#7 of the Top 10 Sanity Savers When Remodeling
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If you are displaced during your project make the best of it.
A major project is stressful. There are 1,000 decisions to be made and constraints on every one, but this is your adventure. You choose how you are going to spend it.
For us we were demoing and renovating our dream house. This was the final act of a plan 20 years in the making. I knew I wanted to savor every minute of it. I also knew that I had 10 kids who were displaced and crammed into a small, strange, 3 bedroom house. It was going to take some intentional planning to make sure we all came out of this sane.
We learned a few new hobbies to take us on adventures in our new surroundings.
We took up geocaching.
It is a game where the world is your board. You can check out Geocaching.com for more information and a short video. Geocaching is a great way to learn your way around a community, and you don’t have to have children. People of every age are into cashing. It is great excuse to get out and stretch you legs while traveling, or explore new places, heck we found new places right where we have been living for 15 years. It is easy because all you need is to log into the website, create a profile and grab some coordinates. Then head out with your smart phone, a super kid friendly GPS, or go old school with a map and a compass. (a map is that paper picture of the world we use for decoupage projects)
The Basics of Caching
You can get a Geocaching beginner kit to get you started or just hide a container with a sign in list, a pencil, and some little treasures (if you care to do so and have room) and enter the coordinates into the master site for others to find, or you can choose coordinates from the website near a location you want to check out and go looking for caches. We did the latter. There are cashes in abundance in public spaces like parks and trails, as well as private property. The owner of the cache usually leaves instructions as well as a hint, if you need it. Some caches were treasure hunt type clues, some were a series of caches in a trail setting others were simply coordinates, but all were fun to find.
Geocachers are true treasure hunters, we never tell where we found a cache, we respect everyones property and help clean up while we scout. It is a great hobby for children because of all of these underlying principles. As a family, we will still hunt a cache if we need an excuse to get out for the afternoon. When the kids took Daddy out for the first time and he was immediately hooked. Explaining how to use millions of dollars worth of satellite equipment to find tupperware in the woods is NOT the same as the thrill of your first find. Download the app on your phone and you will be ready to try it on your next outing.
We bought a slackline
A slackline is roughly the same material as a towline or a large tie down strap. Anchor straps are girded around two trees and the line runs between them. It is tightened to remove slack and give you a surface to balance on.
So please, picture how I spent my summer. Every day the baby and I would sit in the front yard and read while every child in a 3 mile radius lined up over at our temporary housing to have a turn on the slack-line. We made a lot of friends. The line only has to be high enough to keep the walker off the ground, and with little people that is not very high, so it is relatively safe. You can purchase a kit from Slackers that has a top guide line as well. They all talked about the circus they were going to put on at the end of the summer. The line got them dreaming and playing and out of the house.
Every night I would just take down the bottom line for safety and set it up when we were ready to veg in the front yard. It just takes a few times of looking at the instructions (that are included and are easy to follow) and now I can set the whole thing up with out much thought. Our kit is going on three years of use without any signs of fraying. It is worth every penny considering the time that they have spent on it.
Good old fashioned bike rides
My children got a taste of every child’s right of passage, bike riding around the block. We explored the neighborhood on bike. We got to know the sights. For kids that was all the places with a dog, or food to eat. We made friends with the guy that had grapes growing on the fence. (He shares, but likes it if you ask) I let the older kids go a little further than they ever had before. Thankfully we were in a great smaller city so I felt safe and knew where they were going. If you can’t go far because of safety or traffic, there is no shortage of bike trails. Another great way to get to know your area is to try out a new trail every weekend. You can get the kids involved by searching the city website and reading features of trails near you.
Make your move an adventure by embracing it. We had a great summer even through the many trials our temporary home brought us. Having a plan ahead of time made it easy for me to get everyone out the door and on to an adventure.
Did you choose an adventure? What have you planned to give your family some fun during a move or large project. I would love to give readers some more ideas.
