All my life, I’ve never been happier than digging ditches or stumps.
Too bad I can’t get paid for it. I’m not competitive in the market right now. I’m too slow with the digging and nobody does trees by hand these days. Still, whenever I get a chance for a volunteer job I always do it. I also think it’s fun to put on steel roofing, and it’s almost fun to do shingles, but not if anyone is in a hurry. (Edit: I should note such work allows me to avoid standing still which hurts and makes my knees swell after just a half hour or so.)
Today I cut up some scrap lumber and other bits and pieces and built a shelf to wrap around, and stand above, an old desk. We are moving things around in our house, and that old wooden desk will become my beloved’s computer desk. There’s a wire shelf just above where the computer and monitor will stand to hold our printers. Above that will be another shelf on which to rest the cable modem and router. Much better coverage inside the house when the wifi router is up high. We won’t be living by ourselves any more.
I’m ditching my huge collection of ancient Linux CDs and a bunch of other crap I don’t use any more. Cleaning out a whole bunch of stuff like that. I put out a sign at the edge of the yard next to the street saying “Free Stuff!” Then started setting out junk still useful, but not to me. So far, it’s mostly disappeared. Beats hauling it down to the community dumpster.
We are compacting our lives down. I don’t intend to move again, but I do want to be more mobile. No more running servers in the house. My whole computer office will soon fit in the laptop bag. I’m still hoping the computer support ministry grows, but I won’t be fixing any more here at home. I’m switching strictly to house calls.
I have no idea how I’ll keep myself busy this winter, but something nagging at the corners of my mind tells me I will be busy. No heroics. I agree with Old Jules sewage work is by far more heroic than many things, but I may be getting too old for that stuff, at least full time.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep piddling away at stuff people want done, but not in a hurry. Semi-retirement is serious business.
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Morning Ed. As a man who’s done a bit of digging in his life I appreciate your sentiments. But I’ve notice the bending on the jobs gets into my back in ways it didn’t once. I admire the project you’re pursuing of thinning down the anchors of your life. Wish I had the discipline for that.
Off the subject, but have you noticed the wordpress comment box has a thing at the bottom so’s if a person does a long comment he’s writing without being able to see what’s written? There’s a thing comes u with a bunch of tab boxes covering it.
Anyway, good hearing you plan to stay busy this winter. I’d been figuring on just lying around doing nothing, but I doubt I’ll manage it. Jules
I suppose I’ve never made a long enough comment to have seen that issue. For myself, the work around would be to type it up in a separate text editor first, then paste the whole thing in the box and hope it all works out.