It’s hard to believe that we collectively have been isolating for the past 10 weeks. In many ways, it has been the shortest 10 weeks of my life. In so many ways, I have pissed away an opportunity to do so many things that I should have done. Rest assured, it’s not like nothing got accomplished in the past weeks considering work kept rolling along and was extremely consuming for most of the day. Between some evenings and the weekend days, this family did make some headway on some long-standing issues around the ole’ Casa.

Re-stain a deck, organize the mechanical room, clean out closets and cupboards, move an un-Godly amount of rocks to the backyard, re-bark mulch the back, re-seed the lawn, paint the house, try new cocktail drinks, set up the patio furniture, explore Fish Creek Park, re-border the flowerbeds, build some plant stands for Mary, change the headlights in my truck, watch parts of several Netflix series and a million 80’s movies and complete around a dozen puzzles. It sounds like a lot of things got done but all I can think about are the things that never got done.

I did spend a ton of quality time with my Mary and our collective of boys also made for some spicy dinners and evenings but when this is all over, I will still be left with some missed opportunities:

I should have made some time for the webpage

I really enjoy writing, even though I have a lot to learn about the craft. Somehow I ran out of time for this stuff a few years ago and I don’t know what got so complicated in my life. These past weeks would have been a great time to get some work done on the site, clean it up and add some bells and whistles that I would like. More importantly, I should have crafted a bunch of plans for future work. I didn’t do any of that and only stumbled back into this world while I was cleaning up files for tax season.

I have new goals for myself with the site and really would like to try some new things with new topics. I would also like to try and support small businesses by writing about what makes them great. Business in the 403 needs all the help it can get.

We should have found some new restaurants through Take Out

We really hunkered down, so much that we virtually ate nothing but at home. In many ways, that was a refreshing change for us and I know Mary enjoyed finding new recipes for us to try. Really, it was a good experience for us to bring the boys back to the dinner table for family dinner. Mary also convinced each of them to select and make a dinner for the family, every week. Those were amazing feats that would never have happened without the family lockdown.

We did miss the chance to try local restaurants and find new food choices. I swear, one of our neighbours ordered from Skip the Dishes every day of the quarantine and I was intrigued every time the car rolled up. What was in that glorious red bag? Could it be a game-changer in the household? What mystery hole in the wall could be sending the greatest supper ever to their home? Missed opportunity for sure.

I should have listened to more music

Music makes me happy. People who know me, know my sick addiction for classic 70’s music, particularly the sweet, smooth sounds of Yacht Rock. There were days where I would have the music on while doing some work in the yard or while I was doing some work in the evenings. It’s not that I wanted to branch out with my musical choices into Country or Rap or even the top hits of today. I really should have just listened to my music, more contently. I’m sure that over the next few weeks, I will express some of that love for music in my writing.

I should have sat around on the deck more

It’s hard to remember back to the start of COVID but the weather really was not very good. We had a cold and snowy start for an interminable amount of time, right into April. Although, that was not exactly deck weather it turned around quite quickly afterwards and I didn’t really grasp the opportunity enough.

There were chances to do it. We had some really nice weather as we moved into May and the chairs were sitting there waiting for my ass but I just couldn’t stop doing stuff. I feel accomplished by the number of things we accomplished at work and home but missed a glorious chance to rest.

I should have tried to find sports in my life even though professional sports stopped.

Let’s be clear, the pro sports leagues did the right thing in shutting down in mid-March. In many ways, I credit the NBA in creating the needed awareness about the virus, when they shut the doors. The collapse of the remaining sports leagues was fast and those that were getting started, were halted. For a family like ours, this was a devastating blow as the nightly sports event was the bonding moment for the boys. We would gather and watch and talk. I miss that.

At the same time, youth sports was an instant casualty of the pandemic and the season for basketball, never really got off the ground. Nic, Cam and myself were poised to coach teams with Rian and Liam on them and all of that was shelved, fast. We will never know what could have been with the spring basketball season, and I feel for those kids who have lost an entire year of development in the sport. We are lucky to have a hoop outside on the street and short of a few days, I didn’t do enough to get outside and shoot some hoops with the boys. They went out pretty often and I missed that chance.

I should have exercised with more creativity to stay fit

My daily trip for to the gym was the biggest immediate impact on my life and it took me a whole week to get my act together. We were certainly one of the luckier families because we had access to some weights and a treadmill to allow the family to have a fitness routine. It was certainly more limited than my gym but not a disaster. My issue was that I didn’t find anything creative to do with the equipment or without it.

As the weather improved, I had even more options available like walking and biking and should have looked harder for alternatives. Mary and I did get out most evening for a walk with the pups but that doesn’t replace the challenge of getting your heart rate pumping for some exercise. I often long for the spring and summer to come, if for no other reason than to get some exercise in the evenings. The grind during the day and the responsibilities during the evenings took its toll and it just never happened. The summer isn’t over yet and I will have to get re-focused and re-energized.

I should have completed at least one TV series along the weeks

Mary and I have this terrible habit of starting a series and not committing to see it through. We have a litany of titles that we have seen 3-5 episodes of and never to be completed. Part of the issue is that I need to be attached to the theme and the characters and most importantly, the theme has to be completely plausible if it’s going to be fictional. Here’s a few series that we started and are TBD on its completion:

Ozark – we liked it a lot but only got midway through season 1. I think we will get back to it and see it through at some point.

The Crown – an honest depiction of the Royals and their screwed up worlds. We are in season 2 (which is a miracle in our world) and it seems to be chugging along. We will complete it one day.

Sex Education – a fictional depiction of high school in England with the twist being that the main character decides to provide sex education advice for the other students. Got to season 2 and it lost me.

The Kominsky Method – fun show about old dudes who are trying to stay young as they advance through the latter years. I was entertained through season 1 but season 2 became repetitive.

We did make it through a couple of mini-documentaries with some mixed success:

Tiger King – basically unwatchable but a fascinating train wreck that we powered through in the early weeks. The fact that I had trouble figuring out what the most screwed up part of the series was, tells you all you need to know.

Waco – it had been out previously but we finally saw it through and it was great. I highly recommend the back story on David Koresh and his cast of followers.

My biggest regret was that I was following the latest season of the Walking Dead and the final episode didn’t get completed prior to the outbreak and it has yet to be completed. I was into it and wished to have some conclusion to this season.

I should have done a deep clean of the garage and shed

No complaints here as we did tackle several rooms and closets in the house but we left the grand daddy of them all. I was out there a lot and looked at strategies even more. I started to clean the tools and gave up. I cleaned the corner out when we swapped the winter tires off and got frustrated. We even took a load to the dump early on and I thought we had traction but nope. The garage in this house has always been a catch all for the stuff that has no home in the closets and rooms. I will get there before the summer is done.

I should have started to plan out where we should vacation to next

I love to travel and I know I am not a good “staycation” candidate so when the world of travel dried up, it took its toll on my mind. We had a plan to go to Palm Springs for our anniversary in June and that was cancelled. We usually plot out a plan for November and we can’t even think that far out yet. We normally would have some Western Canada travel wrapped into the boys club basketball and that went by the wayside. We have ended up in Vegas most of the past few July’s and it’s out of the question.

I’m open to suggestions for what to do this year. I now have 2 travel companion vouchers to use and our friends at Westjet are holding my money ransom. I should have put some work into this as I can’t survive until 2021 before I get to feel the heat of the Caribbean or the culture of Europe.

I should have told Mary how thankful that I am that she chose me in life and dealt with my ups and downs through the lockdown.

I did tell her but probably not enough. She basically locked herself in the home for 7- starlight days, making sure that the kids did what they should and kept the wheel on out bus moving. When I got home, she listened to me drone on about COVID related issues at the pharmacies and kept me motivated and healthy. She also stepped aside when she needed to, to let me work on a puzzle or keep slugging away at work issues into the late evening. Mostly, she was just there with me and for me. There were a lot of people stuck without the one you care about the most but that was never my issue. She sacrificed herself for the family and for me and I will make sure the knows how important that was for me.

Those were the biggies on my list. There were so many positive things along the way too and I am choosing to focus on the great things that happened along the past 3 months.Take a minute and formulate your own list of things you did or didn’t do. The outbreak is far from over and there is still time to wrong those rights. Seize the opportunity.

Marco