If I’ve learned nothing else the past two weeks it is that a steady diet of gloom and doom news will mess you up mentally.
I’ve been keeping up on all things COVID-19 because I work in a nursing home and those I care for are the vulnerable. And I have a daughter 8 months pregnant who will be giving birth when this thing is said to peak. But the more I watch the harder it is to sleep at night as the fear of so many ‘what ifs’ creep in to my mind. Today I’m NOT watching the news. I need to just turn it off!
Oh I believe this is serious, but I don’t need to watch reports and video, or see pictures, from around the world and the USA of hospitals full of folks fighting to live, or trucks being used as morgues in over run hospitals. No amount of watching or not will change one sliver of these situations.
Instead I have opened my windows and sliding door to let in the beautiful weather, fresh air, and sounds of birds. The wood pecker is active this morning on the trees in the water shed, and other birds are singing as the gentle breeze is flowing through the screens.
I have to work tonight for 4 hours, but until then I’m going to sit here and soak up the sounds of life around me from the couple on the 3rd floor fighting over the laundry, to the wild life outside of the building in the trees behind us, the distant traffic on the pike (not a lot of that to be heard these days), to far off sirens of first responders. Just settling down and not taking in anything but the sounds of life around me.
Coffee, reading Matthew 21 in my bible, and life unfolding in the background. A crochet hook and some yarn, some Facetime with grand-snugglers, and just relax. That is long over due and what I need today.
Marti Gardner 
stay safe, Marti, and your family, too! I’m a RN in a SNFand the COVID19 thing freaks me out. No cases at my work.