Weekend was busy with wife away

I don’t do nothing well.
That’s not really a double negative.
What I don’t excel at is doing “nothing.”
I was reminded of that fact this weekend.
My wife had made the trek back to Jacksonville, Ill., where she grew up.
Her oldest brother recently had back surgery, and she thought she could be of some help while he dealt with painkillers, recuperation and physical therapy.
That left me back in Jay County with a pretty much open weekend or, in other words, with nothing to do. And that can be a problem.
How big a problem? By Friday afternoon, I had made a lengthy “to do” list. Some of it was stuff I would have done anyway if Connie had been home, some of it was busy work and some of it seemed designed to make “nothing” into “something.”
The only definite bit of work on the agenda was a photo assignment in Fort Recovery on Sunday afternoon, which I was looking forward to because I was curious about the original plans for the fort and they were going to be unveiled.
Normally, with my wife home, doing nothing is not a problem. As long as we’re doing it together, little things like puttering around the house or watching football are fine. But when I’m by myself, football is a bore and my “puttering” is fueled by way too much caffeine.
So, what was on the “to do” list?
•Write an editorial for Monday’s paper. That one was checked off the list Friday night.
•Vacuum the house upstairs and down. Accomplished Saturday morning, thanks to a large pot of coffee and no one to share it with.
•Drive to Dunkirk to look for photos for The News and Sun. We’ve been putting out the Dunkirk weekly without a full-time editor for months now, and most weeks go smoothly. But sometimes it seems that there’s not very much going on. That led to a Saturday afternoon trip and a few so-so pictures. (I figure I’ll be heading back on Monday afternoon in hopes of rustling up something better.)
•Dust. Done by Saturday afternoon, though the jury’s still out on how good a job I did.
•Clean bottles. There’s a story behind this one, but you’ll have to wait until the Thanksgiving issue of The CR to know all the details. Let’s just say for now that I had a bunch of empty wine bottles that needed to have their labels removed so they could be re-used.
This turned out to be the weekend’s biggest chore, and I suspect I’m still not completely done. Apparently the stickiest glue on earth is the stuff used to attach labels to wine bottles. I’ve used hot water, vinegar, dish soap, and a razor blade and still am not 100 percent satisfied.
•Write feature story for the Thanksgiving issue. I’m hoping to knock that out Sunday about mid-day, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
•Create Gabriel’s book. Ah, now, this is an unusual one. For more than 30 years, I wrote my daughters a holiday story each Christmas. I dropped that tradition a few years back but have picked up another: Writing a kids’ book for each of my grandchildren on their birthday. So far, it’s been both fun and challenging. Grandson Gabriel turns 1 year old on Christmas Eve, and I need to have a book waiting for him. The text is done, but the production hasn’t started. This project, I suspect, is going to be deferred a few days.
•Write this week’s column. Done.
And now, maybe, I can begin to relax and watch some football.