Lazy Productivity

73. ✅  Clear out the flower bed in the front yard Two words: scorched earth. Garden hoe: loosen the dirt. (Broke that hoe.) Shovel: remove the dirt. Sieve: Filter out all the crap in the dirt. What was left was a smooth patch of barren soil. I'm sure there are undesirables lurking beneath the surface, so I'll let it lie for a few days before I do anything else with it. 51.  ✅  Deal with the shred pile This took days. I've been accumulating junk mail, old bills, and literally anything with my name, a family member's name, or our address on it for several months resulting in a two-foot tall stack of papers. It couldn't be done all at once, because (A) the shredder kept overheating, and (B) I kept running out of places to store the shreds. (They take up considerably more room than the unshredded sheets of paper.) 75  ✅  Clean off the workbench Getting rid of the shred pile was the main roadblock in completing this task, but it's done. And now there's a bike up ...

9.  ✅  Reseed the bare patch in the front yard. Because we had a torrential downpour and severe thunderstorm this afternoon I ended up doing most of this work in the dark after the kids were asleep. Fortunately there was enough light for me to see from all of the illegal fireworks being launched all around my neighborhood. I used a garden hoe to scrape up the top layer of soil to completely eradicate any trace of the invasive weed patch that had been taking shape there. I then filled the void with a mixture of topsoil, potting soil, grass seed, and fertilizer before raking it out and tamping it down. Hopefully this patch will eventually be rejuvenated. We'll find out in a few weeks.

 I did the math (correctly, I think) and this is day 81. I know I haven't posted in forever, and I haven't been sitting around doing nothing all this time. But with birthdays, rejoining society, and other such things, I haven't really had much time to document things. Right now my progress is right around 30 completed and a handful more tasks in progress out of about 75. 43.  ✅  Hose and mop the garage. I didn't need to do much. It had been forever since we had a good snowstorm, and most of the salt had already been worn away. So I just wept up and used the shop vac to clean up the corners and gaps. 65.  ✅  Fix the leaky sprinkler line. I discovered this minor leak when I opened up the sprinklers for the season. Fortunately it was just a slight drip in one of the drip line hoses. The other good thing was that it was relatively close to where I needed to spice the line in order to run moisture to the front flower bed anyway. So I just cut the line where the leak ...

I did some stuff today and checked off some items from my list. In addition to these things, I also mowed the lawn, was an e-learning instructor for a 3rd grader and kindergartner, and worked out. 26.  ⚠️  Try to repair the warped deck planks. As luck would have it, the recent string of thunderstorms and heavy downpours did the trick and provided enough moisture so that the planks flattened themselves out when the thermometer hit 80 the other day. I still have work to do; retreating the lumber will help prevent this from happening in the future. I guess I'll add that to the list. 60.  ✅ Set up the dining room air conditioner. It is done. The main floor is now cool. And the best part is that I don't have to lift this monstrosity for another 4+ months.  61.  ✅ Set up the master bedroom air conditioner. Ditto.

I replaced some broken coat hooks today. I'm pretty proud of the replacement hooks, because I found them on clearance for 75% off at Target. 68. ✅ Replace the hooks in the pantry. 69. ✅ Replace the hooks in the boys' room. 16. ⚠️  Beat Hyrule Warriors. It's not that this game isn't beatable. It is very beatable. The issue is that the game is boring and repetitive, the characters' abilities (other than Link) are lame, and the campaigns that require you to pilot the divine beasts are just terrible. So I'm done. I estimate I'm about 50% finished with the playthrough. But I can't tolerate one more 60-minute campaign that I beat easily but then lose at the end because the divine beast controls are unplayable on the Switch Lite. Without the divine beast campaigns, this game would get 3.5/5.0 stars, but with those campaigns it's a solid 1.0/5.0.

I knocked one task off the list today, so I celebrated by knocking off another. 70. ✅ Hang the new mirror in the bathroom. "Can you please hang up the new mirror in the bathroom, real quick?" my wife inquired. One does not simply hang a new mirror in the bathroom. First you have to remove the old mirror, which hopefully hasn't been installed in a stupid way by the previous occupants. If the new mirror is bigger, then you may have to move some of the fixtures--like towel racks and lights. If you do, then there is the matter of patching up the drywall in the places previously occupied by those fixtures. Then once that dries, you have to paint those spots. Hopefully the previous occupants left you some of that paint, so you don't have to repaint the entire room. Once all that is done you can finally hang the new mirror. But wait! You first have to measure and mark the wall so that you can put in drywall anchors and mounting screws. Hopefully the mirror isn't going in...

Busy day. In addition to completing a class for my telework requirement, and administering e-Learning to two elementary school children, I got the following done: 66.  ✅ Roll out the area rug in the basement Not worth a photo, because the rug is kind of old and ugly, but I'm all about decluttering these days. The rug was just rolled up along one wall, taking up a lot of space. Rolling it out on the floor not only reclaims that space, but also gives the kids a more comfortable place to play compared with a cold basement laminate floor. I know it sounds easy, but this took a lot of time and effort, because I basically had to remove everything from the room, including a chest freezer and two large pieces of exercise equipment. 58.  ✅  Add blackout material to the irregular dining room window. In the three rooms of the house where we spend most of our time, there are large irregular trapezoidal windows. They look great because they let in a lot of natural light. The bad ...

  49. ✅ Install non-skid strips on bunk bed ladder. The 8-year-old has a bunk bed and likes to climb in and out of the top bunk safely without slipping. The 4-year-old occupies the bottom bunk and enjoys peeling non-slip safety tape off of ladders. Talk about an odd couple. Well, today's tasker should satisfy both.

It was unbelievably hot out today, and I didn't get to some of the outdoor tasks I wanted to tackle. Sadly it's going to snow again in two days, so it looks like outdoor chores are going to be on hold for a while. 23.  ✅ Cut down my neighbor's dead tree limb that overhangs the fence. It took longer for me to get permission from my neighbor to do this than it actually took to do it. Ladder: check. Bow saw: check. No more getting poked in the forehead every time I walk around to the side of the house: check. 63.  ✅ Reassemble the backseat.  I hadn't had a truly gross task yet. I was due. Last week my daughter got sick and threw up all over the backseat of my car. I mean all over. Two carseats, a booster seat, floor mats, a cargo net, seat cover, and the backs of the front seats. (And not to mention, all of the stuff I had in the back seat, like books, jackets, and other miscellaneous backseat junk.) It was all covered. That day I spent about 3 hours removing all o...

My mom surprised us by having this hanging play tent delivered to our door last week. It is large, heavy and bulky and I didn't have anyplace to store the box in the house. So naturally we put it together outside.  53. ✅ Assemble the swinging tent.

I took care of two ugly problems that have been bugging me for a while today. Sometimes even drab colors, when fresh, can make a world of difference. 41. ✅ Re-caulk the bathroom sink. When you own your home, you notice things. Specifically you notice when the previous owners were into DIY. But more than that, you notice when the previous owners either took shortcuts or didn't know what they were doing. At some point in history a previous occupant of my house installed a sink. When they did so they used plumber's putty to mount the sink on the vanity, which is perfectly fine. However, they used way too much, and they never sealed around the edge of the sink with appropriate bathroom caulk. So over time as that putty got wet over and over again, it began to ooze out. It looked disgusting, and I knew it wasn't doing the counter top any favors. Ugh, plumbing. Well, first things first, I gave the counter top and sink basin a good cleaning. Using some Q-tips I made sure to clean ...

Sometimes you just have to take a win wherever you can get one. And when you don't, all you can do is hope for better next time. 31. ✅ Replace the shower curtain in the 2nd bathroom. I'm taking the win. 2.  ⚠️ Remove the bathtub hard water stains. I accomplished some of this. The hard water stains are gone. That was a pretty easy one to check off using some CLR and an old rag. However the brushed nickel drain stopper also had what I thought were chalky-looking mineral deposits that needed to also be removed. Upon closer inspection I realized that these were not mineral deposits. The "brushed nickel" hardware was actually just a ceramic piece painted (or otherwise treated) to look like brushed nickel. The chalky mineral deposits were actually spots where the nickel finish had chipped away and exposed the ceramic. There's not a whole lot I can do about that, short of either replacing or refinishing the hardware. Both of those things sound expensive, and I don't ...

Hey remember that time I fixed the leaky bathtub faucet and then didn't test both the hot water and cold water flows? It turns out there is a hot water flow inhibitor built into each cartridge to prevent scalds. And on the model of cartridge I installed, it apparently defaults to zero hot water flow. I discovered this at 2am while getting ready for work. Rather than take the faucet apart again so early in the morning and potentially waking up the rest of the house, I opted for the ice-cold shower. Never again. When I got home from work I immediately rectified that issue.

It's been a few days. We had a family member visit for the weekend, and then we had a couple snow storms, and then most of us got sick. No, not COVID-19, just a stomach bug. But it was a setback. 1. Fix the leaky bathtub faucet. When we moved into this house the bathtub faucet in the second bathroom had a very small drip. It was so small it was almost imperceptible. However, over time that drip grew and grew until a few weeks ago it became a small stream. I really didn't want to have to call a plumber, but after doing some research, I learned that the problem is a simple, cheap, DIY fix. The faucet is an older Delta faucet, which contains a cartridge that controls the flow of water when turned on. I snagged a replacement cartridge off Amazon for about $25, turned off the water in the house, and got to work. Disassembling the faucet was remarkably simple, and because it's not that old there wasn't any corrosion to deal with. Using a hex tool, strap wrench, and flat screw...

I took a harrowing drive to the airport last night in the midst of a snowstorm to pick up my visiting mother in law. This morning, despite my best efforts to clean off the car before putting it back in the garage last night, the garage floor was a cesspool of dirty water, sand and road salt. I'm sure glad I didn't bother to 43. Hose and mop the garage the other day when I had planned on it. I did need to sweep it out a bit to keep folks from destroying the carpets. Here's what else I did today: 30. ✅ Replace the broken master bedroom doorknob. At some point in history, someone in this house broke the doorknob on the door to the master bedroom. The locking mechanism snapped off and caused the knob to make a loud clicking noise whenever turned, which was loud enough to wake up the napping baby. This was a pretty easy 5-minute job. Both knobs were the same make and model so it was a quick switcheroo.

It's honestly going to be tough to get much done in the next few days due to a sick kid, a visiting grandmother, a family birthday, and the fact that I'll be working much of the weekend. But that doesn't mean we won't try. We've begun our spring planting in the kitchen with some spaghetti squash started from seeds, but as you can see from the photo, those plants aren't going in the ground any time soon. I'm also hard at work watching Superstore , which I really enjoy. But I did get a few things done today, namely... 36. ✅ Become fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Now full immunity won't kick in for a few more weeks, but I did get jabbed for a second time today. Will I have crippling side-effects? Only time will tell. I'm just glad I can finally quit this full-time job of trying to find COVID vaccine appointments in Colorado. Oh yeah, and on the way to the grocery store to get that shot I managed to... 35. ✅ Take old clothes and toys to the donation ...

 42.  ✅  Organize the kids' old clothes. In the aftermath of decluttering the all-purpose spare bedroom yesterday, I was left with a monstrous box of old kids clothes that needed to be sorted in order to determine which to donate, which to keep for smaller people to someday wear, and which to keep for posterity. I had some help this time, so with a four-person crew, we made short work of the hand-me-downs. The end result: bags in the basement tucked away for next time, and bags in the car ready to roll to another home. 

You have to start somewhere--tackle that low-hanging fruit first and set the pace.  14.  ✅ Declutter the spare bedroom. The good news is that I didn't take any before photos. It's too embarrassing. The other good news is that I didn't take any after photos either. It's kind of a dull room for sleeping, storing extra toilet paper, doing e-learning with the kids, and chucking odds and ends that don't go anywhere else. But it's cleared out now, and I even hung a few pictures. 15. ✅ Assemble the new clothes rack in the spare bedroom. Y'know, in order to get those clothes off the floor, you have to have a place to put them. I assembled one.

Today is April 13, 2021. I went back to work on October 17, 2020, and since that time, my house has begun to fall apart. I need to get back on the wagon and get some work done around the house before it completely collapses. So today I begin my 100 days of 100 projects, which will take me until July 22, 2021. We'll see how far I get. It's good to have goals. 100 Projects ✅  Fix the leaky bathtub faucet.  (Completed 4/22) ⚠️ Remove the bathtub hard water stains. (Abandoned 4/26) Repair woodpecker damage on the north side of the house. Clean the gutters. Patch rust spots in gutters. Caulk and paint front window. 🔥 Plant bushes in front flower bed. Reseed the bare patch in back yard. ✅  Reseed the bare patch in the front yard. (Completed 7/3) Move the garden bed. ✅   Spring garden planting. (Completed 7/2) 🔥 Resurface the gravel walkway between the house and shed. ✅  Patch the drywall in the living room stairwell. (Completed 7/2) ✅ Declutter the spare be...

 The following are films released in the year 2021, ordered by how much I enjoyed them (or didn't). Malcolm and Marie Raya and the Last Dragon Moxie Psycho Goreman (Canada) I Care a Lot The Dig (UK) Space Sweepers (South Korea) Red Dot (Sweden) Below Zero (Spain) The White Tiger The Little Things Tom & Jerry: The Movie Create your own visited countries map or check out the JavaScript Charts .