Dear Diary: Returning to old hobbies and learning new ones, this family gets creative

CBCCalgarywants to knowhow you are living these days. What are you doing differently? What makes you laugh? Cry? Scream? Have you started a new hobby? Let us know.

In this instalment of our series Dear Diary: In a Time of COVID-19, Sara Brodsky shares how she is dealing with her anxiety during the pandemic. This submission has been edited for clarity and length.

Well, I never would have guessed that myself and my family would be spending so much time at home in 2020.

I started working at a cooking school on "pie" day, and two years to the day, I left my position to quarantine.

My whole family needed to be swabbed as we were in Spokane, Wash., in February and came back with colds. We were negative and the swab wasn't as scary as anticipated.

My two daughters suffer from anxiety, as do I, and with so much time on our hands it allows us to think too much.

To avoid anxiety attacks and keep busy, we all started painting beautiful pictures. I hadn't painted in years. We play board games in the evening. We are so lucky to have each other.

My husband is in a house of all females. Even the dog and two cats are female. We have voted him off the island a few times(not really, he's still here).

I always wished I had time to really clean and organize our house. Now I have the time, and I guess that was never the problem, because it's still a very lived-in house.

For a little bit of fun, and to keep my food dream alive, I now make a how-to cooking video every Friday. My 16-year-old edits, my husband films.

I didn't realize I had a little following in my neighborhood until I was recognized at the IGA. I was delighted.

I've now lost my job, because we don't know when we will be able to reopen a cooking school in this strange world. I'm looking at new opportunities that I otherwise would not have taken the time to think of.

How lucky we are for having a roof over our head, food on the table, good friends, health and the luxury of boredom.

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