43: Back to Work

I officially go back to work tomorrow, so this week’s post is a round-up of all the things that I actually accomplished over the last (almost) 6 months, during my early retirement trial run. I am satisfied with what I managed to get done and overall pretty happy with how I used my time.

I would also like to note that while I purposely focus my blog on my creative endeavours and my process of Life Energy Valuation, I recognize that not everyone is in a position to be able to enjoy this kind of freedom during a global pandemic, or any other time. I am very fortunate to live where I do and have the privilege to spend my time at home in relative safety and security.

(in alphabetical order)

Art

It took me a while to get going at the start, but I eventually got myself set up to work on stained glass, after a decade or so hiatus. The panel for our front door – which has been on my to-do list for years – is almost done (and the only reason it isn’t already complete is because I’m being picky and waiting for a couple of colours of glass that have been backordered for quite a while.) Plus I’ve made a couple of smaller panels that just need to be framed, and then I am going to try to sell them to make up the materials costs on the front door panel.

I’m also currently taking a pottery class. I’ve always wanted to try wheel throwing, so I used my ‘experience’ voucher that was my Christmas present from Michel to take a 6 week course. My goal was to come out of the course with 3 pots for planters, and then make macramé hangers for them. (I borrowed some macramé books from the library and have ordered some supplies, so I should be ready to start the next step by the time I bring my pots home.)

Baking

At the beginning of the pandemic, I had at least 40 bananas in the freezer. I’d been putting the overripe ones in there every week, intending to make banana bread, but I never did and it was getting out of hand. Realistically, I thought I would probably end up throwing them out at some point, but in the meantime I could just lie to myself and say I would use them eventually.

Nobody could be more surprised than me that I have just about used them all up! I don’t have an exact count of where I started, or how many times I made banana bread, but I was using 4 per loaf and I even put a few new ones in the freezer during that time and am still down to just 2 frozen bananas right now.

CEUs

This is super boring, but I need to do 10 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) every year in order to keep my professional designation. Normally, I would get some of them by attending trade shows or seminars where I could see some friends, eat delicious free food and get cool swag like fancy water bottles and umbrellas that have the name of a lighting company branded on them.

Obviously not happening this year, so I thought it would be smart to do one online credit per week when I first got laid off so that I wouldn’t have a bunch of catching up to do later. Now I’m ahead of the game and don’t have to worry about them for the rest of the year. It was fairly painless, since they’re each only an hour long and I had an abundance of time on my hands.

House Stuff

While most of our almost-done renos haven’t progressed, I did complete a significant amount of work on the front yard. We also made good headway on the backyard, and put up new railings and a roof on our back deck. Overall, I would say the yard is about 2 years ahead of where it would be if we were still participating in all our usual social activities on weekends.

Of course, now that it’s looking like we’re going to have plenty of free time all through the fall and winter, we’re going to have to force ourselves to get all the inside projects done. We really have no excuse not to.

The one indoor project I did complete was painting the living room, which is another thing that has been on my list for years. Now all the rooms are in a similar state of almost-done, they just need the bits and pieces pulled together (floor transitions, trim, etc.) Ugh. I’m not looking forward to doing the work, but I know it will be extremely satisfying to live in a finished space. (I remember the feeling from that one month we lived in our townhouse between finishing all our projects and moving out, and it was wonderful.)

Reading

I read 31 books! I know because I meticulously track my reading on Goodreads. Reading has definitely been an indulgence during this time. No matter how much other stuff I did during the day, by around 2:30 or 3:00 in the afternoon, I usually ended up sitting down with a book and reading for a couple of hours.

I’ve done a few reviews already, but I’ll be sure to do another one at the end of the year, so I can share all the best books I’ve read. Not that quantity equals quality – I did read my fair share of mediocre fluff over the past few months, but there were some pretty good ones in there too.

Writing

I didn’t do the writing I thought I would, but I successfully completed a full 100 Days Project of comics. This is the first time I’ve done the project solo. It was reasonably fun, but not as fun as when I collaborate with Ivana on Shiftyville comics.

I also managed to do at least one or two blog posts each month. They may or may not have been more boring than usual, but I did them!

Yoga

I tried to keep a somewhat regular routine of doing Youtube yoga classes every week. Over the 5.5 months I was home, I did 42 classes, so I think that is pretty good.

This was something I really wasn’t sure if I’d be motivated to keep up with, but I quite enjoyed it and I’m planning to continue doing it when I start working again. I haven’t figured out how to best fit it into the day yet, but after reading the Power of Habit, I am interested in trying to make it part of my routine.

I’m actually a bit excited to start a new routine. My previous work week was a big improvement over the ones before, but now that I have the opportunity to work from home most of the time, I want to try to tweak it even further. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.