My marketing professor in college used to say this to us. Each day we had her class, she expected us all to dress like we were going to work. I have always loved a good outfit and dressing nice for school was something I took pride in. Even though I’m not going anywhere or seeing anyone, I like to dress up on Monday to start the week feeling good. Today I did my hair, put on makeup, and a dress. Each time I popped downstairs my dress fluttered around like I was flying. A simple pleasure. I felt great all day and had a wonderful burst of creativity in the afternoon before my last meeting. I don’t dress up every day but in my experience, putting on a great outfit is usually a great way to make yourself feel better. By Friday, I’m usually in a cozy outfit with messy hair and no makeup, but it’s the end of the week. ? I finally looked up the quote! Turns out, the full text is “no matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up, and never give up.” It’s by NYT best-selling author Regina Brett and I am now following her on Twitter. Isn’t the Internet great?!

Well, the last 24 hours have been something else! It’s not often that we have a power outage at the cottage but yesterday, there was a massive wind storm in South Western Ontario and it hit us hard. We lost power around 3pm and I was only on 50% phone battery. We charged up devices best we could, made a fire for heat, and pulled out the candles. Sean and I slept in the living room near the fire with doors to the rest of the cottage closed off. It was pretty scary at times, since it was dark around 5pm, we had only candles & flashlights to make it through the night. The wind outside was the fiercest I’ve ever experienced here, with rain, snow, hail, and cold temperatures. Sean woke up a couple of times in the night to add wood to the fire and by 6 am we were both awake. The power didn’t return until about 3 pm but we managed to still stay connected and avoid any meltdowns (me lol). Monday is the busiest day at my job so I charged my phone in the car so I could make out weekly status update calls. After that, I organized the spice cupboard and did some exercise. I figured since I was trying to conserve my device batteries, I could make good use of my ‘offline’ time. In other news, I got a big beautiful Monstera plant at Walmart yesterday for $34.99! I’ve wanted one for a while so I am pretty happy to watch her grow. There’s some bright new growth and she seems to be pretty healthy. Kinda wish I picked up a second one! Over the next few months, I’d like to add Monstera to my propagating. They had fiddle leaf fig plants…

The last Friday the 13th was in March this year, it was the last time I was out in the world pre-pandemic. Woke up early and went to the gym, not knowing it would be my last time there, ever. For lunch, I met some friends at the Drake Commissary we dined inside. On my way home, I picked up a few beers from Henderson Brewery, mask free. The term ‘social distancing’ was all over the news the following day and Canadians were told to stay home. Sean and I watched Contagion and had no idea we’d still be in this global pandemic, 200+ days later. That week, I’d done a talk at my old high school to the graduating students, had a hair appointment, photoshoot, and wrote about going to the gym. On Monday, we made a decision to come to the cottage and packed up everything to stay up in the woods for a ‘little while’. It’s crazy to think back to the start of this pandemic and where we are today. Cases are on the rise and the modeling shows we might see 5,000+ cases a day come December. We could go into full lockdown mode again. I’m glad to have kept this diary, even for my own memory. I’d have no idea how I passed the days if I hadn’t documented what I’ve been doing or how I’m feeling. Who knows how long we’ll be in pandemic times but one day I’ll look back at this and how it changed the world. Maybe I’ll make it into a book! Sending love form the woods, hang in there, we’ll get through this. Here’s my first pandemic diary post back in March 2020: