Happy New Year! (or Thank the Deities that 2020 is Finally Over!)

Happy New Year, everybody!  

I don't think I'm alone in the fact that I'm super happy to leave 2020 behind in the dust.  This year was full of trials and tribulations for almost everybody.  For my family, my mom ended up getting covid in early fall which meant I had a number of days where I had to bring my two-year-old son to work with me while I taught Calculus III (not many toddlers sit through multiple Calculus III lessons I'm guessing).  Happily, my mom recovered and she's back to babysitting my son during my work days!  In addition to my mom, my brother and his entire family (wife and two kids) also ended up contracting covid, though they caught the virus in early spring (they are all okay now as well).  

Luckily (and knock on wood just to be safe), my wife, myself, and my son have managed to stay covid-free thus far.  I wasn't sure if that'd be the case for me since I had to teach (in person) all semester long but my college students did a remarkably good job of maintaining safety protocols.

Side note:  How is "covid" not yet a word that Blogger recognizes being spelled correctly?!  

The other bummer for my family in 2020 was that we had booked a cruise that was to happen during my spring break from work.  Unfortunately, that ended up being the week that the country really went into lockdown mode.  The worst part wasn't missing the cruise but rather it was the fact that Carnival refused to refund us our money...so if there's one thing that I'm taking out of 2020 and applying moving forward it's that I'll never book another cruise with Carnival for the rest of my life.

With 2020 in the books, it's time to look ahead to brighter days in 2021.  I'm hoping to get a 2020 New Year's Resolution wrap-up post written soon...and then I'll need to figure out some 2021 Resolutions as well!  For now though, I hope everyone has a Happy 2021 - stay safe and stay healthy my friends!