Your Best Covid Project?

I cleaned out my kitchen cabinets, scrubbed every surface, threw out a lot.

Probably something some of you do twice a year, but it was a big deal for me. Taking everything out and putting it all back.

Planted an herb garden in pots in my side yard. It’s doing very well. I now have the time and energy to cook at home and have been using fresh herbs from my garden. Last night it was chopped rosemary to help season my lamb chops. Last week I made bruschetta using basil from my garden. Tonight I will add thyme to my sautéed mushrooms. The possibilities are endless!

Making it through each day relatively sane. We're living in dystopia.

I started gardening for the first time. I’ve never had time to tend to a garden before. My tomatoes and basil are amazing, but nothing else survived. I also learned how to cook Thai food (my favorite). I had assumed that Thai cooking was difficult, but it was fine once I had the proper ingredients.

I've been repotting my houseplants (I have a lot) and rearranging my house for their benefit. I love having a window full of blooming orchids: I don't mind staying home quite so much.

I’m learning French!

Learning to cook a lot of classic Asian dishes, mostly Korean. Brushing up on language studies, but unfortunately, more time does not translate into more focus for me. I still have the attention span of a gnat.

I had a set of Ikea bookshelves sitting around for two years, and well. I now have a brand new and much more elegant library wall in my living room!

I always had something better to do before this, than to assemble Ikea furniture and reshelve all my books.

I started meditating each morning and I’m trying out different recipes each week for dinner. And I started a blog (of course).

I redid the caulking in my bathrooms. I scrubbed the hell out of them with a wirebrush and magic erasers. I bought new caulk to even them all up. They were just old and grungy looking and always bugged me. The caulking on them was uneven, and rough, so it constantly looked dirty. After I caulked them I tried to be meticulous and used a razor and ruler to get them super straight and even. They look great now. It was little but something I'd wanted to do for several years. Now the damn things better not get all mildewy again!

What’s it called when you start a project and complete maybe 80% of it and then jump to another project? Because that’s what I’ve been doing. I started to clean and organize my spices and never finished. I then went on to clean out all the drawers in my kitchen. I didn’t finish that either. Is it ADD or something?

I planted a vegetable garden, redid my backyard completely (installed flower beds and re-sodded), learned to bake bread and donuts.

I've taken up rock painting, primarily to enhance my newly-designed fabulous backyard of multiple planting beds (roses, daylilies, lilacs, azaleas, forsythias, butterfly bushes, and so on)!

Plus, I'm reading more, and I mean actual books! Currently my endeavor is "Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal."

R11, make a to do list of all your unfinished projects; order them according to priority, and get cracking. Don’t start any more projects until you finish the list.

R2, Likewise! I have, in planters on my driveway, Genovese basil, purple Opal basil, English thyme, lemon thyme, rosemary, sage, and parsley. And I love adding my purple basil to salads!

Proud of you, r10! You enhanced more than your bathroom!

R8, Are they "Billy" bookshelves? I have them in three bedrooms, one of which would be today called an office, given that there are also two desks and no bed! (I put the cases together eons ago!).

[quote] What’s it called when you start a project and complete maybe 80% of it and then jump to another project?

Losing your motivation. The last 10-20% of a project can be the hardest.

I've been a better housekeeper, keeping to a schedule, picking up more and all that. I am going back to work part time so I intend to continue with it. Working a lot really does smother some of the finer points of daily life.

R15 are you going to make some nice pesto with all that basil?

I just added fresh dill to my scrambled eggs. It was delicious!

R20, I might! I've been known to!

First came the intense spring cleaning and manic Marie Kondo folding/organizing--I was dealing with the shock of lockdown, but I'm very happy with the results.

Then I returned to learning French, which I love; tried several kitschy dessert recipes from my 50s housewife cookbooks; learned to make samosas; sold a lot of stuff on ebay for small change which nevertheless added up. Next I'm going to tackle my cupboard full of boxes of snapshots.

All the best to you, OP. I've been cheered up by DL, too.

Salut, R22 ! C'est cool ! Vive le minimalisme !

Putain mais tu déconnes, R23.

Just kidding. I picked that phrase up from a song I found on the Foreign Pop Songs thread.

That was very "idiomatique" R24

Watching every Akira Kurosawa film on the Criterion Channel.

I've started learning Portuguese - beautiful, mad language - and picked up French again for the first time in a couple of years.

My vegetable garden is huge now, I have managed to expand it quite a bit.

I'm sorry to hear about your recent troubles, OP. I recognize your name and look forward to your posts, believe it or not.

Green-fingered DLers, what's a good herb to start off with for someone who manages to kill most plants they touch?

I've been going through one drawer or one cabinet at a time -- the goal was one per day but I haven't quite managed that -- and am tossing or donating a lot of stuff. Also coming to terms with the fact that I might be a hoarder! So good times all around.

Contemplating death more often than only once a day

I was learning Italian at the local university. Now they've decided they're not taking us older students next semester. Sono triste.

Parsley R30. Easy to grow and good results.

After 20 or so years I have resurrected knitting. My grandmother taught me to knit when I was a young kid. So far I have knitted a scarf and am part way through a cardigan. After the cardigan I am knitting a sweater. I have purchased all the wool and needles. I am really enjoying it so far. This is the scarf I knitted in the same colors:

This is the cardigan I am knitting at the moment in a charcoal gray. It will look great with black jeans and a black t-shirt like in the pic below:

Basil grows nicely if you have sun, r30. If not, don't bother.

And this is the sweater I am knitting next in navy blue.

I forgot to mention - anything I had forgotten about knitting I was able to easily find on YouTube.

Finally putting in the wainscotting I designed decades ago.

Lord, how I love a miter saw.

My mother is an excellent knitter. It's an activity that occupies your brain and leaves you with a nice finished product. Really like the final sweater you posted.

I cleaned out all the kitchen cabinets then started cleaning out all the closets and threw out a ton of stuff I have two more closets to do. I planted flowers on my terrace and was going to add tomatoes and basil but decided to grow weed since my supply is getting low I have 6 plants which are 5 ft. tall I should have a good crop by November.

R30, Rosemary, thyme, and basil. The last doesn't like too much water! Mint and oregano grow like the proverbial weeds, so plant only in pots!

R31, I hear ya! I have a Hefty bag in my dining room, ready to empty bureau drawers. I'm a past collector of Wedgwood, Edward VIII memorabilia, wine glasses, books (thousands), and other stuff that I'm done with, and nobody else wants!

R33, I tried it once in an Adult Non-Credit class, as I live two minutes from our local community college. Alas, I remember only "coniglio" ("rabbit"), learning much more simply by traveling!

Deep cleaning, basically. My area has very hard water so I finally bought some pumie stones and tackled the toilet bowls. They are sparkling like new.

When I was first laid off I thought about doing some much needed back yard work/cleaning. I live in a Townhouse so nothing takes much time. By the time I had bought new/upgraded tools to do things it was summertime. Now it has become a fall project. I also am in the middle of putting together my Personal Health Record. Up until this year I only went to my Primary and the Dentist. I let things go that I am know ready to do something about. Primarily I am now a Rheumatoid Arthritis patient. And I will probably be having an arthroscopic procedure on my elbow that has two cysts in the joint. Being out of work and having Medicaid has given my the ability to do this.

I wrote a soon to be grammy-winning album that left the haters fuming

Well, I guess I'll just zip off to Milano tonight, r42!

I started working out again. Freehand, no weights. Now my moobs are spectacular, and they are real!

Thanks R34, R36 and R41! I'll give it a go with some pots on a nice sunny windowsill.

I have an unfortunate tendency to neurotically over water my plants. I'm really much better with kids and animals.

[quote] have a Hefty bag in my dining room, ready to empty bureau drawers. I'm a past collector of Wedgwood, Edward VIII memorabilia, wine glasses, books (thousands), and other stuff that I'm done with, and nobody else wants!

I cringe thinking of the sound of Wedgwood and wine glasses being tossed in Hefty bags.

I've been re-arranging the chairs on my deck

Thanks R39!

R49, Or I could trundle them all to some flea market and hope to get a buck apiece. Or go nuts with a "Wear a Mask!" yard sale. How DO collectors downsize?

Like some others, I've been doing a bit of closet-clearing. I've been in my condo for 19 years and just kept putting new stuff in front of old. It's a slow process right since it's hot and humid right now but I know it's a marathon, not a sprint. The biggest project is my hall closet where I keep OTC stuff. Some of it expired in the last decade!

The project I'm most proud of is my second bedroom. It was just sort of a dumping ground as I cleaned out other rooms. Now, it has a small couch (I really want a day bed in there but it's not a priority), a TV and stand, and a my Spin bike. In the Fall, I will tackle the garage. I still have paint cans from the PREVIOUS owner!

R49, I know exactly how you feel. When my sister passed away, I had to hire a company to clean out her apartment. She had lots of glassware, pots and pans, etc. I thought they'd wrap it up and sell it somewhere to make money. Nope, they came in with huge trash bags and cleared the place out in about 2 hours. I felt bad because my sister had some crystal goblets. I took a few but couldn't take them all.

[quote]Your Best Covid Project?

I'm about halfway done molding a Hummel figurine entirely out of virus fragments collected from plastic grocery bags.

Cleaned out my shed. Cut down a tree. Fixed my Harley. Cleaned my fridge. Planted some of a friend's excess mother-in-law tongue that seems to be doing well so far. Clipped weeds my weed eater can't get to. I fixed my bicycle and I've started to ride it around the neighborhood, which I haven't had the courage to do since I broke my back and knee four years ago. I still (always!) have yard work to do ( I have a 1/2 acre) that will probably keep me busy until I drop dead.

But best of all, I lost the 10 "corona shutdown" lbs. I gained, and I've lost almost 10 more. Yippee!

R56, Congratulations on getting back on your bike after your previous injuries. I don't think I'd have the courage.

R29,

Thank you for such a lovely reply! I didn’t want to play the martyr in my original post but to fill in the gaps, my stepmother just died after over a year of paraplegia and dementia and my beloved dog was diagnosed with bladder cancer. My son was about to head off to college but that’s now been put on hold so I get to hug him a little longer. ❤️

R43 I’ve tried the pumice stone on toilet trick but it just seems...scrapey?

r59, I pick up a gallon of Muriatic/pool acid (weaker HCL) and get out the handled scrub brush when I notice the ring returning.

A cup drizzled around the ring, let set 15 mins, swish, let set another 15 and scrub.

Wear rubber gloves.

Apartment declutter /purge project in progress. Started with food (fridge, freezer, pantry) & medications (rx & OTC). Clothing was next (got rid of one item, in particular, that was hard to get rid of). Office supplies. Recently did my bathroom / medicine / linen cabinet.

The big surprise was cleaning out kitchen stuff (non-food). *Lots* of stuff I wasn't using. Gone. Now, I know exactly what I have & I use everything (I think).

Final frontier 😬 : Computer files declutter (work files / personal files). I've organized these files before, but I really want to delete unused things, this time. (Aside from financial /tax records that I need to keep for possible audits.)

Whenever I try to declutter my house I find it difficult. Seems like if I have a personal attachment to things it’s harder for me to throw away. I’ll go into my bedroom and declutter for 10 minutes and have piles of things and have no idea how to organize them. Any ideas how to overcome this?

When I help other people declutter their place it’s so much easier. Maybe I should have a stranger decluttering my place.

R56 how did you break your back and knee?

R62, I think you hit the nail on the head: it's hard to declutter when you have personal attachments to things. That's why it's easier to tell someone else what they should discard (you don't have a personal attachment to their things). Maybe it would help to get a respected friend in there with you to help make decisions.

1-800-Declutter and 1-800-GotJunk are lifesavers when you need to declutter. And Two Men and a Truck is great if you need to move some heirloom piece of furniture to an interested party's house. I used the moving service to move a lot of old furniture down from my 2nd floor to the 1st floor, after first decluttering the first floor. I handled the emotional strain better working through specific rooms, rather than tackling the whole house at once.

R62, I feel the same way you do about pictures.

My Mom had one of those cameras that spit out the photo immediately, She had YEARS and YEARS of them. When I cleaned out her house, I put them in a bag and brought them home. There are pictures of long dead relatives and special occasions. My sister said just throw them out. No one has asked about them or is thinking about them.

But I lost my Mom to Dementia in July 2016. In March of 2017, I lost my brother and 6 weeks later in May, I lost one of my 2 sisters. Both died from cancer. Ugh! I'm planning on doing some Fall Cleaning (it's too hot and humid right now). Maybe I will have summoned up the courage to do it by then.

R62 Organizing is so hard but here are a few of the tips my BFF gave me (she’s a pro):

For paperwork, label your file folders as specifically as you can. If you have two cars, give them each a folder. If you have accounts at Wells Fargo and BofA, make them separate folders. Basically, create enough landing places for everything and it won’t be confusing - you’ll know exactly where it goes.

Also, set aside a few boxes labeled “Keepsakes”. Then - without guilt - fill them with crap you can’t see recycling or tossing. Ticket stubs, playbills, pictures, whatever. Just give all that weird, hard-to-categorize stuff a place and don’t feel bad about keeping it.

Lastly, set up a file called “I Am a Badass” and put in anything that makes YOU feel good about yourself. You will be so glad you did.

Good luck!!

R66 I’m so sorry - what a horrible year for you.

For paperwork, I would recommend a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner. I have the iX500, which I think they upgraded. It has a feeder (I think 50 pages can fit). Also, once your documents are scanned, you can do a word search on them. (It's a little pricey - maybe $500 - I pulled the trigger because I needed it for work plus could deduct the cost from my taxable income. However, I would recommend it for personal use as well.)

I also got a confetti shredder that can shred CDs, DVDs, and cards.

R66, Cosmo, sorry about your losses. That’s terrible. Hope you’re doing ok.

R67 excellent ideas! Thank you! Especially like the last one about being a bad ass!

Thanks, R66 and R68. It was the worst 9 months of my life. I'm the youngest of a family of 6. In those 9 months, we went down to 3. My Dad will be 86 in September. He's underweight but has no health issues.; not even any medication!

I adopted Cosmo 3 months before my Mom died. Thank goodness I did. I didn't know how sick my sister and brother were until after Mom died.

I'm doing OK. I sometimes feel guilty that my life is going pretty well. My sister and I are ridiculously close which might not have happened otherwise. Sorry to derail the thread.