Covid-19

What would you remember of the year 2020?

I would answer, Corona virus, lockdown, eat, despair, afraid, grateful… There are more, but those came up quickly in my mind.

I started the year out with high hopes. My small jewelry business is going to grow and I’m going to make thousands of sales. I looked forward to a year of good things and nowhere on my horizon did I see any impending doom. Looking back I wouldn’t have done something different, but maybe I could have made a mind shift as my world is coming to a standstill. I could have planned earlier in the year how I’m going to tackle this impending doom. How I am going to run my small handmade business.

Covid arrived and lockdown was unavoidable. My mum started baking, as did half of South Africa, and we ate. Was it shock? Boredom? I don’t know, but it did its damage to my hips! I’m still trying to loose a few!

There are laughs too. Never would I have thought that I would walk around in the mall and stare at a beautiful blouse with a mask on! Imagine, last year this time, you would have laughed your ass off about wearing a mask.

When I climb into my car, I rip off my mask as quickly as I could! It’s almost like taking ones bra off after work – aahh. What a relief.

I’m so grateful that I haven’t been sick, although some of our family members have been. We are so fragile, the one moment we are busy rushing around and the next we are plagued with this Corona virus. So unpredictable and scary. When the news is on and we hear the newest Corona statistics we can only pray that it will pass soon.

I became aware of a sudden explosion in the handmade/hobby community. Before, when I started out with polymer clay, you had to look hard to find other South African polymer clay artisans. On Instagram they popped up as women, sitting now at home, started making earrings from polymer clay. I’ll be honest, I was so frustrated. They ask ridiculous low prices and for me who does it as a handmade business, their prices influenced my price range in a bad way. Our styles are totally different, but since then I had to look at my jewelry from a value based point of view. Well, that was also a small outcome of Covid-19. I learned lots!

The news we got this morning sounded bad. The Corona virus cases are so high and it looks as if we might be facing lockdown again. Oh I so hope it doesn’t come to that again. People has been touched by this virus in huge ways. Tremendous, sad losses are ongoing.

We can only pray.

I hope you are all right. How are you coping?