Hello and welcome to Gold Star Friday! As you know, it is time to announce our Star of the Week!
This will be the final Star of the Week award for 2020, as I will be taking a break from posting for a few weeks during the holiday season.
I have decided to take a new approach this week! Instead of naming a person as Star of the Week, I have decided to go against protocol and name the year 2020 as this week's Star of the Week!
I can hear some of you saying, "WHAT??? 2020 as Star of the Week?? What has this woman been smoking?"
I hear you. I do. And I get it. 2020 has not been an ideal year in any way, shape, or form.
But just because it wasn't ideal doesn't automatically make it the worst year ever. Some good things MUST have happened to you this year!!!
Since this is an appreciation blog, I challenge you all to dig deep today and come up with some things that you have been grateful for in 2020.
I'll get you started by sharing some of the things that are on my list!
First and foremost, Gold Star Revolution came into existence in 2020!!! ⭐ I feel quite confident that I would not have initiated this project if the year had proceeded the way that it had been prior to the start of the pandemic in March. I am having a lot of fun here on the blog and on social media, and I look forward to hopefully adding more members to the Gold Star Revolution Squad in 2021!
Next up: Most of you who are reading this know that my main source of income comes from my walking tour business, Raleigh Walking Tours. I had to close back in March, and then I decided to remain closed until mid-October. When I did start the tours back up, I shortened all of the tour routes in order to reduce the amount of time that people would be spending around each other.
This turned out to be a really great decision! The shortened routes are working out well, and my income hasn't suffered at all. In fact, I will most likely not return to the longer routes when we come out on the other side of the Coronavirus. I am completely certain that I would not have shortened the routes but for the pandemic. So this turned out to be a pandemic positive for me! My customers have also been great about wearing masks and social distancing, so I am grateful for that as well!
When the lockdowns started to go into effect back in March, one of my favorite singers/songwriters, Todd Snider, started playing a live show every Sunday on the internet. He has kept going every week for months now.
He is a fabulous storyteller, and he talks a lot in between songs, which you don't normally get at an in-person show. I so look forward to watching him perform every Sunday – it's definitely one of the highlights of my week. Another pandemic positive!!
I'm sure that most of you have never heard of Todd, but if you are interested in checking him out, head on over to the Purple Building Live. He plays every Sunday at noon EST.
My husband Tom and I also altered our grocery shopping habits since COVID entered our lives. We now do a big trip once every two weeks on Friday morning. But in the in- between week, Tom takes his book bag on Friday morning and rides his bike downtown to a cute co-op grocery store to pick up just a few perishables that won't keep for two weeks, like bananas and lettuce.
This store has also a great selection of items that are made in-house. And so in the early days of the pandemic, Tom brilliantly decided to splurge on a store-made 4-pack of scones, which we consumed that weekend on Saturday and Sunday.
We enjoyed the scones so much that Tom has bought them every other Friday since then! It's a fun treat that I look forward to immensely! This would never have happened without the pandemic, and our scone consumption will probably end once COVID subsides. So this fun practice has been super specific to the pandemic!
Our new grocery shopping practices also led to the discovery that our cat Tiki loves to sit on crinkly reusable bags! I won't bore you with the details on how this discovery came about, but I couldn't resist mentioning that even our cat has gotten something positive out of 2020!
So there's a partial list of the good things that I have experienced in 2020! What about you, dear readers? Can you say something good about this year?? I would be absolutely thrilled if you would share something positive that occurred in your life in 2020 in the comments!!!
This is the last Star of the Week post for 2020! I will be sharing one final post on Tuesday that contains a fab New Year's idea from Gretchen Rubin, and then I will be taking a holiday break.
Would you like to nominate yourself or someone you care about to be our next Star of the Week? To read the rules about the nomination process and get more information about the free gift that U.S. winners will receive, please click here. Then submit the Nomination Form!
Please note: Any mentions or endorsements of websites (other than my own!), books, etc. that I make on this site are made solely because I like them. They aren't advertisements, and I do not receive any compensation for mentioning them. You can assume that the only compensation that I receive is for endorsements of Zazzle or Zazzle products. If any exceptions arise along the way, I will expressly note that I am being compensated.