House In Order: What next?

[cjsmith]

There's no way my House will be In Order by the end of Lent. When that became obvious I focused down to finances, and that's getting pretty good (only thing missing now is a will).

What next?

I could follow this challenge with, say, more focused ones aimed at getting things shipshape. Each of these, of course, could spawn its own sub-list of stuff; some are huge.

• Photo organization: stuff back to 1985 or so
• Pure and simple decluttering
• Get rid of old shell/mail/web account and all links to it
• Ancient Unfinished Projects

Or I could do something health-related.

• Yet Another Thing For My Feet (new kind of doc, acupuncture, etc)
• Eating more healthfully
• Exercise challenges - weights, stretching, and/or goals related to swimming
• Bite the bullet and do the abdominal surgery

Or preparedness-related.

• First aid training (again)
• Better organization of supplies
• Update ham equipment
• Electricity
• Earthquake-strap the furniture
• Come to think of it, the surgery fits here too

Or home improvement.

• Redo the Pepto Bismol Pink bathroom
• Let the interior design person rip apart the living room
• Throw away all the furniture in my office and start over
• Work with Rob on a landscape plan

Or personal.

• Find a hobby that is challenging, social, can involve travel, can involve a side business, and can be done without feet
• Update the wardrobe (shudder)
• Start meditating again
• Try new crockpot recipes

Or hey, just fun.

• Reading list
• Do every jigsaw puzzle I own
• Find beautiful places to sit and read or to photograph (accessible without feet, remember)
• Learn Italian up to Pimsleur Level 3
• Try new things
• Bake a lot

I'm really impressed with how much I got done when I challenged myself to do it. What a nifty and powerful idea! So I'd like to continue to put that concept to use in some way. (Not 1/2hr a day though. That's pretty rough on weekdays when I'm in a work crunch or when I'm calling.) Just need to decide what and how.

Comments

[shadopanther.livejournal.com]

I'm not, but my maternal grandparents were both HAMs. They participated in HAM radio alerts and messages during WW2. I remember playing near the old HAM equipment in the garage... and I still remember my grandmother's HAM-lic/call sign(?) since it was on the personalized license plate of her old car which I drove (before it was totaled in an accident). I think my mother might still have the old HAM equipment.

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

Cool! I'm a ham, too, that's why I was surprised (CJ and I are both pilots, also!)

You don't have to capitalize "ham", by the way -- it's not an acronym. Nobody knows how it got started as a nickname for an amateur radio operator ... there are at least half a dozen theories of its origin. The two that do involve acronyms have been disproved. The most likely origin is that clumsy telegraph operators were called "hams" ("ham-handed" and "ham-fisted" still means clumsy, and come from the same root). It's said that the professional telegraphers referred to the amateur radio operators as "hams," and that the amateurs took the pejorative word and used it themselves, giving it a positive connotation (much like "queer"). In any case, it's just a word, and is spelled the same way as a cut of meat from a pig, or an actor who goes overboard onstage. :-)

[shadopanther.livejournal.com]

Ah -- I didn't know that about not capitalizing "ham". I thought I'd always seen it capitalized (elsewhere) & had assumed it was an acronym, like H-something Amateur or something. I have not studied ham-radio, just been around my grandmother's equipment. My youngest brother studied it for a while, but stopped short of getting his license.

I studied flying a little in early college: an orientation flight plus, 1 run in an instrument trainer while at the US Space Academy) & 10 hours of ground-school (also while at the US Space Academy) -- but that's as far as I've gotten. I have not had the funds available for anything further.