I am retired, all my social obligations are on hold for the foreseeable future and I certainly can’t stay in bed all day(Well, I did…until My Beloved started talking about her sword collection pointedly). Something has to fill that time gap, but fortunately My Beloved has gifted me with a hardcopy subscription to the Sunday New York Times. I slowly go through every single section, from most favorite to least, from the news, to the travel section to the book reviews to the in depth stories in the Magazine. It is two to three days of connecting to the world, and I’m loving it.
So, what have y’all turned to to fill in the time?
I’m enjoying lots of time with the Grand-wreks. We’ve had many craft projects and story times. I would like to play board games but age disparity is not easily worked around. There’s a couple of card games the 2 youngest can keep up with. Slap-Jack and GoFish.
I’m enjoying bossing around my unmotivated garden-helpers.
I’ve never laughed so hard as I have lately because of the lil’wrekkers boyfriend. He is such a serious and cerebral type to see him trying to navigate this crazy family just tickles me. Poor boy.
I’m still working from home, but have the pleasure of hearing my daughter tearing her hair out as she attempts to get the kids to engage in some semblance of schooling.
I have actually finally bonded with my pair of bengal cats. They used to pee in inappropriate places when frustrated by me being gone all day or for a three day weekend. Now that we are together all day we are all relaxed and I can even leave for the weekend without coming home to a house that need sanitized.
I may never go back to the office full time again if I can swing it. And I think that I can.
Watching my cat play outside. I have finally trained him to stay in the backyard, which is big enough and interesting enough to keep him entertained. I built a cinder block tower for him to climb so he can be king of the mountain. I like looking out through the window and seeing him on the mountain, looking down at the world below. Because I’m working from home, I keep the backdoor propped open so he can come and go as he pleases. I like when he comes into the house seemingly to check on me. He’ll jump up on the dining room table (which is currently doubling as my work space), walk over my keyboard, give me a kiss (if I put my face in front of his), and then he’ll run back outside. I didn’t know he was such a loving scamp until this whole lockdown business.
I am going through the episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series, to be followed by Deep Space Nine. Some time ago, I had finished Voyager and The Next Generation, but by the time I got to The Original Series, I joined some volunteering activities which, combined with my work and exercise routines, sucked up all my free time. Now these activities are on hold and I can finally progress through the series.
Okay, mine really is involved with my sf collection. I’ve gotten it all in a database already, but when I started it, a bit more than 50 years ago, I wrote down when and where I bought each book and magazine, and when I read it. I’ve been entering it in the database, but it affects me far more than I would have imagined. I had my first date right after I bought that book and read that other one. I was taking driver’s ed then. Here are some I bought in New Rochelle when I was sent there for work, and here are some I bought when I went back. I remember some of the bookstores I bought from, but not others until I see the entry.
Plus my mother worked in a hospital then, and they had a continuing book sale, and she bought me gobs of books. Which was pretty nice of her, and is a good memory.
I’m scanning the 100’s, probably a few 1000, photos in my grandparents old albums. I’ve created a facebook group to publish them and invited all my relatives to help identify who is who and where they were taken. It’s laborious but satisfying.
I’m sitting on my porch, watching the neighbors walk their dogs.
And I’ve been biking, ending up in a random small town. And just wandering through a park or an abandoned downtown, sitting on a bench. It was raining yesterday, so I drove (farther than I could bike in a day), ended up sitting in the car and staring at the old architecture of an 1800s Main Street.
Back in the day, I’d’ve found an antique store, bought an old book and read it in a coffeeshop… sigh. But now, just enjoying having time.
I have been cleaning/purging. I rearranged the whole kitchen, bathrooms, junk drawers, then worked my way through the yard and garage. The yard doesn’t look good,but it no longer looks like an eyesore. I sorted all the books (like 50 boxes) and culled maybe a third of them. Now I am going to repack all the books in a little bit more of an organized fashion so that when I finally get bookcases I can put them on the market. Then there are a couple more closets. By the time that’s all done, the yard will need more work.
I wrenched my back real bad yesterday moving books. The Teledoc says that home-improvement related injuries are way up.
I’m still working full time, but my evenings and weekends have totally opened up because my kids’ schedules have totally cleared out. I knit, and do it very slowly, so it normally takes me a year or two to finish a sweater. I’m almost done with the one I started at the beginning of the shutdown. Our dog has gotten more walks than she ever has in her life. I’m killing it on my Goodreads 2020 reading challenge. Basically, I’m totally enjoying just sitting around and doing whatever I feel like. My youngest son has taken up baking bread, so I’m also spending time eating it.
My husband is only working two days a week, so I’ve been giving him all the annoying cleaning/organizing chores :).
