Spring awakens something in guys. In my case, I start sniffing around unfinished projects with renewed enthusiasm for finally getting them done and scratched off my list.
My workshop, for example. Actually, it’s the garage, but in the 30-plus years we’ve lived here, no car has ever been under its roof. There’s a table saw, a workbench, a band saw, a jigsaw, a drill press and hand tools by the score, but nothing automotive except an air compressor that comes in handy for putting air in the occasional under-inflated tire.
The shop has also been a convenient place to store stuff. Temporarily. Like when we have 50 people coming for Easter and five boxes of assorted stuff are sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor with no place to go. They go into the shop, “temporarily.”
“Temporarily” has now reached its statute of limitations, and I’m ready to thin the herd. I realize that means boxes of assorted stuff will now have to find a new home. I’m considering the attic, “temporarily.”
Painting the house trim has been on the list for a while, too. I’ve actually started a search in the shop for my paintbrushes. They’ll probably show up when I start to clean. I have already inventoried about six-dozen half-empty cans of paint. I don’t recall any of them being trim paint, however. I’m not sure what they are for, so I’ll probably keep them until I can figure it out.
Five years ago I called in a garage door specialist to install new springs on the overhead door. Sometime in the last year or so, they have come unwound and I need to have them come back and rewind them. I’ll do that right after I clear a space in the shop so they can get in.
I built a koi pond several years ago and constructed a deck adjoining it so we could spend luxurious summer afternoons enjoying the splashing waterfall and the flash of brightly colored fish. To finish the project, I added a brick patio to one side and started one on the other side.
That side is 90 percent finished. I just have to cut a few more bricks, and – easy-peasy, job done! My tile and brick saw is somewhere in the shop. I know it will surface as soon as I dispatch a few boxes of stuff.
There are gardening projects, landscaping projects, building projects complete with a barn full of lumber to see them completed, and, of course, I have several unfinished writing projects waiting in the wings.
It’s spring, and I’m hot to trot. I’ll get started any day now.
