New Years resolutions: Year of Tobi, Year III, The year of Tobi's House
As you well know, every year I do new year's resolutions. I find that my life improves every year I make these resolutions as I complete about 80% or so each year.
This year is going to be all about investing in the house/preparing for a family. This involves expanding the house, which is a source of concern as it will make my house taxes go up. This year's resolutions:
1) Develop savings. I have never been a saver. It is high time that changed. I am going to save $100-200 from each paycheck.
2) Address a longstanding committment issue.
3) Add shelves in the Kitchen in the space where the cabinets were. Lindsey was VERY upset when I took down the cabinets as she did not like my idea of putting a back door in there. I have been sold on the idea that a back door is not the way to go there, so shelves would be good. This needs to be done by Feb. 15th. "Tobi, I just want some shelves!!!"
4) Get XXXX.com, Jose' and I's brainchild up in the first quarter of the year. Jose' has been waiting patiently for me to complete my end of the work. I melted down about a month ago after getting the design 80% done. I need to get my part done. I need to finish the design by Jan 31st then write the breakdown and get it over to Jose' to code by Feb 15th.
5) Sell about 30,000 - 50,000 of my comics and about 7,000 comics for Romy. Yeah. I know. My plan is to use the money to finance non-comic projects.
6) Reduce my weekly comic spending. It isn't out of control IMO, at 1/30th of my total income, but it is higher than it probably should be.
7) Move the fence forward to open more room for house expansion by expanding the backyard.
8) Lay more slab. I need to figure out how to correctly lay slab and then lay more slab outside the kitchen. This slab will eventually be the sunroom/breakfast nook.
9) Build expansion room. This will be a full year goal. I want to expand onto the house to fix a number of issues. I want to add room so the upstairs room can be earmarked for kids, rather than an office/guest room. I also want the house to have a back door that faces the back of the house. (Novel idea? I know...)
10) Buy a chainsaw and cut down a lot of the tree cover in my backyard. I was able to open up a lot of light for my vegatable garden effort last year, but I should be able to do a ton better this year with a little more light. That will also help my lawn. I am going to try to get my neighbors involved with that too.
11) Try to stop giving away money. I give money away to every homeless person who asks. The other day I gave $15 away to a beggar and then told lyndsey I couldn't afford to buy her a book. You have to be able to take care of your own before you help others. I am still going to help my friends and charities in need, but only when I really have the money to do so. I am going to try to steel myself not to help beggars.
12) No more saving squirrels from my fireplace. I wrecked the tubing for my fireplace trying unsuccessfully to save an animal who crawled in there. I cannot be that destructive to my house anymore. (I think this one will be very tough to make stick.)
13) Repair Fireplace for next winter.
14) Look into the expansion of my heating and cooling system. I have been advised that the blower and the exterior HVAC unit/heat pump are appropriately sized for my house, but that the house was not properly designed as far as air intake. The house has one air intake vent but really needs 2. I figure after expansion it will REALLY need a second intake vent.
15) Replace the wood edging on the house. The paint's getting old and I have a little woodrot on some of the edging. I had a guy come out and replace the edgeing on the chimney for me and it looks like something I can do. I am going to replace the edging on what parts of the house I feel safe doing and pay him to come back out and do the rest.
16) Paint the house. The house is in dire need of being painted. I am going to have him prep the house for me and paint everything I don't want to paint.
17) Get the tree removal people to come get the Chinese pistachio in my front yard. They apparently will pay for a tree of that size. (sweet!) The tree drops sap every fall.
18) Investigate the cost of having pillars put into the front of the house. The adding of pillars won't happen for a year or two, but the house appears to have seen semi-poorly designed. The room above the garage extends hanging out over the garage. That part is not supported at all and I can detect it leaning slightly outward --- not at all comforting.
19) Investigate the cost of redesigning the downstairs bathroom. I would like to go with a smaller dual sink cabinet setup, move the toilet over, and open room for a garden tub. It may be easier to go with my original plan to rip down the rear wall to the kitchen (where lindsey's shelves are going) and move that back 8-12 inches to add the space (thereby cutting into the kitchen area, but even that is problematic. The kitchen is too small and cutting space out would be tough for me to live with and not acceptable with the other resident either. :) Going to have to think this one out more.
20) Rework the upstairs bathroom. I currently have a leak under one of the sinks that has done a number on the cabinet underneath. It isn't plainly obvious at a glance and I have the water to that sink cut off to eliminate that issue, but it does beg the question, repair or redesign? I am leaning with redesign even though it could be kind of expensive. I think the sooner I can get one bathroom really looking sweet, the happier everyone will be with the house. My thoughts are new smaller dual faucet cabinets. Since the bathroom is upstairs, moving the toilet over is a plumbing and woodwork issue only, not a cement issue like downstairs. From there adding a Garden tub would not be too hard.
21) Add a window to the upstairs bathroom. I like to be able to look outside while I am showering, so I am going to add a window and sill to the upstairs bathroom.
22) Build a sundeck and stairs on the rear roof and stairs and a half door in the earmarked room. This will be a fun project. I think I will grow my blueberries up there on the sundeck if I can.
23) Finish moving the cannaes and put in a metal border to keep their tuberous roots from expanding outward into the yard.
24) Put my bonus towards savings.
25) Mow then kill the front lawn again in early February and seed drought and heat resistant Zoysia grass.
26) Excercise my fat ass and eat right. I am nearly 220 lbs. I want to get back down to 200. I am going to do this by walking every day and getting back to eating kashi most mornings and cereal every other morning, rather than the bacon and eggs and pancakes that frequently displaced them last year. In addition, I want to get back to having late night snacks that consist of a can of vegatables when I am in the mood to snack. When I was eating Kashi every morning, I couldn't get over 190.
27) Take Lyndsey on a few vacations this year. ...Besides the San Diego Comic Con.
28) Get metal troths. Last year I grew my vegatable garden on the ground and had a ton of weeds. This year I am going to plant them in metal animal feeding troths elavated off the ground to prevent week encroachment.
29) Be less wasteful in my spending. Lindsey and I don't need to eat out as often as we do. It makes a ton more sense to eat healthy at home than to regularly go out for fries and pizza at a cookie cutter. I think we should eat out less often and eat at nicer places when we do. This has the added bonus of getting Lindsey out of those damned cordouroys and into dresses and skirts with high heels. Va-Va-VOOM!
30) Starting in March write for an hour each morning and nothing more, but write every morning.
31) Start living more on a daily schedule. I am fantastically productive when I work off a schedule and to be honest, to me productivity=happiness.
32) Call efficient attics and have them evaluate the attic and give me a quote.
33) Add those spinning attic fans.
34) Insulate the attic better if I don't hire those guys to do it. I might also add planks/platforms so we can use the upper attic as deep storage.
35) Get my office/writing/drawing space properly set up. I would like to be able to write a children's book, draw a comic page, or plan a business proposal in Boo and I's office. That isn't happening now. I need a new scanner and might need to buy or borrow a free standing harddrive to reorganize my computer files. I might need to move the room.
36) Get the HVAC perspiration catching pan replaced and draining somewhere sensible instead of onto my porch.
I really have about 40 this year, but that is plenty.
This year is going to be all about investing in the house/preparing for a family. This involves expanding the house, which is a source of concern as it will make my house taxes go up. This year's resolutions:
1) Develop savings. I have never been a saver. It is high time that changed. I am going to save $100-200 from each paycheck.
2) Address a longstanding committment issue.
3) Add shelves in the Kitchen in the space where the cabinets were. Lindsey was VERY upset when I took down the cabinets as she did not like my idea of putting a back door in there. I have been sold on the idea that a back door is not the way to go there, so shelves would be good. This needs to be done by Feb. 15th. "Tobi, I just want some shelves!!!"
4) Get XXXX.com, Jose' and I's brainchild up in the first quarter of the year. Jose' has been waiting patiently for me to complete my end of the work. I melted down about a month ago after getting the design 80% done. I need to get my part done. I need to finish the design by Jan 31st then write the breakdown and get it over to Jose' to code by Feb 15th.
5) Sell about 30,000 - 50,000 of my comics and about 7,000 comics for Romy. Yeah. I know. My plan is to use the money to finance non-comic projects.
6) Reduce my weekly comic spending. It isn't out of control IMO, at 1/30th of my total income, but it is higher than it probably should be.
7) Move the fence forward to open more room for house expansion by expanding the backyard.
8) Lay more slab. I need to figure out how to correctly lay slab and then lay more slab outside the kitchen. This slab will eventually be the sunroom/breakfast nook.
9) Build expansion room. This will be a full year goal. I want to expand onto the house to fix a number of issues. I want to add room so the upstairs room can be earmarked for kids, rather than an office/guest room. I also want the house to have a back door that faces the back of the house. (Novel idea? I know...)
10) Buy a chainsaw and cut down a lot of the tree cover in my backyard. I was able to open up a lot of light for my vegatable garden effort last year, but I should be able to do a ton better this year with a little more light. That will also help my lawn. I am going to try to get my neighbors involved with that too.
11) Try to stop giving away money. I give money away to every homeless person who asks. The other day I gave $15 away to a beggar and then told lyndsey I couldn't afford to buy her a book. You have to be able to take care of your own before you help others. I am still going to help my friends and charities in need, but only when I really have the money to do so. I am going to try to steel myself not to help beggars.
12) No more saving squirrels from my fireplace. I wrecked the tubing for my fireplace trying unsuccessfully to save an animal who crawled in there. I cannot be that destructive to my house anymore. (I think this one will be very tough to make stick.)
13) Repair Fireplace for next winter.
14) Look into the expansion of my heating and cooling system. I have been advised that the blower and the exterior HVAC unit/heat pump are appropriately sized for my house, but that the house was not properly designed as far as air intake. The house has one air intake vent but really needs 2. I figure after expansion it will REALLY need a second intake vent.
15) Replace the wood edging on the house. The paint's getting old and I have a little woodrot on some of the edging. I had a guy come out and replace the edgeing on the chimney for me and it looks like something I can do. I am going to replace the edging on what parts of the house I feel safe doing and pay him to come back out and do the rest.
16) Paint the house. The house is in dire need of being painted. I am going to have him prep the house for me and paint everything I don't want to paint.
17) Get the tree removal people to come get the Chinese pistachio in my front yard. They apparently will pay for a tree of that size. (sweet!) The tree drops sap every fall.
18) Investigate the cost of having pillars put into the front of the house. The adding of pillars won't happen for a year or two, but the house appears to have seen semi-poorly designed. The room above the garage extends hanging out over the garage. That part is not supported at all and I can detect it leaning slightly outward --- not at all comforting.
19) Investigate the cost of redesigning the downstairs bathroom. I would like to go with a smaller dual sink cabinet setup, move the toilet over, and open room for a garden tub. It may be easier to go with my original plan to rip down the rear wall to the kitchen (where lindsey's shelves are going) and move that back 8-12 inches to add the space (thereby cutting into the kitchen area, but even that is problematic. The kitchen is too small and cutting space out would be tough for me to live with and not acceptable with the other resident either. :) Going to have to think this one out more.
20) Rework the upstairs bathroom. I currently have a leak under one of the sinks that has done a number on the cabinet underneath. It isn't plainly obvious at a glance and I have the water to that sink cut off to eliminate that issue, but it does beg the question, repair or redesign? I am leaning with redesign even though it could be kind of expensive. I think the sooner I can get one bathroom really looking sweet, the happier everyone will be with the house. My thoughts are new smaller dual faucet cabinets. Since the bathroom is upstairs, moving the toilet over is a plumbing and woodwork issue only, not a cement issue like downstairs. From there adding a Garden tub would not be too hard.
21) Add a window to the upstairs bathroom. I like to be able to look outside while I am showering, so I am going to add a window and sill to the upstairs bathroom.
22) Build a sundeck and stairs on the rear roof and stairs and a half door in the earmarked room. This will be a fun project. I think I will grow my blueberries up there on the sundeck if I can.
23) Finish moving the cannaes and put in a metal border to keep their tuberous roots from expanding outward into the yard.
24) Put my bonus towards savings.
25) Mow then kill the front lawn again in early February and seed drought and heat resistant Zoysia grass.
26) Excercise my fat ass and eat right. I am nearly 220 lbs. I want to get back down to 200. I am going to do this by walking every day and getting back to eating kashi most mornings and cereal every other morning, rather than the bacon and eggs and pancakes that frequently displaced them last year. In addition, I want to get back to having late night snacks that consist of a can of vegatables when I am in the mood to snack. When I was eating Kashi every morning, I couldn't get over 190.
27) Take Lyndsey on a few vacations this year. ...Besides the San Diego Comic Con.
28) Get metal troths. Last year I grew my vegatable garden on the ground and had a ton of weeds. This year I am going to plant them in metal animal feeding troths elavated off the ground to prevent week encroachment.
29) Be less wasteful in my spending. Lindsey and I don't need to eat out as often as we do. It makes a ton more sense to eat healthy at home than to regularly go out for fries and pizza at a cookie cutter. I think we should eat out less often and eat at nicer places when we do. This has the added bonus of getting Lindsey out of those damned cordouroys and into dresses and skirts with high heels. Va-Va-VOOM!
30) Starting in March write for an hour each morning and nothing more, but write every morning.
31) Start living more on a daily schedule. I am fantastically productive when I work off a schedule and to be honest, to me productivity=happiness.
32) Call efficient attics and have them evaluate the attic and give me a quote.
33) Add those spinning attic fans.
34) Insulate the attic better if I don't hire those guys to do it. I might also add planks/platforms so we can use the upper attic as deep storage.
35) Get my office/writing/drawing space properly set up. I would like to be able to write a children's book, draw a comic page, or plan a business proposal in Boo and I's office. That isn't happening now. I need a new scanner and might need to buy or borrow a free standing harddrive to reorganize my computer files. I might need to move the room.
36) Get the HVAC perspiration catching pan replaced and draining somewhere sensible instead of onto my porch.
I really have about 40 this year, but that is plenty.