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Once you start contingency planning, it’s hard to know where to stop.
Planning for the unexpected becomes part of how you see the world and how you organize your life.
Last year I was determined to use the pandemic lockdown efficiently. For me, that meant having two elective surgeries that I had been putting off.
To prepare for back-to-back surgeries, I wanted to tackle many summer home-keeping chores before freeing my schedule for recuperating.
The first goal was to get the winter’s worth of wood split and stacked while I could still help. Watching my husband’s process made me realize that I would never be able to maintain what he does if he’s ever out of commission.
Yes, I can buy split wood. However, the stacking and moving system seemed too dangerous, dodging tree branches, navigating undulating ground with the wheel barrel, and reaching beyond shrubs to stack the wood.
Doing “his” chores with him allowed us time to discuss the process that looked very different seventeen years ago when we were younger and before we planted the lush landscape that has since filled in the path to and around the wood racks.
We decided to build new wood racks in an open and flat part of the yard, making it easier and more accessible for either of us to fetch or stack wood in any season (see the photo of the improved setup).
It was a mini-contingency planning exercise. That moment when we think, “If anything ever happens to ______, I won’t be able to maintain this!” And it’s okay if we realize that “it” will no longer be able to happen. It is worth taking the opportunity to explore if there are better or different approaches to the way we’ve always done things.
Does this bring to mind any home-keeping habits that you want to rework or simplify?
