Friday was like a nightmare from the past — the work-at-home COVID past. What was I thinking?!

I decided Friday morning that I wanted to work from home, basically, to just have a change of scenery from the office setting. It would be quieter and my laptop could do all the things I needed it to do — format and edit articles and photos, email, and having access to the system we use to post stories for print and the websites.

Well, halfway through the morning — I fired up my laptop at my usual time of 7 — I wished I had traveled the five miles to 97 Townsend Ave.

First, no one was working at the time, so my email telling those I sent it to that I was staying on Back Narrows Road today was not answered for over two hours. Fearing something was wrong with my email, I texted my assistant editor, Susan Johns, to see if she had received the email. She did and that was somewhat of a relief.

Secondly, only one or two press releases were in my inbox the entire morning, so that part of my job was slow going. There were only three items in the system for me to edit and I wrote a quick wrap-up of a basketball game. In between, I cleaned out the coffee pot, folded laundry, cleaned out the refrigerator, and washed the dishes, then put them away.

After eating a bowl of cereal, I returned to my laptop, scanned the articles ready to be placed in this week's issue, and made sure the articles were approved and the dates set for publishing online.

While it was still pretty quiet, I decided to make a quick run to the dump (with the dog, of course) to avoid the sloppy mess predicted to fall overnight on Saturday. As I headed out the door, the first sign of life from the staff, outside of Susan's text, was a phone call from reporter Fritz Freudenberger around 10.

After returning from my 15-minute break and still not seeing much in the way of work, I decided to delve into a side assignment of judging items for the New Jersey Press Association.

At 2 p.m., I took the dog for its afternoon walk. Only a few cars went by (Hey, there's my neighbor, Brandy! She and I exchanged a smile and a wave). The snow cover, the too-quiet situation brought me back to 2020 and the awful days of working at home.

There's nothing like the shuffling of feet, the ringing of phones, the opening and closing of doors, the office banter and — sorry to say, my furry friends — no animals (we also have three cats) to look after, which makes working in an office much more enjoyable.

It was a nice break but right now, Friday at 3 p.m., I am looking forward to getting in my Kia and heading down the road on Monday morning.