Cold Weather Projects
When there is not much to do outside, staying busy inside may be the key to enduring the waiting for spring.
With the cold weather swirling around us, some of these cold weather projects will inspire your list of goals. After all, one can only peruse seed catalogs for so long before going crazy. Keep a list where you can see it and add to it at the moment a thought filters into your mind. During this indoor season, I’m thinking specifically of improvements we can make to our indoor spaces or personal goals that can be accomplished without infringing on the long light and warm sunshine peak outdoor working time. Once planting time arrives, most of us readily hit the outdoor ground running. Now is the season to redeem what might otherwise be mindless time spent waiting for spring. Winter is the perfect season for changing light bulbs and batteries in appliances, indoor painting, building shelves, stocking household inventory, and making lists of the same. While you’re checking on your stocks of stuff, this is the perfect time to write out an inventory list, or at least writing down what you believe to be missing or in need of adding to. Now is also the time to launder extra sheets or towels and make casseroles or meals to freeze for the long outdoor days coming when you will not feel like making time to cook.
Cooking is not a strong suit for me, and I still search for great ideas and inspirations. Vast numbers of books are available, yet even casual perusal requires time. Happily, this cold season lends itself to book reading time and recipe organization. If you have 1-3 ‘go to’ meals for hosting company or contributing to a potluck, you’ll have no stress as those events arise. You also won’t need to be the one known for showing up with a bag of chips and whatever frosty beverage happened to be on sale that week at the convenient store on the way.
You might also want to take up a new hobby this season. Wine making, canning, sewing…let your self-reliant pioneering spirit lead your brainstorming session and begin learning an interesting and useful new skill. Do make sure your thoughts get written down and posted (not thrown on a pile of random paperwork!) so that you will look them over with both your eyes and your mind periodically, particularly in this indoor season of life.
When my children get bored and whine, we march directly to our list of winter household goals list of cold weather projects. Something specific on our list is filling water jugs; As we rely on a water system that is not our own well, we reuse the gallon jugs of water bought on the road while traveling by filling them and storing them for emergencies. If an emergency doesn’t arise in the next 6 months, the water will be used to water gardens and plants at the height of summer and we begin again; for us this project is bi-annual. Rather than turning on your television and turning off your mind, you will quickly find ways to use your mind and body, save yourself the emotional trauma of another mindless television program or wandering around with nothing to do. While a can of paint goes a long way, so does the peace of mind and personal satisfaction knowing your accomplishments for the day resulted in a check mark on your list as you prepare for whatever may come.
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Nicole Lorenz despises the freezing cold of winter, yet staying productively busy helps the days quickly pass as spring comes again.
