forest around us to hike without being always surrounded by people. I am thankful and grateful for that.

And thank to corona, Germany’s technolgy sped up 10x. From payment with apple pay or with card. It will be impossible in 2019. And today, cardless payment is recommended. Thanks to covid.

Take away…

Thanks to covid, we can take away in almost all the restaurants here in our town. And with delivery service too. How cool is that. This will never be possible without the lockdown. This will never be possible if the restaurants don’t want to survive in this tough time. And the fact that German’s are super lazy to change. And not because of covid, we can only dine in and like many parents… we love food but we also love dinning in because of the children. So with take away now…. we can enjoy the delicious food in the comfort of our home. Isn’t that wonderful. I love the fact that people are not judging and staring at what food we are eating, are we also like them that drinks wine during meals… etc etc.

Another thanks to covid. 2020 is the first time, TH and i and the boys spent the most time together in a year. Usually, TH is in USA or somewhere for like average 3 months a year. The begining was hard and painful…. but now i think they really love the father figure at home. And i also enjoyed pushing everything over to TH.

Now to the negative part… as the whole world and us tried to get used to home office and how to get work done at home especially with the boys around. We were all thrown into this ice cold water that really felt that we or at least i felt like i am drowning. Over worked, burned out and turning toward alcoholic. I am not kidding, there are days where i am awake at 5am being i have a deadline. Then the kids are awake at 8am where i prepared their breakfast, then i have my 9am meeting. After that prepared lunch and feed them. Then making Jo nap and i continued my work again. Even though there are pause here and there but mentally, we are always in full power mode. Running up and down and get things done. Be it work or home. It was running 24/7 and it was draining…. Then come tea then dinner and off to bed and i come back to the office to finish things that were undone. Even though it is a 20h job. The guilt of not doing enough is there. The hidden stress is there and i really do not know how other families are able to cope. Because it is really not easy with young children. Especially when their age group is quite wide apart.

I think for us, one of the downside is being constrain, lack of space, lack of privacy. Well… it is of course a first world problem. Because we do have way more space then alot of other people. After a few trial and error, we manage to get into a flow… that made everyone happy…