…when you steal your inspiration, which is desperately needed because you still feel like crap most days, from a guy who is undergoing multiple procedures to save a kidney? Or a guy who is slightly older than you and 10 times as busy?
Actually, there are a lot of things I could write about, even though I’m still fighting The Yuck. But they can wait. Consider this a couple of important Public Service Announcements.
Peter, the Bayou Rennasaince Man, has a post on “Sobering reflections on our lack of preparedness for a true emergency” that merits your time. I suspect that most who stop by here are in the top 1% of folks who are prepared for bad times. That’s great. But are you prepared enough?
Yeah, let that thought keep you up at night for a while.
Eaton Rapids Joe has one of the better commentariats in the blogosphere. He mined them for this doozy of a post, From the Comments. The whole post is worth reading, but if you know a college-aged kid, yours or someone else’s, here is a list where, if you only addressed 10% of the items on it, could make a dramatic difference in that young person’s life in the next few years.
Can the typical new college graduate:
https://eatonrapidsjoe.blogspot.com/2024/05/from-comments.html
- Fix a toilet that keeps running
- Change a light bulb
- Reset a tripped breaker
- Fix a leaky faucet or clean the aerator
- Clear a plugged drain
- Clean a bathroom
- Dry out flooded bathroom or laundry room
- Find a wall stud to hang a shelf or artwork
- Fix a hole in the dry-wall
- Paint a wall
- Change a wall switch or power outlet
- Change the filters in their HVAC unit (do they even know what HVAC means)
- Clean a dryer vent
- Find a gas leak
- Move an appliance
- Bypass a power garage door opener that is on-the-fritz
- Clean the gutters
- Mow the grass
- Shovel the walk
- Dig a hole
- Divert water run-off away from your foundation
- Pour a slab of concrete
- Call tradesmen for quotes
- Hire a tradesman when appropriate and be able to communicate the issue and expectations
- Tighten screws to fix loose doors, strike-plates, hand-rails, etc.
- Lubricate a lock or a hinge or replace a door-handle
- How to set a mouse-trap? Where to set it? How to bait it? How to remove the dead mouse?
- Deal with a bad neighbor
We really do stand on the shoulders of giants. Now if that just allows me to see farther sometime soon…
It baffles me that anyone, teenage and up, would not know how to use a shovel, or mow the grass, or tighten screws, but I guess I live too isolated from the Outside World. I used to say I was born with a snow shovel in my hand. My father always had a large-ish vegetable garden. Mom always cooked, no takeout was available back then, and no restaurants nearby. We couldn’t afford them anyway. I could at least peel and cook potatoes by age 10, make scrambled eggs, and watched Mom bake cookies. I helped Dad in the garden (not much, I mostly just carried hand tools and fetched things), and ‘helped’ stack wood at 5 or 6 years old.
I thank God I was raised in the country life, and not a city.
Oh my goodness!!!
Thank-you for the very kind words!