Warming Up To Motivation

Here I sit broken hearted
The house is so cold
I can hardly get started

Now admit it, after reading the limerick above, everyone is thinking about another little limerick they learned in grade school. It’s ok, you can admit it. Well, you’ll be happy to know, the other little limerick doesn’t apply here. No, I’m as regular as a $10,000 Patek Philippe pocket watch. I’m sure that’s more information than you wanted to know, so let’s move on.

My house is a meat locker. I don’t run the heat during the day because I’m at work, and I don’t turn it on immediately when I get home, because the goal is to get started working on a project. Once I start working on a project I warm up a bit and I don’t notice the cold as much. The problem is getting started. It’s just so damn cold. Even on relatively warm days this house is cold during the winter.

I’ve sort of stalled on the bathroom for now. The damn holidays have something to do with. I think we need to get rid of one of them. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years all bunched up together is a real pain. I don’t like being that sociable, but I don’t want to seem like a scrooge if I don’t attend every single gathering, so I go and I eventually get sick and tired of the whole thing. That’s where I’m at now.

I think Christmas and Easter should be combined in to one holiday. From what I understand, December 25th is not really the official birth of Christ. As legend has it, the date was co-opted from a Pagan Winter Solstice holiday. There are now rumblings that that isn’t so, but I think that is just the religious right trying to validate the holiday. So I say, move Christmas to Easter and Christians, and people who like to shop, can celebrate Christ’s birth and Resurrection at the same time. Or celebrate it on the Thursday before Good Friday. It’s a nice, neat little package of holidays to celebrate Christ. You have the Birth, Crucifixion, and then a few days later, the Resurrection. It would make for a nice 4 day weekend. I think I’m on to something here.

Anyway, there’s my holiday rant. But back to the meat locker issue. What I do is try and warm myself up without turning on the heater. I start by filling up the tub with the hottest water I can stand. It’s so hot I have to ease myself in to it. The skin under the water line reddens within seconds of coming in to contact with the water. The water is so hot, it takes a minute or so before I can fully recline in the tub. The tub is long enough that I can get everything but my head under the water. I lay there with the steam rising off the water’s surface and beads of sweat trickling down my face. It feels sooooo good.

While I’m being parboiled in the tub I lay my work clothes in front of the space heater and thaw them out a bit. After 5 or 10 minutes the water has cooled slightly and I take a regular bath and then get out of the tub a new man ready for some serious work. The trouble is, as I said earlier, I’ve stalled on the bathroom for now. So instead of vegging out in front of the computer I’ve decided to hang doors.

There are a total of 10 door ways upstairs, but only the bathroom has a proper door on it. One of the bedrooms has a door, but it’s wrong and needs to be replaced, and one of the closets has a correct door, but it hangs funny and needs some help. I’ve been hoarding doors for a few years now and I have more than I need. These are all the Eastlake style doors. Some are in much better shape than others. The plan has always been to buy any Eastlake door I could find, use the best, and then sell the rest.

So I’m going to get started on doors. I can’t say how far I’ll get before work on the bathroom resumes, but it will be something to keep me busy, and hopefully warm!