In an earlier post (Hundred-day mandates), I talked about the idea of doing “hundred-day mandates” for myself. There are 14 groups of hundred days before I get to my likely retirement date, and I’m planning on using them as milestones on my journey to retirement. I was also hoping that I could add some “oomph” to them by kicking off each block with perhaps a special dinner out.

To be honest, I struggle with momentum on some of my goals as they have to be almost entirely about me. I try to get Jacob and/or Andrea interested, but the topic is more like a roll your eyes/grit your teeth kind of thing than something that either of them is really interested in hearing about from me. I have tried to commit to things together, like watching movies on a regular night or playing games, and well, they are interested enough to grudgingly agree until the first night comes along and they have something else they want to do instead.

It’s not surprising; for most people, the idea of talking about goals is pretty lame. This is a bit of a self-fulfilling situation, I suppose…I set goals for myself, and because no one else is really interested, they are only about things I can do by myself, which in turn means no one else is really interested. I blog about them, and I get enough insights from people sometimes to make it worthwhile to keep blogging, but I’m not really feeling the desire right now. I’m plodding through some photos, but that is more work than much of a reward.

I am a bit disappointed, though, on this one. I had hoped to do a special dinner out, a countdown from 14 to 0, leading up to my retirement. And I thought the dinners would be a way to entice Andrea and Jacob to get excited with (or for?) me for my retirement. I thought we could try a new restaurant, do something different, and make it seem that the countdown and goals were a little more “joint” than something I just do on my own.

But Andrea isn’t really interested and is going out with another friend that night, so I let Jacob off the hook, too.

Searching for ways to celebrate something alone

So I guess I’m looking for other ways to “celebrate” / kickstart my goals in some way, albeit by myself, and in ways that hopefully won’t be a trigger for some sort of pity party. I did a search to see what others had to suggest on the web, but I’m not blown away by the ideas. The following group of 8 were ones I at least found interesting.

A. Make a big change. Well, this isn’t far off the goal-setting, but it is often pitched as making a big decision that you’ve been holding off on, like moving or breaking up with someone or asking someone out, etc. Or something simpler like a makeover, or committing to a new mindset. It’s not terrible advice, but it’s not very helpful either. Another idea might be — do some serious planning with a vision board? That’s out of the box, for sure, but still kind of lame. I can do that any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

B. Create something. This is an interesting one of sorts, in that I could do something crafty that I don’t normally do, creating a physical reminder of the block of time I’m starting.

C. Tick a box. This one is intriguing a bit. The idea is that you take something on your to-do list or bucket list, often an event, and do it. So maybe go axe-throwing or bungee-jumping, etc. Something you haven’t done before that you can do and then afterwards, look back with a small sense of accomplishment that you “did” it. Of course, if it is something that involves others, not the best idea.

D. Pamper yourself. This is a fairly common one, whether it is a visit to a spa (or a makeover), getting a massage, going shopping, sending yourself flowers, etc. Some do it as “buy yourself a gift”, whether it be something simple or expensive. I do have a gift certificate for a weekend retreat away at a hotel, if they’re still in business.

E. Find a non-corporeal friend. No, nobody actually calls it that…but it’s the idea that you find a TV series that is a guilty pleasure, or your favourite book, and visit with it like an old friend while shutting out the rest of the world. It’s not a bad idea, and there are some series I could read, for example, that would fit the bill, even some newer ones, not just old friends. Still, not sure it feels quite right. It doesn’t seem quite significant enough.

F. Create a celebration playlist. Well, it’s intriguing. Partly as having it afterwards would be a way to revisit your “win”.

G. Laugh. Hmm, this is also a bit intriguing. Basically, trying to recapture the innocence of youth a bit through laughter, and releasing the energy and stress that goes with it. Could go to a comedy club or something. Interesting idea.

H. Indulge yourself virtually. I wouldn’t have thought of this one, not at all, but the idea is treating yourself to something like a virtual tour of somewhere amazing, like the Louvre, the Vatican or a zoo. I don’t know what it would be for me, but it is out of the box.

The new plan so far

I’m going to start by taking the day off work, I think. Maybe book a massage and treat myself to lunch somewhere interesting. There’s a Thai restaurant in Bell’s Corners that I’ve been interested in for a while now, and they’re open 11:30 to 2:00 p.m. so that seems promising. I think for creativity, maybe I’ll try baking something, nothing too elaborate, and perhaps get a nice steak for the BBQ. I could go out for that though, will have to think on that one. And for the afternoon, I’ll do some immersive reading, picking a good mystery to dive into on my Kindle. And then at night? Maybe a movie somewhere or the comedy club.

Although, if I do all that, I’m left with another question. What do I do for the next one? Should I just do 2 or 3 of those? I’ve got two weeks of squirreldom to figure it out. Feel free to share your views in the comments…

So, from the earlier post about not hitting the curve, I’m now a day later, and I’m out of some of the initial funk.

First and foremost, of course, I found the missing parts for the exercise bike so the big “spiral” moment was mostly averted.

Second, and almost equally important, I had the guy come to the house and do a bunch of work for the day that helped jumpstart some of my old goals that have been lingering for quite a while.

Obviously, he assembled the exercise bike. I had printed some instructions, and just looking at them was almost a traumatic trigger. They are/were HORRIBLE pictures. You had to stare at segments for 15 minutes to even comprehend where screw 4 went into part 3 that was separated from main part 7, blah blah blah. If you get it, you get it; if you don’t, IKEA looks like ideal schematics by comparison. The guy that came, Sam, is great and has done work for me before. He is really good at this stuff, he’s assembled this type of bike before, more or less, and I think he did most of it without wrestling with the instructions. Awesome. Except even for someone who is GOOD at this, and who didn’t need the instructions, he still took 30 minutes to do it. Now, admittedly, he also put a screw through a broken part and reattached it. It’s not particularly a relevant part unless you’re moving the whole bike around (it’s like an extra roller so you can tip the bike and then move it more easily…if you leave the bike mostly in one spot, the part isn’t that critical). Anyway, he got it together and Andrea and Jacob tried it last night. All functional.

He also assembled a workout bench. I mostly wanted it so that I could lie flat on it, but it does angle up and has some stationary bars to let you hook your feet for stabilizing your lower body, etc. It probably would have taken me about an hour with someone like Jacob or Andrea helping me, while rolling around on the floor and getting frustrated with the diagrams. Instead? Sam had it together in thirty minutes. One hour in and Sam had two of the four projects done.

He tackled the Gorilla cart next. It is a large professional-grade utility cart, and one that I planned for carting all my astro gear from the garage to the backyard in one go so that I wouldn’t have to make a whole bunch of trips. And with a little planning, I could even throw a tarp over it and leave some of my gear in it between outings. Now, I know this cart is a pain in the patootie to put together. I’ve seen online videos of people saying how awesome the cart is but how painful the assembly process was. It’s just big. Sam is really good, has all the tools to do it, AND it still took him a full hour of work to assemble it. When I talked to him, he said, “You know, this is really industrial grade. It’s not really a home cart.” He had to use his power tools to get all the parts to go together in the hour, or he would have been much longer still turning bolts and nuts. Uh huh, that’s why I’m paying you, dude. Cuz I don’t want that pain. Now, don’t get me wrong, he LIKES doing this stuff, but it was a tough slog for that second hour.

The fourth and supposedly final project was one that I initially was going to do myself. We have a trampoline, great quality, amazing device. Yet it was an absolute beast to assemble. They had views of guys assembling some aspects of it one-handed by themselves like they were laying lace doilies on a table. In our case, we had me on the ground underneath the trampoline BENDING the sides as far as I could, while Andrea and her mother hauled on the canvas, and her dad hauled too. With all four of us PULLING, we could attach the parts. But once together, it’s fine. Just REALLY heavy. The solution for moving it is to get 4-6 really strong people and lift it. Uh huh. I always keep 3-5 spare people in my shed in case I need that kind of muscle work. OR you can get wheels made by the same company, attach them in a criss-cross pattern to four equally-spaced spots on the trampoline’s base, and bob’s your uncle, you have a way to use the wheels like a lever. You put in a wrench, lever the wheels into their DOWN position, and the trampoline goes up. Do all four wheels and the trampoline is elevated and ready to roll. Once the wheels are down, Sam can move the whole thing by himself. Great tool. We repositioned the trampoline closer to where we wanted it, and then put the wheels back into their UP positions.

Four projects done in three hours. Pretty sweet. So I asked if he wanted to consider a fifth. A few years ago, or maybe more since I know it was pre-pandemic, we bought a new doorknob for our main door. We needed to replace the latch at the time, which I did manage to do with a bit of help. But there was a second component for the deadbolt — an electronic keypad. I would have tried to install it long ago, but we just ran out of time when we did the first part. So it sat in our living room for a while in a box. Then in a bag. Then we got rid of the box to the garage. Then we weren’t sure where the bag was when we asked him to look at it. Sam initially figured about 30 minutes or so. Hah!

The mechanism was too big to fit into the existing deadbolt hole. And the frame of the outer door is metal, not wood. Dun dun dun. Sam had to get creative to make everything fit, which he did at my request, and one full hour later, we had a new e-pad on our front door. It’s surprising how much this will mean to us.

When I go out, I am almost always going in the car, so I have my car keys with a front door key on the ring. Yet equally regularly, I have 3-4 things that I’m carrying for the route to work, or going shopping, or whatever. I need a new shoulder bag so I can put it all together more easily, my man purse if you will, but I don’t have it right now. But that means I don’t have a free hand to take care of the front door with key, pulling the door tight, locking, etc.

For Andrea, she doesn’t drive, so often when she goes out, she doesn’t need a big key ring with a fob or anything. The only keys she has is to the mailbox and our house. While the garage has a keypad on it, it’s a bit more elaborate a routine to open the garage door just to let a person into the house. With the new pad, if she goes for a walk, she may not even need to take anything with her. Or if she’s the last one out of the house, she doesn’t have to dig for a key, etc. She can literally press a button and turn the bolt mechanism to lock with one hand. All good.

Jacob has a key to the house, but never uses it. He’s almost always with us or we’re home when he needs to go in or out. Often when he gets home, he waits for us to get out first and then slowly follows us to the door. The last few days? He raises to be the first one to the door, in the house, shoes off, and gone before we’re out of the car. I don’t know who this kid is, actually.

There are obvious benefits for guests too. Parents, siblings (at least the ones we like) or friends watching the house can get a code to get in without any need to get together first or hide a key for their arrival. Kind of like an AirBNB for friends, here’s your code. Let yourself in when you get here.

But a bigger irritant was removed today. For some inexplicable reason — and really, we’ve asked — the cleaning company we use keeps sending people to our house without a key. They arrive, complain they couldn’t get in, and leave. We get home late in the day to a WTF moment…whyyyyyy? They have a key. Why did they not bring it? Needing keys is not unusual for a house cleaning service. Most people are NOT home (although the pandemic changed a lot of that). But I think this is about the fourth time in 2 years, and maybe the third time in 3-4 months that they have forgotten their key. Which means things like beds that were stripped so the cleaners could clean need to be re-sheeted so we can sleep in them. It’s not life altering, don’t get me wrong. I know that. It’s just really irritating. This week? Andrea texted the owner and said, “Here’s your code”. We came home, they had been, the code worked, no issues. Hallelujah, and pass the ammunition!

So, five projects that are all relatively minor; yes, I/we could do almost all of them myself/ourselves. But here’s the thing. For the exercise bike? I knew it was going to be a pain in the ass because I’m the one who assembled it the first time, with Andrea. Really, really frustrating. So I’ve sat on the project since we moved in many years ago (we had originally partly dismantled it in order to move it as the seat and frame were too wide for doorways).

The work-out bench was self-indulgent. We could have done that ourselves. Instead, I basically paid someone $30 to put it together and get it off our to do list.

The utility cart, by contrast, was big. We could have done it, but as Sam said, some of it really needed the right power tools to make it go efficiently. I had no interest in spending 3-4 hours assembling it. It cost me about $60 to have Sam do it. Again, done. I feel we COULD have, but meh, nowhere near as efficiently.

The trampoline wheels were ones that I said I thought about doing myself initially. But you have to be down on the ground, fiddling with the frame on something that was a royal pain to assemble, etc. Sam knew it was one of the tasks (we chatted in advance), and he brought a small hydraulic lift so the could get at the frame better. Fantastic. I don’t have one of those though. So I am not confident that even with 3-4 hours, I would get it done. I know it would have been supremely painful and frustrating. Even Andrea didn’t have a burning desire to touch that one, although she felt we could do the bike, bench and cart ourselves.

Finally, the extra project for the door pad? Sam took an HOUR including having to CUT THE DOOR frame to make things fit. I would have had NO chance of doing that, not even close.

So I totally feel that it was money well-spent. I’m not particularly thrilled that TaskRabbit takes a slice of the pie AND slaps on a $10/hour service charge that seems to do nothing other than line their pockets. The TR contractors hate the fee too, but well, they like the website gigs. I had booked him for about four hours to do four projects, and he managed those four plus an extra one, too. That’s a pretty good deal, I think, all things considered.

And they’re all DONE. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. When it comes to home handyman work, I write a mean cheque.

Yet at the end of the whole day, having taken Jacob to band in the morning, worked my office gig for the day, and picked him up, while also liaising with Sam the whole time he was here for any questions he had, I was totally exhausted. Definitely glad to be done.

And I’ll count it as having caught a piece of the pitch. I didn’t drive it deep into left field, but at least it was a credible swing overall. And did I mention that five big projects just came off my old to do list?