Coming Unmoored

It seems like pretty much everyone has some sort of master plan out right now on how to be more productive. You’ve got Dave Allen’s Getting Things Done, Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Leo Babauta’s Zen to Done, the inimitable Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life…. You get the idea.

Back in my turbo-propelled 20’s, I used to snap up these manuals in an effort to glean any new tidbits that could help me work smarter and more efficiently. In my 30’s, I started to calm down quite a bit about the whole thing. While I still think there’s something to be said for spending one’s life energy wisely, I’m not necessarily sure churning out the most amount of work in the least amount of time is really the same thing. In the race of life, I’ve gone from being a supercharged hare to a rather especially pokey and asthmatic tortoise. (I mean, what about stopping to check out that daffodil over there…)

For the most part, I’ve been content with these changes. But last spring and summer, while I going through the worst of my divorce proceedings, I didn’t need to fine-tune my productivity. I needed help establishing I even had a pulse. I was in the middle of a pretty serious bout of depression.

For a couple of months I couldn’t seem to manage anything more than schlepping my butt between my bed and my couch—with occasional interim stops to scrounge for something psuedo-edible in the kitchen, a semi-weekly shower, or to get lectured by my mail lady for letting things pile up in my mailbox again. (That was worth getting off the couch for. If I didn’t, it meant I’d eventually have to drive to the Post Office to pick up the latest batch of forms my lawyer needed me to sign. And driving two miles was unthinkable.)

After a couple of months of this, I managed to muster enough energy to be pretty disgusted with myself. I have a long, LONG list of character faults but rolling-over and playing dead when things get rough is normally not one of them. So I started experimenting with strategies to get my butt off the couch and start getting things done again.

After a lot of trial and error I came up with an idiot simple formula that continues to work for me… Every day I have to do ONE thing I really, really DON’T WANT TO DO. The “DON’T WANT TO DO” item has to be something important that’s going to have a significant impact on my life for the good. Once that’s done, if I really don’t feel like being productive and if the world is not going to positively end if I don’t do something else, I’m allowed to revert to being a lump on the sofa.*

And there were definitely days when I did just that—my one items and then reversion to lump-dom. But those singular items started to add up. Plus, I got pretty good at doing the DON’T WANT TO DO item first thing in the morning because I knew I got to goof-off without guilt after that was done.

More often than not, I discovered that whatever image I’d concocted in my mind of completing the dreaded task was a lot worse than the reality of doing whatever it was I’d been avoiding. And, scratching significant things I’d been off my “To Do” list frequently gave me a boost of energy and self-confidence that helped me start ticking less high-stakes things off the list, as well. Slowly, day by day, I started to get my life back on track. I’m still using the system currently.

Just in case you’re curious, here’s some examples of recent items I’ve completed from my DON’T WANT TO DO list:

• Call my contractor and have a difficult conversation on timelines and costs

• Discuss completing last-year’s taxes with my ex-husband

• Take two very full carloads of books/CD’s to the local used bookstore and turn them in

• Take two carloads of garbage from my move into my place in Tucson—yes, from a year ago (cough)—to the dump

• Spend two hours filling out the most anal-retentive, non-user-friendly, job application I’ve ever seen

Anyway, you get the idea.

In summary, I wanted to share my not-so-profound formula for productivity. If there’s someone else out there who’s struggling to get things done and who would be completely overwhelmed with one of the regular productivity books, I suggest giving my version a try for a couple of days and see what you think. And, if you do, let me know how it turns out. Inquiring, slow-moving tortoises wanna know.

• I do want to note that I realize there are people out there who, due to their personal life circumstances, have to spend a good part of their days doing things they really don’t want to be doing in order to simply survive. I know several single moms who fall into this category. I will be the first to say, my hat’s off to you. I don’t think I’m that tough.

Thankfully, I don’t have to be. Between proceeds from the sale of a house and my divorce proceedings, I’m fortunate enough not to be in those circumstances… at least not yet. I have some breathing room on how I spend my days and you better believe I’m profoundly grateful for that.

If your life circumstances are far more difficult than mine and you’ve been handling them with grace, it is my firm belief that you will be the first in line to be born in your next life as an exceptionally well-loved and pampered house cat. I’m the keeper of one of those. Trust me—it’s not a bad gig if you can get it.

So, while I was in Portland I also needed to meet with Brian, the property manager for the marina, to arrange for my parking passes and remotes to get past the front gates. When I got to the marina, Brian was out and about tackling other problems, as good property managers are often wont, which meant I got to wander up and down the docks introducing myself to people and asking if anyone had seen him. (All I knew was that he was a casually-dressed, middle-aged, white guy with a baseball cap. I’m quickly learning that describes about 85% of the people you find along the water.)

Through this process, I got to meet a couple of the local handymen and also a few of my neighbors. Everyone was friendly and politely curious. However, I started to get a little uneasy when the third person in a row asked when my “lifemate”/”partner” was coming up to join me.

I didn’t think much of it at first when the handymen had asked. I mean, a new, non-retiree female shows up at the marina. They’re probably trying to figure out what mental bucket to put me into. But when the nice, blue-haired retiree a few doors down from my place used the term “lifemate” and looked confused when I replied that my boyfriend lived in another state, the alarm bells started going off. Things got weirder still when I tracked down Brian and, during small-talk in his office, it came out that he thought I worked as a stewardess. And then he also asked about my “partner”.

As best as I can figure things without outright asking someone, word around the marina seems to be that the new owner of my place is a lesbian stewardess.

I smell my realtor, Graham, behind this small bit of mischief. I should be quick to say that Graham was nothing but professional and courteous in his dealings with me. And that I think he did a great job for a very small commission. But Graham is also a bit of a character and I saw glimpses along the way of a wicked sense of humor.

In buying the house I only over dealt with two people–my realtor, Graham, and the owner of the marina, Jack. So, unless Brian and the handymen are particularly gutsy with their pranks with people they’ve just met, the misinformation started with either Graham or Jack. If I had to guess, what might have happened is one of the handymen at the marina started pestering Graham for details on the new owner. I could see Graham coming up with a story like that under the right circumstances. I mean, doesn’t it sound like the set-up for your typical 30-minute Cinemax porn?

Charlie seems highly amused by my predicament. Well, he did, until I threatened to introduce him to people as my “lifemate” who’d just finished going through her sex-change operation. Then he was quick to point out that people would never believe it with how pronounced an Adam’s apple he has. (Never mind that he’s also 6 feet 7 inches tall and has an amazingly deep voice.)

I’m still waffling on how to handle this latest development. I mean, do I post a cardboard sign in my window saying: “I hate to wreck anyone’s fantasies but: 1) I’m dating a guy and 2) I typically work at boring jobs involving lots of time staring at numbers”?

Or do I decide to compound the mischief? I have a former roommate and good friend, Katherine, who’s gay. She’s willing to come up for a visit sporting a stewardess uniform and has even offered to swoop in and bend me backwards in a passionate smooch. (This last bit would be quite a feat considering I’m 5 feet 11 inches and she’s quite a bit shorter than me.)

Anyway, things to contemplate while I’m packing…

I should probably begin by confessing that this entry was half-written and originally titled “Bob Vila is The Devil” when Dave Greten, a writer for BobVila.com contacted me and asked if he could do a brief write-up of my place and link to my blog. Somehow, it just seemed like terribly bad manners on my part to have their readership click over to my little ol’ site for the first time and read a headline like that. Plus, I really don’t want to get Mr. Greten in trouble.

Besides, as much of an icon as Bob Vila is in my family, that would also make the next family get-together pretty uncomfortable for me. Which leads me back to my original entry…

When I was growing up, church on Sundays was discretionary. Bob Vila was sacrosanct.

My mother and younger brother, Chris, had a weekly bonding ritual of watching This Old House. They started watching with the first season back in 1979. They ordered all the books published for each season. If we went out of town for the weekend on a family trip, we HAD to be back by 7 PM Sunday night so they could get their weekly fix. (Once we had a VCR we did trying taping the show once. However, something went wrong with the tape and there was much loud wailing and gnashing of teeth like a scene out of Where the Wild Things Are. After that, we simply had to be home in time.) They had the Bob Vila addiction BAD.

Mom and Chris really got off on following the transformation of the latest pile of rotting–but deeply historically significant–pile of sticks someone was struggling valiantly to restore into a habitable home. They cheered appearances of Norm Abram and historically-accurate recreations of molding. They gasped in horror at the discovery of unsuspected termites and home owners who weren’t pulling their weight. They loved nothing better than when critical paths got messed up and contractors started tripping over one another and snarling. The more gory and miserable the growing pains of the remodel, the better, as far as they were concerned. They found it enthralling in a reality-TV-kind-of-way and knew that–like any good television drama–by the end of the season everything would turn out well.

I wish I could say I was as into the show as they were. While I thought the old homes were neat and I enjoyed seeing the finished product, I found all the interim steps tedious, uncomfortable, and sometimes outright painful to watch. There was just so much chaos and mess. The families being filmed had their lives turned upside-down for a television season. Workers on the set occasionally got cranky with one another. And, like many things in life, the remodels never went as easily as initially planned. I always thought the show should consist of the first and last episodes and spare the PBS viewership all the uncomfortable details in between.

I’m afraid remodeling just ain’t my thang, babe. I’ve always been an instant gratification creature. And there is very little, if anything, that is instant-gratification about rebuilding your house. I also have an abject horror of budget and scope-creep for any projects domestic.

That being said, I really wanted my little floating home. And I was aware, when I bought it, that it was going to require some significant work to bring it back up to snuff. I just didn’t want to see another little historic floating home trashed to make way for another modern McMansion. So I’m doing my best to draw on the enthusiasm for restorations I witnessed growing up.

Just the same, if there are many references to Lamaze breathing and Vicodin in entries in the upcoming weeks, please bear with me. I am seriously out of my element at present.

When I bought my place I knew the float was going to need to be significantly rebuilt. I was a little hazy, however, on the fact that this really ought to happen before I moved in. My realtor had prepped me that, depending on what had to be done, the contractor might need to go through the floor in places to pin the stringers correctly. (Stringers are the narrower crossbeams on a wood float. I’ll be posting something on float anatomy shortly.) Anyway, in the case of my house, the floor needed to be completely TORN OUT.

Apparently, the last person who’d done repairs to the float did a half-assed job and didn’t pin the stringers they’d replaced. That needed to be corrected. In addition, I requested to expand the float to add a front deck and also to seal the boat well in back. And thirty-year-old rotting wood needed to be replaced. All told, I’m adding six 50′ Douglas fir logs and more than fourteen new stringers.

I resigned myself to the float work and, in some ways, was even grateful it was going to happen before I moved in. But, as in the world of The Money Pit, no remodeling project ever proves as simple as you originally thought.

So let me walk you through with what’s up with my house right now…

When I arrived at the marina, the first indication that I might want to start practicing my breathing is when I located my house by the large pile of debris out front. On land when you do demolition the contractor normally brings a supersized trash container referred to as a “roll-offs”. Well, here’s a picture of my “raft-off”.

The first glimpse of my house wasn’t too bad. The stairway to my top deck had to be removed to do the float rebuild. The boards you see on the side of the house are the new “stringers”. These will eventually be covered with the new walkway and staircase.

Here’s what will be my expanded front porch. I lost one of my flower boxes to rot. Sniff. I’m just trying to close my eyes and visualize future barbeques with friends.

OK. This is where it starts getting a little more hairy. Take a look at my kitchen floor. Those holes on the left had to be drilled in order for my contractor to properly pin the stringers underneath the house. On the right side? Nothing but logs and the Columbia River right now. Trust me. I got reminded of that fact when I got distracted taking pictures and didn’t watch my step backing up.

Once upon a time, this was my family room floor. Right now it’s nothing but loose sheets of plywood over logs and stringers. And a whole lot of water underneath

More chaos in the family room area.

The sealed-in boatwell. Someday this will be my home office.

So, one piece of bad news my contractor gave me is that the person who installed the siding on my house was a moron. They didn’t put siding under where the staircase met the house. Worse still, there were two loose propane tanks on the right side of the house. There’s a gap there where they didn’t bother to move the bottles. I’m talking to someone now to find out if there’s a way to shift the pieces. Otherwise, I’m going to have to redo most of it.

Also, my house was seriously out of balance from the float work that needed to be done. The last owner didn’t address this issue before replastering sections of the house. Now that the house is, in fact, level, there’s a bunch of repairs to be made. Check out how out of alignment the door is, now.

One final one because if I don’t laugh I’ll cry… Clearly, I’m not paying my contractor enough if this is the beer he’s drinking.

A friend of mine who’s a contractor believes no one should be allowed to start a remodeling project before first being forced to sit down and watch the movie The Money Pit. At least six times. Back-to-back. Without restroom breaks.

I’ve seen the movie more than once because it’s one of my mother and brother’s favorites (more on that later). But, just the same, I discovered this past week that there’s a world of difference between understanding intellectually that your new place is going to need a lot of work and standing in the middle of the carnage after a contractor has had his way with your baby for a couple of weeks.

I think this is doubly true when you can see the Columbia River beneath your feet in 90% of the places that were covered with really nice carpeting the last time you were there.

But let me back up a bit and explain how I reached this moment of dismay…

I hired Randy Olson, a local contractor, to do the work on the float. Randy is the owner of Duck’s Moorage, a marina a few down from mine and he’s got a good reputation on the river for his work. Randy is an easy-going guy with graying temples and a twinkle in his eyes. He looks like he could be Tom Skerritt moonlighting.

Randy is a man of few words and not one to catastrophize. As a matter of fact, the first time I reached him on his cell phone and asked if it was a good time to talk, he told me he “had a few minutes”. I discovered only later through a conversation with my realtor that I had interrupted Randy on the middle of the freeway trying to rescue 6 x 6 foot pieces of foam one of his employees had just spilled all over the road.

So, when Randy called me to say there were “some problems” with the rebuild on the float, I knew it was time to sit down before asking for the details. (On top of watching The Money Pit, I also highly recommend a course in Lamaze breathing for anyone considering any sort of remodeling project.)

I’ve mentioned that my house started its life as a boathouse and that living quarters were added on over time. Well, when Randy went in to do the float rebuild he discovered that both the plumbing and electrical lines are a cobbled-together mess. As most of this is in the floors, I’m going to need to fix things before the floors get rebuilt and covered with Pergo. And there’s a whole host of other issues. (And, yes, I will post an update on the accounting once all the dust has settled, no pun intended.)

Anyway, I flew up to Portland last week so Randy could show me what had been done so far and we could formulate a game plan for the work going forward.

In my next entry, I’ll give you the photo tour of what I discovered when I got there. Just please remember–it looked like a house when I bought it.