Fast Forward

So, I pretty much forgot about this blog. There was this insane pandemic situation and all, so the past 2+ years have been quite the blur. I literally laughed out loud at the fact that my last post was May 1, 2020. After May 1, 2020, so much in my world changed. There were definitely highs, lows, and bunch of things in between.

When I started this blog, this was an outlet for all this newfound free time I had during the shelter-in-place order. It definitely helped to keep me busy while I waited to return back to work. I didn't end up starting to go back to the office until the latter part of May. So, what happened? The short answer: Pickleball.

My dad transitioned from racquetball to Pickleball a couple years before he retired. So when he retired at the end of 2019, he was excited that he could now play everyday without any other obligations. When COVID happened, everything got shut down- including the Pickleball courts. My dad was getting restless, waiting for the courts to reopen. In early May 2020, they reopened outdoor recreational courts but recommended to stay in small groups with family or household. So, by default really, my dad called me to see if I wanted to learn how to play since I wasn't yet back at work. I agreed, not knowing what a commitment I was making at the time. Basically, we played everyday during the month of May 2020 until I started going back to work. From 6-9am, we were out on the courts- rallying and running drills. When people ask me what I did during the shelter-in-place, I say that I made a lot of food and went to my dad's Pickleball camp. All jokes aside, it was actually fun to learn the game. We even got Ryan to start playing, so we'd always have 4 people to play doubles.

Returning back to work in the dental office setting (post shelter-in-place but still mid-pandemic) was an absolute nightmare. There was so much uncertainty and aggressive changes to protocols that it got super overwhelming very quickly. On top of that, most patients came in with a laundry list of questions and concerns paired with increased anxiety and fear. Considering we were only closed for less than 2 months, every patient that we started seeing back when we returned was some form of overdue. Over two years later, nothing has really changed for us. Lots of protocols still in place. No one ever actually sees my face anymore behind all the PPE. And, if you can believe it, we still get patients who are overdue since before the pandemic. Crazy to think that whatever normal we once knew will probably never come back to our workplace environment, at least for the foreseeable future. But, we adapt and we move forward. I consider myself lucky to be able to go to work and interact with people. There were definitely some perks of being home, but it was honestly too boring for me. I am a people person. I need to be with the people. I need to have conversations and hear stories and fill rooms with laughter. The grass is always greener on the other side, but I realized I'm on the right side for me. 

Amongst the chaos of the pandemic, Ryan proposed in October 2020. We got married in Half Moon Bay in September 2021 in an intimate ceremony with just our immediate family. Given the circumstances, we elected to keep our wedding small. Planning anything at that time was already a nightmare. I thought that having a smaller wedding would be easier, but there were definitely some obstacles created by the pandemic. Luckily, our friend offered her "wedding planning" services to us and we couldn't have been more thankful. Right after the wedding, we headed off to Lanai for a week and had the most amazing time. The Four Seasons in Lanai was a dream and the resort was only at 30% capacity at the time. Ryan successfully checked off his #1 bucket-list item for the trip, which was to have a drink in a coconut. That's a fun story, which maybe one day I'll share. 

In October 2021, my grandpa received a Congressional Gold Medal for his service in WWII. He was able to attend a regional ceremony in Fresno and Ryan and I were able to make it out for that. At exactly the same time, our miniature golden retriever Bella had to get an ACL surgery. Not long after we got back from our honeymoon, our energetic pup was running around at the dog park and tore her ACL. Thankfully, we have pet insurance for her, so it made the decision to move forward with the surgery easy. Our poor pup went through a lot but it went extremely well and her recovery time exceeded my expectations. 

In the beginning of the pandemic, when most people [not me] started working from home, everyone was putting together a home office setup. I felt left out. I mean clearly there's a lot of work I can do from home. Okay, the truth is, I really wanted to buy a cute desk. I didn't do it right away because it ended up being a bigger process. But I did it. I bought a cute desk, and a cute desk chair, and a cute computer with a 4K monitor. And I love it all. In fact, I'm using it now. Bella is laying next to me and I feel like I am doing important things like people do when they work from home. Seriously though, I actually wanted to buy all these things so I could start taking some classes. I found out that you can take any class online now. It's amazing. Maybe it was all that free time during the shelter-in-place, but I realized that I miss being a student. I miss learning new things and building my skill set in other areas. So, I also bought Final Cut and completed my first pandemic online class- Intro to Final Cut. In full transparency, I decided to take that particular video editing course so I could make funny videos of my dog and send them to her grandPAWrents. However, instead of making videos and using what I just learned, I started looking at other courses I want to take next. Maybe photography at some point. Spoiler alert- I'm 98% positive my next course will be Excel. I have this super nerdy dream to master Excel. I feel like people who are good at Excel are good at life. I don't know if there is a legit correlation, but it sure seems that way to me. 

So, I guess, throw in a few holidays after that and here we are- August 2022. Next month, Ryan and I will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary. Time flies in a pandemic. 

If you have made it this far, you get a gold star because there was not one food-related thing mentioned. But, you know what, we will get back to that soon. Stay tuned.