What is the new normal???

Since we moved into the new house last year, it's been a whirlwind of chores -- all the stuff that we had to fix while moving in. It took us the better part of three months to get all of the stuff into the house and out of boxes. The last bits stayed in the garage for months before I mustered up enough energy to finally tackle what was left in those boxes (bits and pieces of cloth left over from my grad school project, Christmas decor, more clothes). 

I can say with pride that we are now in a place where we have fully moved in. We haven't had any household help for years now and so all the chores are done by us. Kids clean and maintain their own respective rooms plus helping out in mopping the common areas and bussing duty for meals as well as taking out the trash and caring for the puppy. Jun is the master of the robot vacuum, our sanity saver. I do the laundry twice a week and just leave the clean clothes in the laundry cabinet for everyone to pick up and bring to their rooms. There is a certain rhythm already, with a few tweaks every now and then.

The current pandemic makes everyday a bit the same. Work and school on weekdays, with the occasional cooking and cleaning up. Cleaning chores on weekends. Repeat. I'm sure things will get shaken up when the pandemic lets up and things get back to normal. But what is normal? Isn't our life now our new normal? The pre-pandemic life doesn't seem real anymore. When it's safe to go out, I won't be at work everyday. I can't go back to the commute. The kids will certainly go back to school but Josh and Faith will be in college and might move out for that. That leaves me alone in the house during the day. There is no going back to the old normal. We'll have to forge a new one in a couple of months, until we all get vaccinated. But in the meantime, I will relish these days when everyone dear to me is with me everyday. This is the normal I love.