It’s been an interesting last 14 days since getting terminated from my job. The Board at my old job handled the termination abysmally and exceptionally unprofessionally. No one can possibly ever take them seriously and I certainly will never be donating any money to them!
But, on to nicer things:
My life is constantly comprising of gardening, cleaning the house, playing with the cats, and writing. It’s been a good thought-emitter and rather cathartic for me. I’m naturally a home body and very house-proud, and to be honest, the last 3 ½ months of being “stuck at home” did not for one minute feel like I was “STUCK” at home. No, I didn’t go out. I did what I was told and stayed the heck away from germy people (and still do).
I’ve had a few chats with my neighbours over the fence. Unlike Tim from “Home Improvement” we can see each other’s faces and have enjoyed many a chat during the hot afternoons.
I’ve had a few Zoom meetings and even a few Zoom happy hours which have been nice. Greg is back at work under strict rules, that he created for himself and his clients in order to stay safe. He is taking it very seriously and I’m very proud of him for staying on top of things.
My garden has done pretty well this year, no doubt due to fact that I was here 24/7. I’ve babied it a bit and although it’s a lot of hard work that has to be done early in the morning due to the heat and humidity, I’m happy with how it’s turning out. I’m currently in the “hurry up and wait” stage where I just have to wait for the veggies to ripen and grow. It’s frustrating because I “need” those tomatoes and potatoes to hurry up. I don’t want to have to BUY veggies when I have a perfectly good crop halfway ready to eat. Weeding is an on-going hassle, and by “on-going hassle” I mean a total pain in the patootie! Everything hurts after weeding day! Being home all the time also means that I’m able to water the plants whenever they need it and not necessarily on a schedule they don’t need.
Hands up all those who’ve tried to cut their hair! (insert hand high in the air!) I gave it a shot and now I permanently wear a ponytail! I did however complete a successful colouring, but I have been doing that myself for years, so it doesn’t really count. I’ve always admired the creativity of hair stylists, but now my admiration is soaring. My hair will probably just develop an attitude of its own and take on the form of a rabid alien beast. Oh wait… looks in the mirror… never mind!
I took care of a few projects around the house which I’m very pleased with. I painted the laundry room. I’ve been wanting to do that for years but never had the time or inclination to do it. Also, it meant moving the washing machine and dryer out of the way, which is a thorn in Greg’s side. But, we moved them, and I painted and painted and painted. The walls are outside cement walls in the basement. First, we scrubbed the walls and then vacuumed the walls. We had to wear masks when doing that and the air was choked with dust and we were filthy (and wheezing). I vacuumed into the floor joists in the ceiling too and sucked up a few dead critters! The walls soaked up EVERY splotch of paint I threw on it – and I literally did “throw” paint at it at times. The wall was so porous and sort of holey that I did more dabbing than painting. I sealed it with the undercoat and then painted on top. It didn’t cost us anything because I have a lot of leftover paint. It took several days to complete but by the time we put everything back in place it was looking 100% better and I’m very pleased with it. No more disgustingly filthy cement walls. Now they are slightly off-white-ish and clean.
Oh, I also hand washed my car. It doesn’t sound like a big deal and something I should be doing regularly anyway, but I don’t. I’m not super bonded with my car. I feel it’s too big for me and things are in the wrong place for my liking. I’m 5’3” and the car is built for a man, or at least a 5’9” person. I was quite pedantic about cleaning it and ended up scraping tree sap off it and cleaning in between parts that you can’t see but I know are there. It took me an hour to vacuum it out too. I polished the inside and sprayed nice smelly stuff inside. I never keep any trash or, well, anything in my car so it was a relatively easy clean. I must admit that it did shine nicely for the 2 days before the rains came! Now I’m back to not being bothered about it again.
I also accomplished a lot of other smaller tasks and threw away a bunch of stuff I still have no idea why I was keeping. I still have more sorting out to do, but for now I’m busying myself with some writing.
I’ve done quite a bit of reading lately too. Due to being rather absent-minded and distracted I’ve been focusing on cozy mysteries that are quick reads. They work well when insomnia strikes. We have also been binge-watching some shows on Netflix/Prime/Apple TV. We are into shows that have video description for the blind and Netflix does a pretty good job of that. Right now we’re are 1 ½ seasons away from completing Breaking Bad. I’ve also been watching Grantchester. We found out that the new season of Umbrella Academy gets released on July 31st so we’re bookmarking that. Hopefully we’ll be finished with Breaking Bad by then if we work hard at it.
Usually this time of year we head up north for a few days to Greg’s mom, but we don’t want to risk taking any viruses with us nor coming back with any, so we will stay home and eat here!
I think there’s some truth in the saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Things sure have changed, but those changes become familiar and they become the new “same”. COVID-19 has changed us a lot. Missouri is dealing with an increase in new cases every day and it looks like there will be a new rule enforcing mask wearing. Why would you not wear a mask anyway? I think it’s kind of sexy and people have been so creative with the material and patterns that they use for home-made masks. Please do me a favour and just wear the darn mask when you’re out. Why would you risk getting sick? I lost too many people I cared about last year to put anyone through that because of carelessness or ignorance.
Oh hark! I believe I’m hearing the theme song to Magnum PI. That’s my cue.
Peace y’all!
A new way of life!
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