Positive things gained from Covid-19?

[LivingAlmostLarge]

my dh won't let me buy an air fryer. He said no more cooking tools. Damn it.

[disneysteve]

he's now able to have dinner with his wife and kids on a week night.

Yeah, it's been a little strange here, too. Normally, DD works Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings and I work Thursday and either Monday or Tuesday evenings so we're not often all home for dinner during the week.

[Thrif-t]

cypher1 my kids all have little air fryers and love them! My daughter made a hamburger in her's the other night and raved about it. My other daughter and son make chicken in theirs and like it.

My younger sister has a family of 5 and just bought a big one, 6 qt I'm thinking? It has 3 racks, she made pork chops in it the other night and raved about it. I'm thinking of getting one for me and DH, but I hate to have another cooking tool cluttering up my house too, so I haven't yet.

[cypher1]

cypher1 my kids all have little air fryers and love them! My daughter made a hamburger in her's the other night and raved about it. My other daughter and son make chicken in theirs and like it.

My younger sister has a family of 5 and just bought a big one, 6 qt I'm thinking? It has 3 racks, she made pork chops in it the other night and raved about it. I'm thinking of getting one for me and DH, but I hate to have another cooking tool cluttering up my house too, so I haven't yet.

I hear where you're coming from with using a bunch of extra cooking tools. Luckily I don't have a lot of cookware, and have minimized my selection pretty well. So if I did buy something, that air fryer is next on my list. It's also great that these devices have encouraged your kids to further cooking.

[disneysteve]

cypher1 my kids all have little air fryers and love them! My daughter made a hamburger in her's the other night and raved about it. My other daughter and son make chicken in theirs and like it.

My younger sister has a family of 5 and just bought a big one, 6 qt I'm thinking? It has 3 racks, she made pork chops in it the other night and raved about it. I'm thinking of getting one for me and DH, but I hate to have another cooking tool cluttering up my house too, so I haven't yet.

We don't have one but someone I work with got a Food Ninja (I think that's the name) that is a multipurpose thing. It's an air fryer and a pressure cooker and a crockpot and a food dehydrator all in one. She LOVES it. She has given away all of the other appliances she had that it replaced.

[Singuy]

Biggest win is probably the crazy reduction in pollution. With such a high reduction in car/plane/cruise travel plus industry shutting down, I think it'll actually make a huge difference in saving Florida from going under in a hundred years.

[disneysteve]

I thought it would be good to bump up this thread as it's now 4 months later.

What benefits have you seen arise as a result of the pandemic?

We continue to spend a lot less. Our average monthly spending is running about $1,200 less than in 2019. That's mainly due to the lack of travel and also the lack of eating out.

I've started playing the piano again. I've played my whole life since I was 7, but I had barely touched it for quite a few years until a couple of months ago. Now I play almost everyday.

My daughter started exercising, first walking and now doing a little running. I took her out a few weeks ago to get her good running shoes. Of course, now it's too damn hot to run but as soon as the weather breaks, I'm sure she'll get back to it.

I bought myself a grown up paint by number set. I've worked on it every day for the past 2 weeks and I'm really enjoying it. Some time ago, I had a post in my blog asking how people spend their free time and this has definitely helped keep me occupied rather than just staring at the TV.

I've continued to connect with people on Zoom and it's all people I don't normally keep in touch with except seeing each others Facebook posts, so that's been really nice.

How about you?

[Like2Plan]

We have been freshening up a couple of rooms. In one room we painted, added new curtains and DH made a custom bookshelf. I'm very pleased with the results. In another room I have been removing wall paper (one more wall to go). Then, I have to go over some spots with wallpaper glue remover and a couple of spots to repair and then we paint. If we had done the traveling we had planned we would not have gotten around to doing these projects.

My knee has been feeling better-- I have increased how far I walk each day--walking about 2.5 miles a day.

I'm still making face masks to give away to family and friends--working on my "fall line" . I am going to make a baby quilt for a friend who is going to be a Grandma for the first time--so, I have been cutting out squares for that (no idea what I'm doing, but I wanted to try it).

I have been sorting and organizing. Still trying to figure out how to get rid of stuff. I found a place that took spent lithium ion batteries, so I felt like that was a real win.

[ua_guy]

Maybe the middle of a global pandemic isn't the best time to buy/sell a house and move across the country, but the first few months of being stuck at home in a place we really didn't want to be long term has certainly lit a fire under us to get busy living -- in the places we want to be, and doing the things we want to do. Also, being able to work remotely has enabled some epic RV travels. It remains to be seen if we can successfully pull this off before the economy implodes, but hopes are high. I'd be more upset if we didn't try at all, versus trying and finding out it won't work.

[disneysteve]

Yesterday was my mother's 90th birthday. Our orignal pre-COVID plan had been to have a catered party out somewhere. We realized a few months ago that that wouldn't be happening. So we planned a Zoom party instead for yesterday afternoon.

It was wonderful. A bit chaotic, as Zoom calls often are, but well over 40 people attended, many of whom would not have been able to attend an in-person party for various reasons. We got to catch up with so many extended family members all across the country. My mom was thrilled and multiple people have contacted us since thanking us for doing it. I was also able to record most of it and will burn a DVD for my mom to rewatch whenever she'd like.

A bunch of us agreed that we really need to start using Zoom to stay in touch with each other. I grew up very close to my family but we all lived in the same general area. Now folks are literally all across the country. People were on the call yesterday from NJ, PA, NY, MA, FL, CA, WA, and probably a couple of other places. Seeing each other in person is rare (weddings, funerals) at this point so I'm going to work on having regular Zoom calls. Not with 40 at a time, as it's too hard to chat that way, but at least with a few, or even one on one.

[bjl584]

The one positive thing is that work on our cabin has been progressing nicely.
It is the perfect place to be isolated, and the extra money in our pockets has been going to projects

[LivingAlmostLarge]

lost 24 pounds. Going to lose everything. I almost lost my baby weight. My baby turned 8 last week.

[james.hendrickson]

Adding because this thread needs more humor.