The year 2020 has been insane. A presidential impeachment, travel bans, murder hornets, record wildfires, two tropical storm/hurricanes at once, mysterious seeds mailed from China to private homes in the U.S., British royals gave up their titles and moved to America, Poland accidentally invaded the Czech Republic, and, oh yeah, there was a global pandemic—the likes of which we have not seen since the Spanish flu of 1918 and 1919. It’s been a little… much.

The thing about 2020, however, is that it’s given us some pretty spectacular gifts. No, really! I know that sounds just as insane as the year 2020, but hear me out. The weird and horrible things about 2020 have made me incredibly appreciative of the things I do still have and the things that didn’t get cancelled. Here are a few reasons why I’m thankful for 2020 and all its quirks.

More Time with My Husband

This one is at the top of the list for a reason. I love my husband! I mean, that’s why I married him, right? He’s my forever travel buddy, my best friend, my Love. He’s the reason why I can have a blog and pursue my publishing dreams. He was home for the first several months of the pandemic, then he went to an “on one week, off the next” schedule. It’s been wonderful!

We go for long walks in the middle of the day, we binge watch Netflix or Prime, we just sit together and read on our patio. We also come up with fun things to do together from home. Since we missed our anniversary trip this year, I got us a 12-month subscription for the Date Night In Box, and we’re really enjoying them! Without COVID, we wouldn’t have had all this extra togetherness!

More here: Why Travelers Love the Date Night In Box

More Trips to See Our Families

Since we’ve had to cancel all our international travel plans, as well as most of our domestic travel plans, we’ve been able to see our families more often. We’ve actually been able to make the drive to Pittsburgh in record time, due to reduced traffic (four hours instead of five or more). And flying to Tennessee to see my family has been a dream—it’s the safest time to fly in the history of flight! So those are the places we’ve been this year. Thanks to COVID, we’ve had more visits to see our families who live in other states.

Keep reading: 7 Ways I’ve Used Quarantine for Good (and 5 I Didn’t Get to Yet)

The Gift of Time

Aside from time with my beloved husband and our families, I’m thankful for the gift of time to write and publish my books! I’ve already written a seven-book travel novella series called the Lost and Found series, and I finally got around to publishing my Bible study for young Christian girls called Princess Culture!

Not only that, I’ve completely revamped my website, tried new things with the blog, reorganized and painted our guestroom with my husband, read a lot of books, and more! It’s ironic, really. Everyone’s excuse for anything before COVID was “I don’t have time.” But, lucky us, COVID gave us the gift of time. What anyone chose to do with it was for themselves to decide.

More here: How I’m Publishing 8 Books in 5 Days

FaceTime, Zoom, YouTube, Instagram, and More

I’m a people person. I need to be around people once in a while, even just one-on-one. In fact, I usually prefer one-on-one. But with social distancing, that was 100% impossible. Or was it? Thanks to FaceTime, I got to have “coffee dates” with my girl friends. With Zoom, I got to go to Bible study. I got to “attend” church on YouTube. I got to follow along on workouts via Instagram while the gym was closed. If not for Wi-Fi and the incredible capabilities it gave us, my mental health would have taken a massive hit over the last eight months!

Read on: How to Be Social from a Distance

Want more? Check out all my COVID-era posts on my Health and Wellness Page!

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