Laurie Mustard / Winnipeg Free Press
Laurie Mustard has been spending his time social distancing and cleaning up his backyard storage building.
So what are you doing to pass your solitary time away?
I’m basically organizing stuff, tidying up, partly so I’ll actually know where things are, and earlier this week, I targeted a specific area of my shed. I intended to do all of this last summer, but a hernia repair needed time to mend so I couldn’t move much stuff around. Back to full lifting capacity again — feels good.
So far I have moved absolutely everything out of one area to the bare gravel, then covered it with used carpet from a friend’s home (excellent for covering gravel floors, so nice to work on), then moved chosen storage stuff back. That stuff includes a 1956 Eaton’s Christmas window display that becomes animated when plugged in and is a precious piece of history.
For the curious, yes, that is a 1952 Studebaker, which my dad sold new, and I delivered with him to Lyleton after it it was traded back in a year later, it’s definitely a keepsake.
I was curious too, about what others are doing to pass their time away these surreal days, so I checked around with a few folks and got some great feedback.
Let’s start with a funny.
Neil Mackie — "We are self isolating and with no sports to watch I am spending a lot of time talking with my wife. She seems like a nice person."
Bren Shaw-Nichols — "I like how people are trying to stay connected by painting pictures on their window or putting up different coloured paper to let neighbours know how they’re doing — like green paper says I’m OK. Yellow means need groceries and so on, it’s pretty cool. Isolation is not easy and it helps to look out my window and see the neighbours communicating this way."
Peter Bjornson — "I am working from home, emptying the job jar, refilling the job jar, binge watching some streaming series and really enjoying listening to my kids practising their music. The dogs and cats are quite curious about having five adults at home."
Sounds fun Peter, but I think they are just sizing us up to see how many meals they can get out of us should we run out of food for them. I know mine are.
Christopher Golden — "Rebuilding a model railway engine shed, teaching myself Greek conversation, and tidying up my colossal music library."
Nancy Gill — "I’m working on a box of wine."
Lorne Lautens — "Working on my motorcycle, playing guitar, dog walks, yard work, painting the garage, income tax, sitting in the hot tub, and barbecues. Life is good."
Gloria Turner — "Purge purge purge! Wait a minute, where’s my husband?"
Geoff Fierce — "Synchronizing all my photos (60,000-plus) to three external drives I keep for copies, as well as all important data, downloads that don’t come with Windows 10 and my Outlook files, as I get ready for my new computer that is being built and I should have by the end of the week at the latest."
Neil Mackie — "Not to brag, but I completed a jigsaw puzzle in one week that said 9 plus years!"
Kevin Kendel — "I’m outside of Winnipeg in isolation with my special-needs daughter while my wife is staying in Winnipeg running our business, which is considered an essential service. My daughter is on immune suppression medications in order for her to live. We have been in isolation for over two weeks now and getting to know each other better than we have in the 21 years she’s been with us. I’m learning many new skills such as baking a cake and applying finger nail polish. We are having a great time together and have not been bored a single day."
Beautiful Kevin. Perfect way to wrap today’s column.
Take care folks. Be well.
Comments or feedback always welcome!
lmustard1948@gmail.com
