Find any excuse to go to Walmart. Shit people, I’m so fucking bored. My entire social life is work. I really like the guys I work with but fuck me, I need more than work and home. Especially being a freshly re-minted single guy. Plus my birthday is Good Friday. Yeah, paid day off, 3 day weekend but it’s gonna be shit.
Goddammit people calm the fuck down! This isn’t the Plague
Being retired, this isn’t that much different from normal days, except not being able to shop outside of supermarkets, and no damn libraries.
Before I retired I walked around my house noting all the things I had meant to get to but didn’t have the time, and made a spreadsheet of them. Worked great.
Seriously, I have a houseful. Virus refugees. There plenty to do. Or, there’s plenty I can delegate to them to do.
I’m making them all garden. We will be needing produce if this goes on as long as predicted. So all hands on deck.
One of my wacky thoughts is this virus was created by the Swiss to encourage spring cleaning.
Clean the oven.
Clean the exterior venetian blinds. Something that “should” be done once a year. Not sure when the last time I did this.
Then clean the windows.
Put away winter clothing and put summer clothing in rotation. Except it’s supposed to snow later today. Oh, right. We’re not going anywhere, so we can stay in until it gets warm.
Oil wooden furniture, according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Yesterday we decide the ficus must die. We’ve had it for almost 19 years and it just takes too much space and always drops leaves.
So we’re going to take it out by pieces and put another plant (who itself needs repotting) in that planter. I have to check if we have enough hydroponic pebbles, but I’m fairly certain we do.
Make husband go for a walk. He’s getting depressed, peevish and snappy and some exercise would do him a world of good.
Clean microwave, stovetop and exterior of oven.
Sharpen all kitchen knives.
Clean the plantation-style shutters in the bedroom.
Rummage out the never-used pots and pans from the back of the cupboard, and get rid of them.
Sort CD collection and get rid of a lot. Mr. brown has all his music on his computer, so most of them can go. I’m a dinosaur who still plays CDs in my car, so I’ll want to keep a few.
Figure out how the scanner works on our cheapy home printer/scanner. I have some receipts I need to submit to our health flex plan for reimbursement, and I’d prefer to scan them at home and avoid going to the FedEx store.
Are your thrift stores still open? Our local one has closed.
Let’s see: I’ve done some yard work, rearranged my dresser and put a bunch of stuff in the box to be taken to the thrift store whenever it reopens, and once I get off the computer, I think I’m gonna tackle this mess of a desk. I didn’t get it with full-time teleworking in mind, in addition to paying bills, doing the taxes, etc., and all sorts of different kinds of papers are getting mixed up.
-Spending a lot of time training our new puppy - including taking him for long walks.
-My wife and I have been playing A LOT of music together. If you don’t play an instrument, this is a great time to start.
-Reading A LOT. Yesterday I began an effort to read through all of Shakespeare’s plays.
-Eager for things to dry/warm up so we can garden.
Not denying the tragedy/costs for many, but in some ways, this is an opportunity.
Clean up your cellphone and computer drives. Dump all those ancient to do lists and crud music. Sort out bad photos. Finally set up that Raspberry pi Linux box you bought 5 months ago. Hook your old pi up to the TV.
Finally do proper back ups.
Digitize your last 3 albums and toss them. Meanwhile work out a plan to protect your music from the depredations of the cloud and “advancing” technology.
Take a box of 10 year old basement junk out for each trash collection.
Fix that busted tile in the bathroom.
Clean out your rain gutters and try to get the garage/mower ready for mowing season.
Paint the lawn furniture.
It’s the best year for spring cleaning in 20 years.
Lift weights and get Buff.
That’s me too. Except it was something I needed to do while others are offline, so a Sunday morning works best.
Funny, just 10 minutes ago I made a pledge to myself “You WILL get at least one house project done a day”
It’s going to have to be interior, since we are still *ass deep in snow. I think today it will be window cleaning. ugh. We have a number of floor to ceiling windows, and two dogs with wet noses. Ya gotta start with a bucket of water.
What sucks is the **seals on all of these window is blown, so they’re a mess know mater how much work you put into them.
*can only see the top two feet of our 6 foot fence. The dogs could get out any time they want to. But so far have been good.
**blown window seal - double pane, condensation gets inside and ruins the view.
My vegetable garden is going to be INSANE this year. Already planted lettuce, radishes, peas, turnips, parsnips, kohlrabi, carrots, beets, cauliflower, broccoli.
Today’s project, as long as the rain holds off: try my hand at bricklaying. Already laid in the supplies pre-shutdown to rebuild one of the brick raised beds next to the garage - it was built originally out of recycled bricks from our chimney that we had taken down when we bought the house 3 years ago. Unfortunately that meant the bricks were pretty beaten up and some still had cement attached to them, so they weren’t even, so the construction adhesive that we used when we built the bed didn’t do the trick, and the bed fell apart over this past winter.
Once the raised bed is rebuilt, I will plant kale, chard, and some Asian greens there.
I also laid in the tools and supplies to do a tile backsplash in our kitchen. Would have done it ages ago if I had realized how easy it is to split tiles with the proper tools.
I have been burning all my CDs to my hard drive, finally.
Need to do our taxes. Hopefully we will get a refund, but I honestly have no idea.
Really glad we just bought a rowing machine in December and put it in the basement!
Since we bought the house, the vast majority of the books have been in plastic tubs in the basement because there is nowhere to put the bookshelves. I am thinking of just setting up the library in the basement because a) after 3 years, we know it’s dry down there, even after a hard rain, and b) it’s clearly going to be a while until we have the money to build out the attic, which is where we eventually want to have the books.
Nah, it’s just some ice cream. (wipes mouth)
I’m getting some things done, for sure.
Cleared out a bunch of old photos on my phone, regained about a third of my storage.
Writing music arrangements.
Built trellis for green beans. Planting veggies.
Making YouTube videos for my channel.
My ex sister in law needs raised planting beds built.
Neighbor needs benches I made for her restained.
Gonna start making my Adirondack chairs for the season. (Dunno who’s going to be able to afford them. Maybe the folks rebuilding from the fires last year.)
Running Windoze updates on a few machines fills many lonely hours. It’s still snowy outside and bears have left hibernation so we’re not strolling about. MrsRico neurotically rearranges our museum-quality collections. I stare at a bunch of stringed instruments that need restringing. We’re cooking new recipes because our grocery pickup orders feature “substitutions”. I have lists of chores I’ll get to eventually, light and weather admitting. And we own books.
I’m fortunate to still be working, which means I’m occupied and bored in a different way. However, I’ve been working on the freezer, pulling stuff out and preparing it, then freezing something new to put in the vacated area. Today I’m freezing the parsley and cilantro that are starting to go, and pressing a block of previously frozen tofu for tonight’s dinner.
It’s still snowy outside and bears have left hibernation so we’re not strolling about. MrsRico neurotically rearranges our museum-quality collections. I stare at a bunch of stringed instruments that need restringing. We’re cooking new recipes because our grocery pickup orders feature “substitutions”. I have lists of chores I’ll get to eventually, light and weather admitting. And we own books.