To have a happy life out here, you gotta stay busy and stayin’ busy means projects. That is not a hard challenge, actually. There is always something to do on the chore list. You know, building a new set of stairs, re-routing a pipe, fixing a sink, adding some more solar panels, fixing the boat, bringing up the logs and, well, you get the point. Busy, busy, busy.
Having projects actually means having several projects on the go at once. It is not a good work habit, to be sure, to be able to wander from one incomplete chore to another, maybe several times in a day, but it is the way to do it out here. Firstly, you run out of parts. You always run out of parts or damage one of your own fleshy parts. Either way, the project is interrupted. And you can’t zip down to the hardware store and get back in twenty minutes. So, you move to the next half-done chore on the list and get 20% of it done. That is simply the way it is. Don’t fight it. Go with it. It’s kinda a zen thing. “First I do one chore, ‘zen’ I do another!”
One of the projects that always sneaks up on me is ‘clean-up’. If you have four or more chores on the go at all times, what is the point of cleaning up? May as well go from one ‘established’ work site to another without cleaning up especially when you know you’ll be back tomorrow. Makes sense.
Not to Sal. Sal is tidy. She likes things to ‘look nice’. Looking nice means ‘putting things away’. She used to be obsessive about it but now she is better. Read: sneaky. Now she only puts the crucial tools away when I am not looking. Usually when I have gone in to get a drink of water or made the mistake of taking my eyes off her for a second, Whoosh! Crescent wrench is back in the tool box and I didn’t even see it taken!
So, like an idiot, I assume I misplaced it and go back to the sink where I got the drink of water to see if I left the wrench there (an increasing probability, I confess). In the meantime all the bolts, screws and measuring devices are gone! Put away ‘nicely’ as Sal says. ‘Course that is the giveaway. When she tries to put too much stuff away, I catch her.
“Sweetie, you seen my wrench? Thought it was right here.”
“Oh! That? I put it away”.
“But I was using it?!”
“Well, you’ve been ‘using it’ for the last five weeks! I figured whatever had to be done was done by now!”
“Hmmmmm……we still dealing with your desire to tidy things up or are you trying to say something else?”
“I have no idea what you mean but I am sorry to have interrupted you. Clearly you still have plenty to do and I suggest that you get on with it!”
Sally uses the threat of ‘cleaning up’ as a management tool.
And you wonder why it takes so long to finish a project?
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