Blast From the Past: "Top Ten Fun Things to do in Gloucester, Virginia"

It's getting close to Christmas. Call it "laziness." Call it "slowing down for the holidays." But I decided to take a day off and make today's serving of "The Isle of Man" a re-run. This is a post I wrote a couple months ago, right after my wife and I moved from Newport News, VA to Gloucester, VA. Hope you enjoy it!

Top Ten Fun Things to do in Gloucester, Virginia

As of tomorrow, Kim and I will have officially lived in Gloucester, Virginia for one full week. That's right. We're veterans now. We pretty much know everything there is to know about the area.

I decided to share our newly acquired wealth of information with those of you who have lived in or around Gloucester for some time now, as well as with those of you who were thinking of visiting.

America loves top ten lists, right?

Here is my top ten list of fun things to do in Gloucester, Virginia:

(in no particular order)

1. Put up window blinds - This is a great way to keep total strangers from looking into your house, particularly when you're asleep...or not wearing any clothes. It's also a fantastic way to find out that you lack fundamental "do-it-yourself" knowledge. If you want to start questioning your manhood, this is the activity for you!

2. Head to Home Depot - No, I'm not sponsored by Home Depot, but by the end of this month, I will probably have successfully paid their light bill for them. Here's the trick. Make sure that each time you visit, you pick out one or two items that are either the wrong size or just unnecessary purchases. This will ensure that you will be blessed with the opportunity to come back to Home Depot (often that very same day) to see the same smiling faces who patiently guided you through your treacherous voyage to "find caulk." This will also assist you in your quest to sufficiently doubt your manhood.

3. Procrastinate - This one's probably my favorite. The way it works is this: You come up with a "to-do" list of important jobs that need finishing around your newly purchased home. Check out the list. Do the easy stuff first and then let the challenging obstacles just sit there, haunting you like a skeleton in the closet. If you want to really be proficient, create new jobs so that the jobs you've been putting off seem less important. You can do it!

4. Pay bills - Did you know it costs over $500 to fill up a full sized tank of propane? We do now. Wanna know something even more intriguing? I'm not even totally sure what we need it for. Not kidding. I think it heats our water, but that may or may not be the case. I know it is the source of our gas fireplace, which currently doesn't work because of a part that needs to be replaced. See item number three.

5. Play a rousing game of "where is it?" - What is "it?" That's the great part. It can be anything. It might be a sharpie marker that you need to mark a spray bottle, so that you'll know it has bleach in it and not the normal water you generally spray your kitty with when she misbehaves. It can be a firestarter that is crucial to the process of lighting the pilot light, without which you'll have no hot water. It can be anything, and when you've just moved into a new house, you will play this game for weeks, whether you want to or not. Yay!!!!

6. Get lost - It's as simple as it sounds. Basically, you get in the car, without looking up the specific directions for where you're going and then just kinda "wing it." If you can, make sure you use your smartphone for a GPS. Make sure that it's a smartphone that routinely locks up on you, so that when you're in dire need of knowing what the next step in the directions is, you will have no help and good reason to roll down your window and exclaim angry words. The short version is that I know where our bank is now. I also know what the entire 15 mile stretch of road (between our house and the bridge) looks like. I know it well enough to paint it by memory. I might just try that. I'll keep you posted.

7. Go over the budget together - This one is as fun as it sounds. If you want a real head-trip (and I know you do), talk about all the things you're going to need within the next few months. Then, look at how much those things cost in relation to how much money you'll have available. You'll laugh, you'll cry. You'll eventually fall asleep from exhaustion and wake up in the middle of the night to discover you forgot to set your alarm. Mo' money, mo' problems...right Diddy? I feel you homey.

8. Fight about things that aren't that important - Every now and then, it's good to break the monotony with a debate over something entirely irrelevant or just plain trivial. If you've successfully completed items one through seven, this will be easy for you. In fact, it will probably just happen organically. For added enjoyment, make sure that you bring the emotion from a past argument or your frustration from your long day at work to the discussion. This will keep things like "reason" and "sound logical thought" far, far from the conversation -- which is exactly where you want them to be. 

9. Spend more money on gas - This is another item that will really take care of itself. If you want to do it right, make sure you drive separately from your spouse for a week or so, just to really "run up the tab." You think you know how much more you're going to spend, but let me tell ya...you really don't. It's fine. Just cut back on something you don't need that much, like the electricity. Use candles. It worked for our founding fathers. Am I right? ::crickets::

10. Play "exterminator" - I've discovered new species of insects since we moved to Gloucester. I've also discovered that everything is a little bigger. This morning, I found an ant as big as my thumb, crawling on the wall outside the bathroom. It's cool. I killed it. But right afterwards, I had this twinge of regret. Is it possible I just murdered the last dinosaur? I think it might be.   

Have you ever had any painful moving experiences that weren't funny at the time, but are laughable in hindsight? 

Please share!