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So what did you do with the year and a half you spent in your home?

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  • Double on Tundra October 8, 2021, 7:57 AM

    First I was wondering how it would end.

    But after a minute I began to wonder when it would end.

    That’s a lot of Hot Wheels to watch, for a guy raised on HO slot cars.

  • Annie Rose October 8, 2021, 8:07 AM

    When everything initially shut down, I was forced into early retirement and had a lot of time on my hands. I dug into my overflowing quilting closet and pulled out a bunch of UFOs. UFOs are those quilt projects that quilters are excited to start, but then get frustrated or stuck and just abandon them. I pulled those suckers out of the dark recesses of that closet, figured out how to conquer them, and finished them one by one. I’ve made five quilts, two wall hangings, 4 pillows, and various quilted blocks, almost all of them hand quilted. I also initially sewed a lot of masks from my stash of fabric, all of which I gave away. That allowed me the joy of buying fabric for new quilts! I learned to Zoom and through that took quilt and watercolor classes both locally and from across the country and even from Brazil and Australia. Through that process I have learned a lot about myself. I learned to slow down and de-clutter the busyness of my life. I unplugged more from the world and rediscovered the joy of the simple things in life. I expanded my creativity and learned to be less rigid in the process of making something. Quilting and gardening became my therapy and frankly saved my sanity in our now insane world. It’s helped me through the rollercoaster of emotions following the death of my mom a year ago. Yeah, fabric therapy-it’s both an addiction and a cure!

    • Mike Austin October 8, 2021, 12:28 PM

      Wow Annie! You were busy! You accomplished more during the “shut down” than most folks get done in several years.

      As for me, I learned the benefits of napping whenever the mood hit.

  • Anonymous October 8, 2021, 8:12 AM

    I was probably the most fortunate old man in the world during the virus panic theater production.

    I’d started my working life in 1966 at the age of 9, by harvesting produce for an old Belgian who owned 40 acres of truck-garden on 47th Street in Kansas City, KS, for 35 cents per hour and all the tomatoes I could eat.

    I retired when I was 59 and spent a year around the house doing things that bored me, so I went back to work.

    I tried driving a 10-10 (ZTrip) taxi but quickly discovered that too many jackrabbit customers cut into the profits so deeply that I lost money.

    I then chose to get CDL and started driving for a national carrier, and found that I loved the life. During the lock down, while everyone was in their house cowering in fear of a Chinese bio-weapon, I was seeing this huge beautiful country from the left seat of a Volvo truck, pulling freight to wherever the load sent me.

    As a side-note, I was eastbound near Sacramento on the day Paradise burned. I was saddened to learn that one of my favorite writers was directly affected by that devastation.

    I would not trade this over-the-road life for anything, I see how truck drivers are sometimes thought of as modern-day cowboys. I do sort of live out my saddle-bags, I’ve seen the 60-80 mph wind storms across Southern Wyoming, I’ve seen the Tetons from a roadside pullout south of Ashton, Idaho, I’ve seen the beautiful panorama at Mono Lake where the legend of a High Plains Drifter is still told around the campfires, I’ve heard the coyotes singing while loading pulp-board on the Continental Divide at Prewitt, New Mexico, I’ve seen how beautiful the Central Valley of California looks when the water is turned back to the farmers.

    This is an amazing and beautiful country. I’ve been fortunate to see it from that Volvo seat.

    • MarkInKansas October 8, 2021, 11:44 AM

      Somehow, I failed to ensure that I’d identified myself prior to hitting “Submit”, for that post about going out on the road before the pandemic theatre began.

    • Mike Austin October 8, 2021, 12:49 PM

      Pretty cool that what you have seen from your truck reads like “Tears in the Rain” from “Blade Runner”.

  • azlibertarian October 8, 2021, 8:40 AM

    The cynic in me wonders….
    – Was Mattel sponsoring this in some way?
    – At some point, you’ve got to mow that yard. Putting all that stuff away is going to suck.

  • gwbnyc October 8, 2021, 12:08 PM

    shitcanned what started out a year earlier as a wonderful retirement, where I was morphing into someone else.

    OTO hand, what watches over me let me live with a few hail mary medical pricedures and provided an exciting, mysterious, multi-synchronous journey to be right here right now typing this.

  • Gordon Scott October 8, 2021, 12:27 PM

    My life did not change much. I got more working hours because others took advantage of the unemployment bonus.

    • Mike Austin October 8, 2021, 12:46 PM

      I retired a few months before the “shut down”. When the weirdness started nothing much changed for me in Oklahoma City. I rode my bicycles, read voraciously, improved my writing skills, daily exercised, and expanded my repertoire of gourmet cooking and baking.

      I have come to appreciate more than before the simple yet elegant life of enjoying wine and music while cooking, of having mornings blessed with bread that I had baked myself, and that there is scarcely anything as fine as setting in for the evening with a good book. My life has become more relaxed and more at peace. Things I once thought to be essential I now understand to have been trivial.

      • ghostsniper October 8, 2021, 2:05 PM

        In “old days” terminology I retired 4 years ag, that is, I started getting back some of what was stolen from me. I never stopped working. Exchanging the efforts of my toil for coin. I like both. My work. And the coin. Why stop? In fact, in the past 1.5 years my work load has increased at least 4 fold. This year alone I have designed 41 buildings and 7 are in the works currently and 3 more came in today. I imagine by years end I will have designed 70 new buildings total. Since 1986 my best year was 108 buildings designed. Doing all this designing hasn’t left much time for all the other projects I intended to complete this year. That’s a bummer, but I’d rather have excess income than not, so I go with the flow. Who knows, next year I may not have any work at all. So I’m trying to buffer myself for that possibility. If the bottom drops out then my other projects will get my full attention. The farmers almanac predicts a long cold winter ahead. We have 800 gallons of propane, 14 cords of oak, 3 years worth of stored food, all vehicles are greased, gassed, ready, all firearms are maintenanced and loaded as well as the magazines, all blades have been sharpened and stropped. Bring it.

        • Gordon Scott October 8, 2021, 4:27 PM

          Jaysus, 14 cords of oak? We are talking about a stack 14 feet deep, 8 wide and 4 tall? That is a lot of oak.

          • Tom Hyland October 8, 2021, 5:43 PM

            You got it wrong, Gordon. The stack is four feet square and 112 feet tall.

          • ghostsniper October 9, 2021, 4:51 AM

            All tarped, waiting.
            Was 18 cords, traded 4 cords a couple weeks ago to someone that is going to reroof my house next spring. It has 20 year old green shingles, I want silver 5V metal (like my workshop-office). I’ll buy the materials and help with the install. He and his brother will rip off the old. That oak is about half and half red and white. White burns hotter.

  • OneGuy October 8, 2021, 1:02 PM

    I traveled around the country with a travel trailer. The National Parks were closed to camping back then but open to hikers so we hiked the trails pretty much alone. Still doing it.

  • Kevin in PA October 8, 2021, 1:09 PM

    “So what did you do with the year and a half you spent in your home?”

    You had to ask.
    I stayed very stoned for the entire shit-show….and it ain’t over yet.
    I also inventoried all ammo stocks, cleaned all guns monthly. Zeroed all rifles, added a new Aimpoint red-dot to one of the ARs, did a modest amount of target practice, as ammo replenishment was a challenge, sharpened knives, put together a few bug-out bags, replenished all First-Aid supplies in the box and built a stock of supplements specifically for boosting the immune system against the Rona-virus. Set-up go-bags for quick grab and go fight, evade, or disrupt.
    I also had the best garden in years with bumper crops of winter squash for longer storage.
    ….there’s more, but it’s time to burn a fatty. So, I will stop.
    Hot Wheels? No.

    • ghostsniper October 8, 2021, 2:07 PM

      time to burn a fatty.
      =====
      DAM! I’m gonna cry…

      • Kevin in PA October 9, 2021, 4:30 AM

        Fear not, Ghostie!
        Happy to share with you, buddy… just get your ass out for a road trip and stop by my little Shady Grove- where all the pigs have tails.

    • Mike Austin October 8, 2021, 2:11 PM

      “…it’s time to burn a fatty.”

      What do you have against Rosie O’Donnell?

      • Kevin in PA October 9, 2021, 4:08 AM

        Wrong fatty.

  • gwbnyc October 8, 2021, 2:07 PM

    RIP George Frayne.

  • Lance de Boyle October 8, 2021, 5:02 PM

    Down here in Ligature Marks, NC, we ain’t had no “shut downs.”
    We’ve had shut UPS.
    Every time we’d see that rump-fed devil-monk throat-cancered anal discharge Little Lord Fauntleroy Ponce, Fauci, we’d say, “Shut the f&^% up,” and have another shot of Granny Suggins’s 99% shine.
    We’ve been drunk for a year.
    Just sittin’ here waitin’ for the bastards to show up, boy howdy.

  • Dirk October 8, 2021, 5:53 PM

    What shut down?

    Dirk

  • Gordon Scott October 8, 2021, 8:24 PM

    Jaysus, 14 cords of oak? We are talking about a stack 14 feet deep, 8 wide and 4 tall? That is a lot of oak.

  • EX-Californian Pete October 9, 2021, 11:38 AM

    The topic is kind of moot to me, as the Plandemic didn’t really affect my life & travel, or cause any major restrictions- other than the occasional (forced) use of a mask or bandanna.
    One thing for sure- I didn’t play with toy cars and make tracks for them.

    I just did pretty much the same old things as always- stockpiling components, reloading ammo, hitting auctions & gun shows, buying more shootin’ irons, casting thousands of bullets, exploring new roads on the Harley, a little boating & fishing, home improvement projects (like the basement vault), upping my workouts, frequenting the outdoor ranges, a shipload of ‘smithing, stock making, stock inletting, & checkering, and spending WAY too many hours on the riding mower in a nonstop effort to keep the property from growing into a tropical rainforest. I bet most of that probably sounds kind of boring.

    The “un-boring” stuff I did was joining a couple “Sportsman’s Orgs” and meeting a lot of like-minded folks- many who offer some great (barter-able) resources and products like livestock and produce from their farms, and the folks that trade venison and turkey for ‘smithing work. My freezer is stuffed full of venison even though I haven’t shot a single deer since I moved back to Ohio.

    Life is good, and no complaints.

  • HH October 11, 2021, 7:55 AM

    This video is one of the reasons why I love men.
    Best wishes to you all, Deborah

  • ErisGuy October 14, 2021, 6:03 AM

    What did I do? I have only scattered moments in memory. Every day seemed much like another. I was in lockdown, isolated from friends and family—but one. I cared for my sister-in-law who was dying of liver cancer. The only people I saw were the people better than me: the nurses, the nurse’s aids, and home health aids who helped her and me. And afterwards, I cleaned up the mess of her life, sorting through her stuff until her home held only me and her dog. And then her dog died. He was 13.