Being Grounded

When I was a kid, my best friend and I played outside a tonne. Those where the days when you could play out of sight and out of mind. Parents weren't concerned about their kids being abducted and eaten by a bear. We'd go play up the mountain near our homes, or in the water field at the base of the mountain. We called it the Water Field because the ground sloped downwards in one area and, in the fall, winter and spring, there was always standing water. It made for a great hockey rink if you didn't mind playing around the cottonwood trees, red ossier dogwood bushes and other shrubbery sticking out of the ice.

The thing was... it wasn't always clear how thick the ice was... particularly in the spring and fall. We would have our rubber boots on and we would tentatively inch out onto the ice and... sometimes we'd be golden but... other times... we'd crash through and end up with soakers. Some worse than others. I think one time my friend crashed through and the water was up to his waist. That was not a fun adventure.

I still have this Lego house!

Anyhow... we'd squelch home in our soggy wellies and... both of us would get grounded for a week. No going out on our bikes. No adventures on the mountain. We couldn't even talk on the phone. I was stuck playing at home with my sister (5 years younger...) or in our backyard. Luckily, I was an introvert so a grounding wasn't a cruel punishment. I had more than enough books to read and could play with my Legos all by myself for hours... or with my train set or... any number of other toys. I don't think I was every bored...

Today... it kind of feels like Mother Nature has wielded the same tool. Most of us are grounded. Oh sure, we can still go out for groceries and walks or call our friends on the phone or video chat. But we are essentially stuck at home... no... wait... we GET to stay at home for most of the day, interacting with the people in our household. Maybe chat with the neighbour over the fence as he builds his own greenhouse and raised beds.

On Facebook, I see people reading books, decluttering and doing puzzles. I've been doing that too... got a 1000 piece puzzle on the go right now. But... whereas in the past, I might have buckled down and nailed the puzzle in 3 hours... now, I'm kind of just pecking away at it for 15 minutes here or half an hour there.

As for books... most of the ones on my shelves have been read and some have been read multiple times. My usual source of books is the pubic library and that source has dried up. I guess I could borrow books from the e-library or even buy some online but... the interest isn't there right now.
 

Before - Blue Closet

And decluttering... well, I guess I'm doing a bit of that too... organizing and sorting things and then seeing what can stay and what can go. Although... stockpiling the donation pile is becoming a problem!

Which means, I have plenty of time on my hands... and the motivation to handle a lot of the incomplete projects around the house. And there are a lot. Big ones... little ones... I am using my own advice (what an idea) and just taking the next small step in accomplishing whatever task is in my sights.

Case in point... when we moved into this house, the previous owners had some rather eclectic ideas of what a closet should look like. No closet doors for one thing - but that got handled early on thanks to the Restore. But... the one bedroom closet was painted a deep dark red and the other was painted a deep dark blue.

After - Painted Closet

I handled the red one a few years ago when I added some extra shelving to the closet. But the blue one has been lingering for 7+ years now. It wasn't a high priority closet as it is in my office but... every time I opened the closet, it would niggle at me. Plus... being such a deep, dark colour, it sucked up all the light in the closet and it was hard to find things in there...

So, a few weeks ago, I buckled down, dug out the half-full can of primer and some left-over paint from a basement reno (off-white) and... just did it. Took two coats of primer and two coats of paint but... it is complete.

That is a huge weight off of my to-do list because that project had been sitting on the list for years and grown quite weighty. Completing that project has also created some space... and I can now see a few other little projects and are next on the horizon.

I guess, in some ways, at the end of all this, I want to have something to show for days of self-isolation... A rejuvenated body, mind and spirit as well as a slimmed-down list of incomplete to-dos!