After nearly two years of battling COVID-19, fatigue has set in for many people.

We are tired of wondering who around us might be infected. We are sick of wearing masks. We are fed up with health and government officials telling us what to do — or at least reminding us of what we should do as responsible citizens who care about our friends, family, neighbors and community.

Although I wish this were not the case, I don’t think the end of any of this is in sight. With the omicron variant raging across the nation and around the globe — and millions of people still refusing to be vaccinated against the coronavirus — it seems likely to me that we are still in for months, if not years, of trying to overcome this pandemic.

So, what can help relieve the stress and tension?

For me, there’s nothing quite so satisfying as a job well done. Now while I have plenty of opportunities to work on articles, columns, page design and other projects here at The Times Leader, sometimes I feel the need to change my focus.

That was part of the plan just before Christmas, when my husband, Mike, and I decided our living room needed a facelift before the holidays. We set out to give it a completely new look, choosing a new paint color, selecting new molding to trim around the celining and opting to completely change the window treatments.

We took a few vacation days and dove right into that project. Of course, there were plenty of stumbling blocks along the way. While we wanted to dedicate all of our time off to our mini renovation, we ended up having a furnace problem as well as a few other issues throughout the week.

We became frsutrated and irritated. We thought we might not manage to achieve our goal. But we did not give up, and we did manage to give our living room an entirely new look.

We couldn’t be more pleased with the results.

But it’s not just the new appearance of the walls and windows that we are happy with. We are also pleased with ourselves. It boosted our spirits to remind ourselves that we could do whatever we set our minds to. It made us happy that we were able to cooperate and work together, each of drawing on our own talents and skills (and his ability to reach much higher than I can).

We found a way to make it all work. And by doing so, we ended up getting exactly what we wanted.

That is what we need to do collectively to get to the other side of this pandemic. We need to work together to slow the spread of this illness, relying on the knowledge and skills of scientists and physicians who can guide us toward success.

So, let’s try not to be demoralized by the latest wave of the coronavirus. Instead, let’s do whatever we can to protect ourselevs and others, and find constructive things to do while we wait for it to pass.