Practical Things I Want in 2008...

The last week of the year is when most writers start thinking about yearly goals. The first step, I think, beyond saying, "gee, I should really think of some goals for the coming year," is to think about what you want. Once you know what you want, you can evaluate what you're going to actually work towards and how much time and energy you are willing to put into getting those things. At least, that's how I think of goals.

So this week, Heather asked us to think about what we want in the coming year and try to post about it. Since I've been so terribly deficient in posting lately due to a huge contract I got in October, I'm going to try to post a couple of times about what I want. Some of this will be personal. Some will be silly. Some will be political--Heather, you DID say we could be political. Some, as with this post, will be practical. So, here are the practical things I want in 2008:

1) Get a deep well drilled: not sure how much I've talked here about our recent move, but back in June we bought a 170 year old farm house on roughly 3 acres. It has a shallow well with about 20 feet of usable water. Last summer, we had one of the worst droughts in a hundred years. I had to put the family on severe water restrictions to keep from literally running out of water. I'm not talking about not watering the lawn or washing the car. I mean that I have to wait 2 hours between loads of wash, even though I have a low-water-use front loader. I mean that not everyone can bathe at the same time of day because we can run at most two tubs before we run the well out. It also means sharing bath water. I can't do wash and do dishes and shower in the same morning. The only solution is to dig a deep well--400 feet or so--to the tune of $6000.

2) Get the city house finished and on the market: We still own a house in the city. it's been empty these last 6 months while we work on it. With all the work at the farm, my poor health, and this big contract I got in October work has been terribly slow. We desperately need to get this house on the market and sold or we are going to go under. And of COURSE, the bottom has dropped out of the housing market... again. If we have to rent the house out, we will, but I spent $15K on a new kitchen and I will be pissed to have a tenant take the shine off it. It will never be "NEW" again, ya know?

3) Set plans in motion for the addition to the farm house. The house we bought is pretty big, but it only has one bathroom and a beyond horrible kitchen. The kitchen floor is like the ocean. one of the major joists broke and is on a jack. The subfloor is rotten. The tile and grout were so filthy when we bought it that we tore it out and just live with the subfloor. Yes, it's uncivilized, I agree, but it seems pointless to fix it if we're only going to tear the whole room off the house, yah? The idea is to push the back of the house out about 16 feet, put modern kitchen, baths and systems (we have NO central heat or air) and do some major work to the electrical system (which is in nightmarish shape).

Thinking about how I am going to get those things and which of them is most important, I think that #2 must come at the top of the list. The main obstacles to getting #1 and #3 done is money. Selling the city house, with it's mortgage payment and equity will make #1 happen and #3 possible. So, I should put #2 at the top of my "willing to expend energy" list. Unfortunately, #2 directly conflicts with my #1 career goal (discussed in a later post) which is to keep this big contract I just got and with my abilities to expend energy based on my health problems.

Doesn't mean I can't have these things, just means that I need to figure out how to work it out. I need to go make my kids clean now, because their goal is supposed to be "having a big party on Saturday" and that means "must clean the house," and no one's doing squat unless Mama howls.

Back to howling.

More tomorrow.