Little visible progress toward anything today despite hours spent on caulking and patching. I more or less finished the necessary pre-painting work in the main bedroom and the kitchen and I started on the bathroom. I was not able to mark very many things off my weekend list. I find it frustrating to leave projects half finished.

I cannot cross “bathroom” off the list because I did not finish. I did not finish because I encountered more significant and extensive water damage and wood rot than I was expecting. I knew there would be some, but… there was more than “some”:

I’ll probably try to patch it as best I can with plaster and then glop it up with silicone caulk and hope it holds up for a while. I also discovered that a significant portion of the kitchen countertop is rotted out from underneath. There’s only a thin layer of fake granite-style linoleum giving the appearance of a solid surface. Realistically, both the kitchen and the bathroom need to be completely torn out and rebuilt, with, I am sure, considerable structural repair necessary beneath the floors and behind the walls. At present, however, I lack the requisite tens of thousands of dollars to undertake such a project.

So what did I accomplish this weekend toward my goals? Well, the house shows very little progress toward being “for sale” ready. I managed no decluttering, so there’s not even room to walk into at least two of the rooms. I undertook no exercise; well, no exercise beyond stooping and stretching and crawling around on the floor while working on house projects. Other than a couple of these blog posts I did no writing. I got caught up on my “photo a day” project – I’ve been posting daily toy photos on the iPernity photo hosting site for about two-hundred days straight now. Well, I’ve been taking daily photos anyway; recently I’ve not had the time or energy to post the photos on a daily basis, and I end up playing catch-up on the weekends. The photos have for the most part been rushed and are not at all creative or clever. I hope to have the time, space, and enthusiasm to devote more energy to photography here at some point. I don’t know when that point will be.

Next weekend is a three-day break from work, Saturday/Sunday/Monday, and I hope to get more accomplished than I did this weekend. I look around from where I’m sitting and I feel overwhelmed. I don’t know what to do that will make a difference. I’m not sure what “difference” I am hoping to make in the first place, I suppose is part of the problem.

As a reminder to myself, here’s the goal list I posted last week:

•  Get the house ready for a real-estate appraisal and possible listing for sale
  • Complete structural and aesthetic repairs, like painting and patching
  • Clean out the clutter!
• Resume exercising
  • Lose weight – 45 to 50 pounds (starting from 195)
  • increase cardio endurance (run ultra distances)
• Pay off my credit cards
• Find or create a new career
  • Make a living at a job I don’t hate
  • Make more money than I do now
  • Have as much or more free time as I do now
• Write and publish eBook novels on Amazon (and other formats)

So, this weekend I worked on the “structural and aesthetic repairs,” and made little progress. I did not clear out any clutter. I did nothing to lose weight or improve my fitness level. I made the minimum payment toward a couple of credit cards. Two ebay listings closed this afternoon, but I have not yet received payment. I did nothing toward changing my career status, unless reading three pages in Adventure in Everything by Matthew Walker counts. As stated above, I accomplished no writing beyond these blog posts.

I remember now why I have never finished reading Adventure in Everything. The book contains numerous short “exercises,” mental and philosophical type exercises to help develop focus and initiative. I always stop reading when I hit the first exercises. I stop because I want to complete the exercises, but then I don’t do the exercises, and since I haven’t completed the exercises I cannot keep reading. So I gotta do the “Throw Away the Old Story” exercise on p. 24 before I can proceed.

Back to work in the morning. Guh.