What I’m Doing Now
(This is a now page, and if you have your own site, you should make one, too.)
Decided About House
After much deliberation, we’ve decided to make our current house our home for the foreseeable future. I may write up that decision, but the main factor was: We want to buy more of our time back. This house and city aren’t our ideals, but they are close enough. We would give up much more to move to a different metro or a different house than we would gain. All houses have imperfections and maintenance. All cities have pros and cons. Once more money is spent for an incremental improvement, we can’t get it back. We can, however, invest money saved to continue towards financial independence. Financial independence means being able to live more aligned with our values, what some people refer to as personal sovereignty, including the flexibility to spend time with children. We aren’t trying to optimize our house or our city. We are trying to optimize optionality and sovereignty.
Fixing the House
Now, we have work to do to fix damages that occurred during the six years the house was a rental and to make improvements where what we give up is more than compensated by what we gain. Deciding what to do, how much to spend, where to spend it is all very difficult. Does opening the wall between the kitchen and living room give us a gain in our enjoyment of the space greater than the time and money we give up paying for it? Who knows? The yard, the master bathroom, the kitchen, the basement are our primary focus because those actually have unsightly damage. Lots of learning to do about what to do ourselves and what to hire out, how to work with contractors, how to DIY, planning, carpentry, painting, etc., etc., etc., etc. ad infinitum.
Getting Things Done
This brings us to an experiment with the Getting Things Done method. We’ll see how that goes. I’m not particularly confident because I have a terrible time changing my habits, but I need a way to become more productive and disciplined. This is one of those. In fact, I’m writing this today because it’s been on my calendar to do every two weeks for years. GTD says only put on your calendar what you will do, or you will become numb to it. That’s what I’m doing. Cause for hope I will follow through with the method.
Miscellany
Those are the main three things now. We bought kayaks recently and have been enjoying those. Since we’re staying put and we have convenient access to a river (5 minutes’ drive) and riverfront parks, we’re trying to leverage our location by enjoying activities that wouldn’t be so convenient living 20 minutes away. I see lots more kayaking and biking in our futures.
The struggle for sustained health continues. A treadmill reentered my life in January. I enjoy walking on a treadmill because I can read at the same time. The challenge: Getting in good enough shape that I can concentrate on the book under intense activity. Try it sometime. You will find the better shape you are in the better you can read while exercising. More blood available for the brain I suppose? Don’t ask me about diet…a future area of concentration on improvement.
Downton Abbey and Breaking Bad are very well done. One we’re watching for the first time. The other for the second.
Updated Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 1:56PM from Richland, WA, USA