[I wrote this post as a member of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group where we share our worries and also offer support and encouragement to each other on the first Wednesday of every month. If you’re a writer like me and you’re looking for a bit of support, you can click the link and sign up here]

This month’s awesome Co-Hosts feature other fabulous writing friends with me:

CDiane Burton, JH Moncrieff, Anna @ Emaginette, Karen @ Reprobate Typewriter,  and Lisa Buie-Collard!

Check out our IWSG homepage for recent news and events.  And as always, thank you to founder Alex J. Cavaugh 🙂 

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A reflection on my life based on the IWSG Question this month:

In early March, my mother began to take the warnings of the spreading virus seriously. I gave some thought to it, and started being more careful going out and about, and strangely, I also started buying cleaning supplies. Spring Break quickly approached, and I knew several families including my own had plans to fly out of the state. Never the country. Thank goodness. Though I did hear of a few families who were adamant they would keep their plans to fly overseas and relief came when the greater government entities stepped in and forced them to stay put.

On the work front, I’m in the field of Education. Though buildings have closed through the end of April, I’m in Public Relations and currently called in to work because it’s an essential need. Administration is busy prepping food, serving families in school parking lots, and organizing online and paper Education packets for all grades. My fiancé is also called in to work, employed in a pharmaceutical plant. We’re nervous, glad to have steady work though, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the drive down the road to work and back isn’t scary.

So what is my plan now? I’m homeschooling the kids several days a week. They maintain a schedule with bedtimes and rising times, and thanks to my youngest daughter’s teacher, I have an hour-by-hour or topic by topic powerpoint to follow. Bless the teachers! I made my first online grocery order for a curbside pickup. It took four days to schedule the pick-up, but I feel better about the arrangement. I’ve rearranged my basement so the kids and I can get online exercise every day. Amazon Prime has some great free options for workouts, no matter your preference.

On the writing front, I just started editing and writing again this past week. I’ve been so worked up I haven’t been able to find the creative flow. I guess I figured I better try, because it feels like this is a longer road than any of us know. So I wear gloves, I carry hand-sanitizer in my car, my desk, and in every room of the house. We’re certainly living science fiction times, and I pray everyone says safe and follows guidelines for the sake of others. On a lighter note, I’ve found several great quotes to consider:

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. — Barbara Kingsolver

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. ― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter  

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless. ― G.K. Chesterton  

Everything that is done in this world is done by hope. — Martin Luther