Your silver lining?

[Cynt]

The greatest silver lining for me is my family is healthy and safe. My DH and I are both essential workers and we're able to work from home so I'm grateful for that.

I started out cooking and eating healthy but that got old quick. After about 90 days, they went to 50% occupancy in our state so we decided to support the local eateries. I was cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner. WTW!

Our laundry room now has a gorgeous 5 tier shelving unit. Our garage is spotless. My DH finally put my Christmas decorations in the attic. YES! I gave 30+ pairs of shoes to a little girl doing a fund raiser for families in a foreign country. I never realized I had so many pairs of shoes. I cleaned my master closet and put all of my winter sweaters in the guest bdrm closet. It cleared up so much room in my master closet.

We almost started the adoption process to adopt a child. Thanks to the adoption commercial they have on repeat. My DH was seeing it several times a day for weeks and weeks. Phew! I'm glad my DH decided not to pursue it.

 

[FQLover]

@TwoMisfits Hugs to you!


I am very sorry for your losses, and I will keep you in my good thoughts that you get the very best outcome with your upcoming test results.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

Silver linings? I was already unemployed when this all went south and receiving Unemployment benefits. I received the extra $$ via Cares Act, NO, I did not make more unemployed as I did employed. But the extention of benefits is a silver lining ( I would have been furloughed had I not been terminated, That is an absolute certainty)
Realizing "things" are not as important as previously thought. I love having family time. It is PRICELESS. We're going camping again in OCT, weather permitting!

 

[OrangeBirdGirl]

Have been working from home since mid March and will continue into early 2021 at the earliest. This has allowed me to focus on getting into a great workout routine each day before starting work.

 

[cteddiesgirl]

Silver lining: I've been working throughout this pandemic in an office with only my team and a few others in a building that holds a few thousand. My job is necessary (working in one of the divisions for the unemployment office in my state) and can't be done remotely. I'm even working overtime helping out another unemployment team with their huge backlog. Other silver lining, no one in my family has been sick so far. I'm a homebody outside of work, so not going places isn't a big deal for me.
Flipside, my dad has been laid off (business printer) since March and who knows when he can get back to work. He is not a homebody and is going nuts being at home every day.

 

[lttlmc3]

I'm a 911 dispatcher so I've had steady work this whole pandemic. My husband works in a warehouse on his own fixing large machinery, so he's been able to stay working as well. I know we are lucky, but sometimes it's easy to buy in to the idea that this is the worst of times. It's not. I'm thankful we are doing well. I just wish well for everyone else too.

 

[Eureka]

No terrible commute which has translated into more family time. We’ve always cooked most of the week but now we’re eating better bc we have more time to think about and prepare meals.

 

[MrsPete]

So many silver linings for us:
- More family time.
- With no commute, I can sleep in -- which means a great deal to me.
- With winter coming up, I'm not facing leaving the house before it's light -- I've always hated that.
- A tank of gas lasts a month (or more).
- No packing lunches /even if we just have sandwiches, fresh is nicer than things that've been sitting for hours.
- We've been eating up a bunch of stuff that was pushed to the back of the freezer and the pantry.
- Fewer clothes to wash.
- Changed my car insurance to "pleasure driving only", which is a money saver.
- My new car isn't racking up miles.
- Had to have the plumber in; no need to take off work.
- The dog is thrilled that we're home all the time.
- Have watched a ton of shows.
- Have cleaned out closets.
- I haven't bothered with make-up in months -- why bother? It would just wear off on the mask.
- Have spent little on anything except food since March, so we're saving.
- My recent college grad child is back home, and we're spending loads of time together -- reading books together, doing puzzles.
- The list goes on ...

 

[Disney Frenhines]

Here's the gorgeous Florence. Pay no attention to my messy craft room.
View attachment 513351

Messy?! You haven't seen mine and I'm not going to post a photo of it. Instead here's one of my cat Jiji on our first drive out in ages.

 

[QueenIsabella]

Messy?! You haven't seen mine and I'm not going to post a photo of it. Instead here's one of my cat Jiji on our first drive out in ages.
View attachment 518271

Oh, what a gorgeous cat! We have a black cat, as well, but ours would never tolerate a harness. He lives outside mostly--his choice, not ours--and gets miffed if we pull him in because, oh, there's a hurricane coming or something! Black cats have the BEST personalities!

 

[MrsPete]

Black cats have the BEST personalities!

Yes, I miss my boy so much. He lived 13 good years.

 

[Befferk]

Reassessing our priorities, and eliminating those things that have been sucking our time away from more important things (family time).

 

[LuvOrlando]

Silver lining is I'm really really really grateful to be a family in one place again, truly never thought I would get the chance to reconnect with my now adult kids. Happy DH and I are in their orbit and able to support them and redirect focus during what may be the most stressful time of their lives, suspect this will benefit them in lots of long term ways.

Saving money is an unexpected yay, seems to be a theme.

 

[crisi]

This is weird and geeky - we've been doing a D&D group for - well since my college Junior sat on my lap and rolled the dice for me to "play along." When things started happening, we took a few weeks off, and moved online. I've been DMing for the past two years and I moved our group to Roll20. So now, instead of mini's on a map in our basement, they are moving tokens across a screen - and the software controls sight lines. When they could - as players - see everything, they would know things their characters didn't know - and its really hard to not make decisions based off "I know exactly what is happening over there" - now as players they don't see those things. Its changed the dynamics and made the game more fun. No more fireballs into groups they can't see and shouldn't know are there because they don't have darkvision. I miss playing in person, but we are all developing a discipline and understanding we've never had before (and we've all been playing for a LONG time).

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

In addition to having our health and jobs, we are finally paying down our mortgage, as in really attacking it.
I had often used a paydown calculator last year that showed we could pay it down in 3 years, if only I could completely give up vacations for all that time. Travel is my one weakness so the idea of years without a trip is torture; like I'd rather have my eyeballs plucked out with fish hooks. My job is physically and emotionally draining and travel was a great way to recharge my batteries. I re-ran the calculator earlier this summer and it would shave the payoff time from 8 years down to 2.5.

Now that we've been forced to cancel trips, I can really put all our extra funds toward paying off our house. I gave up on the idea of our 14-night cruise in February so I put our savings for that trip down as a lump sum then continue to pay approximately $2500/month on the principal in addition to the regular payments. Right now I feel like there really is nothing else I need more than to see that balance at $0 except for food, water and sleep. I'm excited every time I get the chance to make another payment.
So far, our balance is about $15,000 less than when I started in early August.
I still miss vacationing but not nearly as much as I expected I would.