Summer started early this year. A time when the kids are home and playing outside. When they can help with chores around the house before gaming or watching TV. Thank goodness our kids are grown and married now. It’s difficult getting kids to pitch in sometimes, isn’t it?
Kevin and I started working on our summer projects in March. Why? Yes, you can guess, really couldn’t do anything else, so why not? Our daughter and her husband lived with us for seven years. There were rooms added to this house when my parents purchased it back in the day. We were a big family, so we needed extra space. We needed an additional bathroom, too! Seven people and one bathroom made life a little hectic. But I digress. My daughter and her husband lived in this back section of the house but moved to Oregon last October.
Kevin’s traveling for work ended abruptly after the first week in March, so we began redecorating. In February, we had finally gotten everything out of our storage unit and back in the house, in the rafters, and in the backyard, storage shed. We continued working through all of that, finding furniture and art and other accessories for our rooms. We patched the walls and painted the back two rooms.
Kevin moved his office from my former childhood bedroom into the smaller of the two back rooms, and we put together a family room in the other space. We are big movie fans, so we have decorated that room in photos and posters of classic movies with reel-to-reels as accents on the walls. He also sanded and refinished an old bookshelf that takes up most of one wall.
Kevin bought some CD frames and remodeled my former childhood bedroom into an office/studio for me, with all the CDs I had been on over the years, mounted upon the walls. I finally have one room for my music/office. Yay!
The next project started before the others were finished–the backyard. This is far from finished, but we have a good head start. It was full of overgrown weeds. Ugh! But, now we have green grass–imagine what a little H20 can do, right? I watered while Kevin dug out big weeds. We bought some vegetables and started a small garden two months ago, and we are eating our harvest–zucchini, Japanese eggplant, bell peppers, and strawberries.
Watering is soothing work for me, and about all I can do with my hip problem. Kevin is now digging out a patio. The winds were nasty about a month ago, and our fence was destroyed. That was replaced yesterday.
Last week, Kevin worked two nights in a row. The first night included two hours of rototilling and the second night fighting a 50-year-old rose bush that had grown so tall and heavy that it had fallen over. He came in and said, “Okay, so tomorrow, can I just sort paper clips?”
There is no reason to stay unproductive when things need to be done. I can almost hear my mom saying that. She was always a busy and productive lady. So, Kevin works from his office, and I work from mine. Well, sometimes, I do. Mostly, I work from the couch. Researching, writing, editing, blogging, etc., keep me pretty busy.
Why write all this? Keeping your mind focused on things you cannot control, e.g., COVID 19, riots, hatred, media is harmful to your health. It causes anxiety, stress, fear, and let’s face it, it’s exhausting. Canceled trips to visit family, heartbreaking. No visiting and hugging friends, no going to church — depressing.
Having something positive to occupy your mind is helpful, relieving stress. It builds up instead of tears down the psyche. We haven’t had cable in years, so we aren’t stressed out watching the news. Instead, we listen to praise music and old hymns of the faith. We practice gratitude. We work together. Kevin loves to read to me, so he reads us uplifting books. We listen to the Bible together. Building hope in our souls, refreshing our spirits. What the world tears down in the soul and spirit, the Word of God builds up.
So, what are you up to this summer? What have you been doing to occupy your time and de-stress? The world wants to know. Well, at least I do. 😉