Well, I have officially been laid off for an entire month at this point, and I have managed to stay reasonably busy. Every day I have a project or two, and I rotate through about 15 different activities each day, which really helps to keep my mind from getting bored. I wanted to provide some small insight into my past month to fill up a few minutes of your own quarantine.
First, when I realized I would have plenty of time on my hands, I realized it would be the perfect time to do more home projects that we had not yet completed. For us, that meant working on the laundry room, which needed paint and then some wallpaper. The wallpaper may have been a moderately stressful evening for Andrea and I, but we worked together and made it through!
This room is looking gorgeous right now, and it’s not even done. Big thanks to my father in law for making the countertop. He’s also going to be working on a couple other elements for us as well. So while it’s not done yet, it’s very much on it’s way!
Next, in our ensuite bathroom, I sanded and painted part of this cabinet that had discoloured, and then took a small leftover piece of wallpaper from the laundry room and put it in here, giving it a nice textured effect. For more detail on the entire ensuite bathroom, check out Andrea’s blog post here.
Gardening is mostly Andrea’s hobby, but I definitely have my role to play and there’s a lot we do together. With the community garden shut down like many other things, we have created our own little planting paradise in the backyard.
While the weather was still pretty cold early on, I began regularly baking. My favourite creation so far has been these churro cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese icing. They were phenomenal and I look forward to making them again! I also took some time to reorganize our pantry which hadn’t been done since we moved in and sort of threw all the stuff wherever.
We worked together to build all of my Lego modular buildings, and we have a perfect shelf to display them all in our den. There’s definitely space for a few more. Too bad they’re rather expensive and the budget is so meagre these days. But that just opens the door for some good birthday presents in the future!
Now for the super boring photos…I reorganized all of our important paperwork and got everything filed properly, I replaced a broken hinge on a cupboard, and then our dishwasher control panel shorted out and I needed to replace that as well. So I went on an adventure to the loading dock of some warehouse in Surrey and waited for a guy to come out the back and hand me my new part from the top of a staircase while I stood at the bottom. These are strange times, I tell you. Anyway, I pulled the dishwasher apart, replaced the control panel, and it’s all working fine now!
Life can be depressing these days, but it’s important to make the best of it, whether that’s reading in a sunny spot in the backyard (although this photo is of Andrea, I have also sat out there reading an entire book over a few hours and got a mild sunburn which made me really happy after being inside for so long).
Or, you could make banana splits with random gigantic bags of discount bananas at IGA that were still green and so really….why were they discounted? Meh, whatever, don’t question it. Just enjoy.
Once the sun made it’s appearance, I got outside for a couple afternoons and painted a patio table that we got from Andrea’s parents. It’s around 25ish years old, so it has seen a fair bit of use and weather. I painted it with a leftover paint sample from Home Depot when we were painting the house. Looks pretty great for $5 and a couple hours work. The paint won’t last forever, but I am really proud of our use of a random paint sample that was sitting in the garage.
We’ve been making sure to go out for walks. Sometimes together, and sometimes on our own for some alone time. I am loving all the little things that people in our community have been doing with their kids, be it filling their windows with colourful art projects, or painting rocks to leave on trails in the neighbourhood.
We have been making sure to meal plan so we don’t completely lose track of the days and food we might need to use up, and now that I got my hands on some yeast while I was out for other errands last week, I have also joined the bread baking world for my first loaf. It’s a very simple white freeform loaf. I am happy to report baked up perfectly and tastes great, giving me confidence to keep trying new things!
I want to wish all of you a happy and safe quarantine as we all continue to live our lives as best we can. I encourage you all to break out the Christmas pyjamas. It really helps to liven up your life when you feel the pit of despair coming ever closer. Oh and also, since this photo I gave myself a hair cut since I know how to do that. I’m sorry to all of you who are wishing you had gotten haircuts before this started. On the plus side, Andrea is about 10 days away from letting me cut her hair too. I’m very excited….
See you next month!
Growing Inside, Shrinking Outside 
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