As I scrolled through Facebook this week, I was reminded that last year at this time, my family and I were vacationing in St. Maarten. We actually should have been there right now, but instead, we are living in an unknown and ever-changing version of life. Traveling seems like a distant dream.

My dining room table is now my desk and all my communication with clients is virtual. It’s certainly not what I ever expected to be doing, but all we can do is prepare and keep moving forward. 

We are all adjusting to our new normal. My son is navigating remote learning and even taking piano lessons virtually. When I think about this happening 50 or 100 years ago, I’m thankful we have the technology in place today to keep working and keep in communication. 

Free Conference Call, Zoom, Skype and other video platforms are keeping our business and personal worlds connected and the news, social media and podcasts are keeping us informed and sharing resources about the virus and plans forward. 

As if by some serendipitous chance, my office had just moved to Office 365 a week before the shutdown. This was so helpful, as I can still access my documents without being in my physical office and I plan to use some of the downtime to learn this software in more detail so when I get back, I am ahead of the curve. 

This will help my office be more efficient in the future, putting in information once and having it populate everywhere, fewer chances for human errors to occur and more security overall. 

For now, we have the ability to do conference calls on Zoom with clients. There is also an executive order in New York permitting remote notarization and remote witnessing of wills, powers of attorney, health care proxies, deeds and other documents. There are conditions to discuss, so call me to go over everything. These will expire and may or may not be extended and things are changing often.

We should look at this Great Pause as a gift. This is a very unique time. We have the ability to reset how we look at things, how we do things, the choices we make. Our world is healing in the way of less pollution and nature is thriving. There is a silver lining to this otherwise scary time. Life doesn’t stop. This is a Great Pause and time for reflection. As for me, I am happy to be in quarantine with my husband and son and I check in with my sisters every day on the phone.

What are you doing during this time? How can I help you? What are your questions? I’m always here for you and look forward to the future.