Back in September 2022, I wrote a blog post with the same title as this post. In it I described how, during my early days in teaching, an experienced colleague introduced me to what they termed 'sorting the button box'.
This was a task or exercise that would be set for a pupil who was upset or in need of calming down or to occupy their mind when they were feeling stressed. It gave the pupil something to concentrate on whilst they had a chance to regain some sort of equilibrium ... and over the years I have found that it also works for me when I am feeling a bit depressed or tired and unable to concentrate on reading, writing, painting, or modelling.
Looking around my toy/wargame room I realised that I had two large REALLY USEFUL BOXES full of World War II Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War models and figures that I renovated, varnished, and rebased during the COVID pandemic. I had put them in the boxes and taken them to our storage unit early last year but had retrieved them in order to stage a short Barbarossa 'campaign in an evening' at my local game club, Dice on the Hill. The boxes need sorting out and the stuff in them properly catalogued ... an ideal 'sorting the button box' exercise.
I hope that by doing this, I will regain my wargaming (and possibly my model railway) mojo ... and if it doesn't work, I will at least have sorted the contents of the boxes!
FWIW I used some of the contents of my wife’s button box in an effort to try make a 2mm scale Da Vinci tank. Note my use of the word “try”. Small buttons, superglue, chunky fingers … it didn’t end well 😣☹️
ReplyDeleteAt least you’re making some progress and hopefully it will kickstart your mojo.
Cheers,
Geoff
Bob -
ReplyDeleteThat I've never thought of, but I rather think I have 'sorted the button box' on occasion. Among my vast inventory of stuff, I have counters of six different colours (red, yellow, light and dark green and light and dark blue). They were all kept jumbled in a photography paper box. Earlier this year, feeling a bit dismal, I sorted them into plastic 'bins' - the clear plastic part of the display box for die cast WW2 armour. Since the vehicles were for war games, I toyed with tossing the display boxes, until using them as counters 'bins' occurred to me.
I have a further small collection of counters - different style - red, blue, green and white, with a few clear plastic. They are few enough to have a collective container of their own. As do the red and blue large counters I keep in a Sobranie cigarette box (a weed that a zillion years ago I was rather fond of - much preferred tobacco over Mary Johanna).
I have another 'button collection' to sort. A whole lot of rather orphaned plastic soldiery that haven't got any useful place to go. Some of these managed to insert themselves in some army or other as freikorps, HQ elements and the like, but there are plenty that may fetch up in a 'surplus' box...
Cheers,
Ion