Publisher's Notes

Time to Hug

Wow…have you been out there lately? It’s as if the city of Omaha is rediscovering itself after a long hibernation. Everywhere I go is crowded…and I love it. If you want to go out to dinner, I’d suggest making a reservation. Make sure you allow plenty of drive time to get to your destination, because we now have traffic!

It’s as if we can’t get enough of being around human beings again. People are hugging family members and friends that they haven’t been able to see or touch for so long. I don’t know about you, but this freedom feels like a huge sigh of relief to me. I don’t think most of us realized how hungry we all were for human interaction. As they say, you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.

2020 will go down as a year we will never forget. A lot of the people I talk to call it “the lost year.” We all had to learn how to live differently. Love differently. Respect differently. It wasn’t easy. It was the most challenging year ever for most of us.

I am one of those “glass half full” kind of people. I believe that when the dust settles, and we are able to reflect on what we’ve all been through, we will all find a silver lining of some kind.

As I spoke with business owners over the last 15 months, it was often a challenge to come up with something positive and uplifting to try and help them. My goal was always to encourage them. Some of them wanted to open up and talk to someone, to connect. Some of them wanted to simply vent to another business owner. Others were looking for any way to make it through this. I kept calling, kept connecting.

Over the last couple of months, there has been a real change in the vibe and energy of businesses around town. I feel real optimism that things have turned around. The biggest complaint I hear now is about the lack of employees to keep up with the demand! This is a good thing, though. “Too busy” is something that is manageable.

Our readers have been fantastic through it all. They have taken to heart the “shop local” theme and have let our advertisers know how much they appreciate their support of Women’s Edition each month. Our readers love the positive slant we’ve maintained in the magazine…even when it was, at times, an incredible challenge to do so.

The last half of 2021 will be fantastic. Thank you all for hanging in there with us!