Making the Most of Being at Home
by Lisette Omoss and Ken Druck, Ph.D.
Staying home during COVID-19 has challenged most of us in ways we never could have imagined. We’re all writing a new playbook as far as physical distancing, sharing a living space with family members 24/7, homeschooling kids, FaceTiming grandkids, exchanging funny cartoons on the internet, and converting dining-room tables into jigsaw puzzles and desks to conduct our work remotely and virtually.
In addition, we’re watching Governor’s Newsom and Cuomo’s daily updates, audience-free late-night talk shows, breaking news on our networks of choice, new and old movies . . . and are probably eating way too much!
Being at home has also opened the doors of possibility for living in, fixing up, cleaning out, and making decisions about our homes. Perhaps our house or apartment suddenly seems too large or small, empty or crowded, in good shape or needing some fixing up, cluttered or missing stuff, in just the right neighborhood or too far from family.
These new insights and observations might even have led to some exploratory conversations between you and your spouse or children. Perhaps you’ve decided to embark on a spring-cleaning project you can work on together, goof off and play board games, prepare special dinners and binge-watch a Netflix series together, schedule family-reunion video chats, or record an archival video of “best times together” or “what I most appreciate about you.” The possibilities for extra hours of togetherness are endless.
So are the opportunities, I’m finding out, for considering changes in how and where we live. Entering her second month of physical distancing in the home I (Lisette) sold them 20 years ago — and watching mortgage rates drop — a former real estate client of mine, Rebecca, called to tell me that she and her had stayed up half the night talking about their best possible future. “The kids are grown and we’re not getting any younger,” Rebecca explained, “We decided that we’d like to live closer to our grandkids” she continued.
After catching up on each other’s lives, sharing how grateful they were for the memories they had made in the family home and looking at what was on the market, Rebecca and her husband asked for my help selling their home (with special virtual showings) and searching for a new dream home.
And so, whether being at home 24/7 for the past month has got you thinking about spring cleaning, remodeling, having fun doing nothing or moving, make the most of this found time with your family and yourself. And stay well. Your best possible future awaits!
It is our deepest hope and prayer that you and your family are faring well in this frightening and unsettling new normal, and that in time and with great caution, we will all be coming out of our homes and going back out into the world. May you find ways to make the most of your time at home, become the better, bolder, and more loving version of yourselves and live your dreams whatever they may be.
Lisette & Ken
Lisette Omoss, Realtor, Coastal Premier Properties: lisetteomoss@coastpremieronline.com
Ken Druck, Ph.D., Lisette’s fiancé, is a best-selling author and internationally known expert on courageous living, resilience and turning adversity into opportunity. ken@kendruck.com and www.facebook.com/drkendruck
