I’ve been using my BBQ/Smoker a lot this past year. Something about being able to cook with fire pleases me immensely. You have to judge a lot of things – and sometimes you make mistakes. I like that aspect of it.
After all the smoking and grilling is done, it’s also really very nice to be able to sit by a fire and sip a splosh of something. Just to watch the flames. Good for the soul.
Of course that all depends on whether it’s lashing down with rain or not. So May was great, June not so much, so far.
The other thing about lockdown is I’ve been reading a lot more. Really enjoying the Kindle rather than a paperback. I’ve been making my way through the Lee Child ‘Jack Ryan’ series – although I’ve got stuck on one in the series as I have it in a physical book. Much harder to read at night in bed.
I’ve also been using DuoLingo to try and learn another language. I’m just not great at them. Did give German a go and finished Level 1 after one lesson a day. So I’m on about a 600 day streak. Although I’ve gone back to learning Italian as at least my accent isn’t terrible
So I’m spending a lot of my time in shorts and smelling of woodsmoke while learning things. It’s not too bad so far.
Apart from my waistline. My cardio exercise has plummeted. I easily did 15K steps a day, and now I’m lucky to break 6-7K. So something needs to be done about that. The problem is avoiding people as I don’t fancy a dose of COVID. My neighbourhood seems to have a lot of old people doing a lot of exercise.
One big task does need to be done before I return to Corporate life though. When Herself’s Mum died just over two years ago – she decided we would live in the family home. Okay by me. We were house hunting anyway and it’s in a nice area by the coast. She just couldn’t face selling it.
Her parents travelled Africa and the Middle East a lot, and brought a LOT back with them, so the house is quite full (I’m not sure I can put Ivory on eBay…). We moved two other houses into this one (mine and half of hers) so it’s a bit…cluttered. We’re keeping her house for now as it’s a lot cheaper to pay the mortgage on that than to pay for long term storage. Just until we work out what to do.
Herself is very sentimental. An only child who adored her parents. She’s also very into recycling and upcycling – there is to be no waste in her world.
So how do you think that goes with ‘thinning down’ the clutter?
Exactly.
I have a giant trunk of Tupperware from the 70s (you can tell by the colour) sitting in the garage because it reminds her of her mum and it ‘Might come in handy’.
I have to find the right way of saying “We’re never going to use it, nobody else would want it, try and list on eBay but if not then it goes in the bin”
All without tears and tantrums.
Multiplied by every single thing in the house…
We’ve both worked really hard, and travelled a lot, so this is probably going to be the only time one of us can get it done. We need to do some renovations on the house and I’ve gently explained that to do that, the builders need to not have stuff everywhere.
I’m not looking forward to it, but needs must. It’s why I’m going to have a few weeks of doing nothing first.
I also bought a keyboard for my iPad (typing this on it). It’s okay. Hopefully I write more often to get back into the groove. Wish Marsedit was on the iPad though (this is the WordPress app).