I am not yet fully recovered from the lingering cold that has been plaguing me for two solid weeks, but at least most of the sinus congestion has cleared up. A nagging, deep cough continues to bother me and my energy levels are low. Nevertheless, I puttered away at a few little projects today.I scrubbed and caulked the inside of a kitchen cabinet, one where the trash bin is stored. It was pretty disgusting, with quite a bit of cockroach and mouse droppings. I scrubbed it out with Comet cleanser and then sealed up all the cracks and crevices in the corners with painter’s caulk. This is one more project I should have taken care of years ago. The kitchen cabinets are low-grade pressboard with flimsy plywood backs and sides that flex under pressure. If we end up staying in the house I think a kitchen upgrade will be high on the list of priorities… and expenses.

Then I shuffled junk around in The Room of Doom. I packed away the thirteen “crystal skulls” – those would be the crystal skulls that saved the world from the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse – as I won’t be needing them for another thirteen bak’tun cycles; or at least, a row of grinning lifesize skulls might put off potential buyers if we actually ever put the house on the market.

As soon as I finish typing this entry I’m going to try to sort through some boxes and get some more stuff pulled out for a yard sale. The next yard sale is tentatively planned for the coming weekend. I do hope I am feeling better by then. Then I hope to get to bed reasonably early before starting another miserable work-week tomorrow morning when the alarm sounds at 5:00 a.m.

While I’m feeling less woozy and exhausted than I have in weeks, I’ll quickly address the 100 Days Goals List:

• Get the house ready for a real-estate appraisal and possible listing for sale
  • Complete structural and aesthetic repairs, like painting and patching – multiple rooms still require painting; several spaces need patching and touch-up prior to painting; lots of cleaning and painting outside, including reinforcing the deck; kitchen cabinets need to be stained and varnished.
  • Clean out the clutter! – no matter how much I take out, the existing stuff expands to fill the space. I disassembled and removed an entire piano – you’d think I’d have some floor space in The Room of Doom by now, but no!
• Resume exercising
  • Lose weight – 45 to 50 pounds (starting from 195) – still at 195 – 197 pounds; eating and drinking lots of sugary junk to get through the work days while I’m sick.
  • increase cardio endurance (run ultra distances) – this cold has settled in my lungs. Even minor exertion results in heavy sweating and heavy breathing. No, not in a good way.
• Pay off my credit cards – no progress. Money from my few recent eBay sales goes to gas for driving to work.
• Find or create a new career – no progress
  • 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) – no progress

• Start a blog
  • Post daily for 100 days – Currently at Day 52; quite a few posts have been two word “I’m sick” updates.
  • Figure out how to make it look cool
  • Decide if blogging is worth pursuing longer-term

Additionally, my car, a 2002 PT Cruiser, is leaking coolant so badly I can no longer drive it to work. I am now driving my spouse’s 1997 Suzuki Sidekick. At least the Suzuki runs, but it has so many rusty holes in the roof and body panels that rain runs in, and the engine makes a piercing squealing noise when starting up – I think the air conditioning compressor is seizing up. I don’t have the money or the space on my credit cards to have my car looked at, let alone repaired. I suspect the problem is the water pump, which is inside the engine, and would cost about a thousand dollars to fix.

So yeah, fifty days in, I’m actually in worse shape than when I started; house repairs aren’t finished, we have not had a real estate agent look at the house yet, my decluttering efforts have been ineffective, and now my car is an immobile hunk of junk in the driveway, currently serving as a storage bin for yard sale items.