To Do or Not To Do...There is no question.

I bought a house last spring in a somewhat small Iowa town, but still a county seat. Aside from reasonable real estate prices, I had few requirements in deciding on a new location: 1. a grocery store, 2. pizza delivery, 3. a movie theater, and 4. within a 45 min. drive to work. Why did I choose to move away from the city? Well, my first choice would have been to stay in the city but the real estate was way out of my budget for moving out on my own. I finally settled on a town that is almost exactly the half-way point between the city and my parent's house. What does this mean? Daddy Do lists...oh yeah. Things that I can't manage on my own gets put on the Daddy Do list. I'm pretty self-sufficienct, so the things that do end up on the list are generally pretty big. Currently on the list is: install carpeting in upstairs bedroom (Dad owns a home center so I get the family discount on everything), replace the big window in the kitchen with two new windows (surprise Dad! I didn't mention that one last weekend!), move bedroom from living room to upstairs bedroom (requires the mattress and box springs to come up over the front porch and in through a window), fix shed doors (they were ripped off by high winds early this spring -- don't worry, I'm already working on this one), and install a laundry line in backyard (given to me by my brother). Somehow I don't think this will get done in one weekend, but I have them prioritized just in case I have to remove something from the list.

Of course, in buying an 1890 Mansard, the whole house needs a little TLC. Therefore, I have my own To Do lists. They've been kept in my head for the past year but I realized that I wasn't getting anything accomplished in any decent time frame, so I recently wrote out a list for every room inside the house, including the basement, as well as the carport, landscaping, and external surface of the house, only listing items that I would like to accomplish in the next year. I also made a list of my current hobby projects that need to be done either by X-mas or early spring. It's truly an intimidating list. I've shown them to a few coworkers and they laugh when I say "this is only for the next year". I have to admit -- tasks that I thought would be done in a matter of days are stretching into weeks. I think I may be a little too ambitious, but hey...if you don't have high expectations, you won't know what you can accomplish. Right? Right. Glad you agree with me.

So why am I sitting here typing this blog?? I need to get home and continue painting my bedroom! See, I'm already off track on my priorities! ;)