Procrastination

 The picture above is looking into the closet directly from across the room. Notice the angle of the floor. The paint is original from when my father in law painted it years ago. The wood slats are molding that he used to place shelves on. I have two shleves there now, but adding anymore would make it impossible to get into the attic.

 I couldn't get a full shot of the opening because of the angles. The whole house has this molding on every corner. I hate the stuff, but it makes for a smooth edge. The openings would be much bigger without it, and I am making plans to remove and replace a lot of it throughout the house. The wall color in the room is actually flat white, but the reflection of the carpet gives it another hue. The closet is dull brown. Also, the door to the left has rebond padding on it to deaden sound. I originally used the room as my "studio".

 The ladder is hand made and beautiful. It is made from pine, nicely finished, and very thick. It fits inside the closet along the wall. There is a strap with springs that hold it to the wall when not in use. The bottom is angled to fit into the floor of the closet. I have it out so that I could clean the closet. 

This is what I do when I should be doing something else.

I am busy all day and run out of physical and mental steam about 6pm every night.

I get up around 4am every morning, but that seems to be enough time to accomplish most things.

I do get a lot of stuff done, but I have a lot to do yet.

I feel better every day, both physically and mentally.

Next week, I plan to do nothing but work on my music.

I also plan to work on my diet. I thawed out some meat and other animal protein, and will make up some meals that will be very heavy in protein. I am going to start over and try to regain my pattern of weight loss and exercise.

I know that my eating patterns can be altered now, and will try to get back to basics.

Last night, I grabbed a trash bag and filled it with stuff from yet one more closet. This closet is important because it is a portal into another dimension. Yes, I have one of those in my home. I have been there many times in the years I have owned the home, but haven't been there recently.

It's a place of opposites. When the house is warm, it is cold.

There is no weather there, and only 3 lights.

I am talking about the attic, of course.

Our attic has a small access hole in my closet. There is no other way to get there right now. I know neighbors have cut openings in their hallway, and added fold up stairways, but I haven't.

Anyway, the closet that houses the hole to the attic is strange. It is not rectangular. It is placed in a small space just above the basement stairs, so the floor is angled and uneven to make room for the stairway going down to the basement below it.

The hole into the attic is just large enough to fit  a human body, so anything that is stored up there has to be small enough to fit through the hole. It is covered with a piece of plywood, and this seals the heat and cold from coming down into the house.

My In-laws owned the house before us, so when we got the house, I went up there for the first time to see what was there. I found a small metal box with old canceled checks, some suitcases, and lots of leftover pieces of holiday wrapping paper. There were no pots of gold, or millions of dollars worth of bearer bonds, unfortunately.

I did disconnect the attic fan that was on a thermostat because as a fireman, I have seen way too many of them catch on fire and cause much damage. It's not worth the few penny's of savings. The darn things are noisy, and waste more energy than they save.

The reason for going up there this time, is to see what I can see of the area over the porch that I just enclosed. The ceiling there is made up of some type aluminum, and the heat goes right up and away from the room. This keeps the porch area cold. I tried setting up a space heater to see if it would help, but no luck.

I know the attached garage on the other side of the porch has a firewall made of brick, so there is no access from there, but I don't know what is visible from the attic. 

As I go from one area of the house to another, I finish work that was started when I moved in. I always had something else more important to do, or some other excuse to not do it. Now, I have time, energy, and a little bit of money to finish things. Much of the work takes little or no money.

• Paint is fairly cheap. You paint once every 19 years and you're fine. $200 for paint and supplies divided by 19 years is a drop in the bucket. The tough part is the prep work, and trying not to make a mess. I hate ceiling painting too.
• I can't imagine how they insulated the attic all those years ago, if they had to move the insulation through that little opening. I imagine they did the insulation before they put the roof on. Anyway, the attic needs new insulation, so I will be looking into doing that myself to save some bucks. It can't be that hard. I can use the exercise.
• I need to clean out the garage, and maybe throw some insulation up there too. The garage gets pretty cold in the winter, making handy jobs out there almost impossible. The walls are cinder block and brick, so it's like being in a freezer. It stays cold there even after the temperature outside goes up in the spring.

There are things around the house that have worn out. They could be replaced, but they aren't that big a deal if I don't get to them. There will always be things like that. They drive me crazy, but there is really nothing I could do about them all at once, so I keep chipping away at them.

• There is a remote garage door opener that is attached to the wall inside the house so I can open the door before I go out. It hasn't worked since I replaced the batteries years ago. There was a way to program it, but I never figured it out. I will probably take it off the wall and throw it out when I paint. I hardly ever used it anyway. 
• The garage door cable needs to be replaced. I can buy the cable cheap at the hardware store and restring it, but I haven't bothered because the door works fine.
• I need to replace the garage door from a decorative point of view. It is still functional, but it's old and ugly. Painting it won't work. It needs to be replaced. The railing where the wheels are is also worn out, and they have probably improved the openers too over the years. I can't do that part myself. I'll have to contract out.
• The roof doesn't leak, but there are areas that should be fixed. The rain gutters have never been attached properly. They drain water, but when it rains heavily, the water runs right over them. The basement flooded when we first moved in, and channeling the water away from the house fixed that problem. There is a spot near the edge of the driveway that leaks onto the driveway in the winter. It freezes just where you want to step to get into the house. I haven't been able to fix that. I need a pro to do it. I covered the rain gutters with cheap grids from Home Depot and cut the trees down, so now I don't need to clean out the gutters, but I would like to replace the gutters with professional looking covers. I may try that myself next year, By the way, if you can do it yourself, you will save thousands of dollars. The materials cost about $200.00. Even the seamed gutters do a great job if they are done right. A bit of silicone seals the seams nicely and it lasts forever. The toppers just snap on and the downspouts are also plug and play. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Add to that, lots of other little things, like going out and buying new light switch covers, etc. and you have a lot of work to do. Last night, I replaced the ceiling light glass cover in the kitchen that has been in the closet for years since it wouldn't fit on with the new, large CFLs. I replaced the large CFLs with smaller, more powerful ones, and now the cover is back on. It looks better. The kitchen needs more lighting, but that will have to wait. For now, one fixture with two bulbs will have to do.

I can feel the pounds drifting away from just thinking about all the work that needs to be done. I guess it's time to go out and make it happen.

Life is Good!