I don’t post many of my own photographs on this blog as I’m just not that good at it and not at all interested in getting better, but the whole point of today’s post is the fact that yesterday was the deadline I had set for getting our patio cleared off. So did I fail? It sure looks like it! But there’s a plan for everything that needs to go, and those plans were made by EOB yesterday, so I’m counting it as a win. Everything should be gone by the end of the week. A mason is coming this morning to give us an estimate for repairing the area where the patio had to be excavated to repair the sewer pipe. I plan to post photos throughout the summer to document how this cluttered space gets turned into an oasis of order and beauty.
But my subject today isn’t about gardening or decorating per se but about the need for setting deadlines and how energizing it can be to get going on one. All winter I’ve gone in and out of our patio door (soon to be replaced) being willfully blind about the mess. The situation had been in place since around the end of last summer when we finally got ourselves completely moved into our new space. The items on the patio were the leftovers, things that didn’t have a home. One was the old toilet that had been taken out of the remodeled bathroom. Folks, you don’t know real mess until you’ve had a toilet sitting on your patio for months! We tried to give it away on Craigslist but there weren’t any takers. I figured that we’d have to rent one of those small pickups from Home Depot to take it to the dump, so I was planning to call that 1-800-GOTJUNK company and get them to pick it up, as I figured they’d be no more expensive that our doing it ourselves. But now Jim, also energized by the deadline, has said that he thinks he can get the blasted thing into his car and take it to the dump himself. That should take place tomorrow, as Jim’s car is in the shop today. I need to call the dump after I finish this post and find out how much their fees are.
Here’s the thing: on Sunday, one day from the deadline, I got really serious about meeting it. Surely the boxes that were sitting out there could be shoehorned into the shed. That would at least be a start. A survey of the shelves revealed some places where items could be shoved together or stacked. I did so and started carting the boxes in. They weren’t all that heavy, all except for one which Jim helped with. These are items that really need to be sorted through and (mostly) thrown out, but they’re not mine. I’ve decided to continue operating under the selective blindness option, which is somewhat different from the willful blindness referenced above. In about half an hour Jim and I had made a huge dent in the patio piles. It felt great!
In addition to the toilet, we have:
1. Two filing cabinets, office quality. They were to be donated to an organization that helps out refugee families but there was a mixup on time and they were never picked up. So we’re contacting them again for their May donation run, and if they can’t take them this week we’ll put them on Craigslist.
2. A table saw and some metal sawhorses that belong to our family friend Rob who has done tons of work over here during the past 15 years or so. His saw has been sitting under that tarp all winter, which can’t have done it any good. We will get the items back to him on Saturday when he comes over to do some work.
3. A “bumper jack,” which is a big heavy piece of equipment that can be used for do-it-yourself car repairs. It’s strong enough to lift the whole side of a vehicle, and my father-in-law has used it in the past when he worked on his full-size van that he converted into a family camper. He has a 1970 Buick Riviera that he’d like to restore; the jack would be an essential piece of equipment for that project. It got moved out of the garage to make room for other things and has, like the table saw, been sitting out under a tarp since last summer. But now Jim, once again energized by the deadline, has decided that he and Rob can do some re-arranging in the smaller shed and shove it in there. That should happen on Saturday.
I plan to paint or varnish the old wooden bench that’s along the side of the patio and use it for plants. The long cardboard boxes hold plant stands that will be installed in front of the deck posts and hold the metal hanging baskets. The huge pots will be spaced between the posts; I have big plans to match their sizes! The grill will be cleaned and polished. The table will be washed. The brick will be swept. We have another deadline to meet for all of this to occur: July 7. That’s the date of the big 25th anniversary celebration for the in-laws. We’re leaving on May 16 for our trip to France to celebrate our own 25th; we’ll have about a month when we get back to accomplish whatever hasn’t been done before we leave.
So the original deadline of April 30 was purely arbitrary and artificial; I simply said, “I can’t stand this any more! If I don’t have a goal this stuff is still going to be sitting here next summer!” Even though it was a goal I set myself it seems to have done the trick. We’re moving ahead and getting this project going, and every time you get one long-standing mess cleaned up that’s a nudge to get others dealt with. I still have the valances to finish for the patio door and office window, still have matching sofa pillows to make, and of course if I want this bower of beauty on the patio I need to get some seeds planted.
Often the best way to get yourself started is to say, “What’s the smallest step I could take?” Go ahead and do that; I think you’ll find, as I did, that Newton’s First Law will come into play: An object at rest tends to stay at rest; an object in motion tends to stay in motion. Right now I’m reaping the benefits of that principle. How about you? What small step could you take today to get started on a big project?