GET OFF YOUR ASS!
I know that most of you have heard of the Atkins Diet, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers and, the latest, of course, The South Beach Diet. But the best one I've seen lately is in an email floating around, the Dawn Key Diet. The picture attached to the email is of a donkey with his head in a refrigerator. The caption reads, "To lose weight, keep your ass out of the refrigerator."
Well, if keeping your ass out of the refrigerator can solve your weight problems, what else can your ass help you do?
Let's take a look. This scenario blows my mind. I have friends who no longer work outside the home, but they employ a lawn service, a housekeeping service, a swimming pool service, a handyman, you name it. And if that isn't enough to blow your mind, on top of that they pay money to go to exercise class! Where is the logic here? Is it a prestige thing? What's prestigious about getting older, fatter, having less muscle mass and getting downright lazy? Get off your ass!
These people don't have lawns as big as postage stamps. My lawn is bigger than most of theirs and it takes me about three hours a week to edge, mow and sweep the driveway and the sidewalks. That's three hours of good exercise and I didn't have to rush out and buy cute clothes to do it in. I got off my ass.
I will admit that housekeeping is not one of my strong suits. I employ a housekeeping service, but she comes once every other week. During that two weeks time, I make the beds, sweep the floor, do the laundry, cook and clean up the dishes . . . all the in-between stuff. When the housekeeping gal gets here, my house is picked up, the beds are made and the laundry is done. All I want her to do is the things I don't like to do . . . dust, mop the floors, vacuum and clean the kitchen counters and the bathrooms. I think I still get plenty of "housekeeping" exercise during the week.
I have a 17,000 gallon swimming pool. Yes, it is a lot of work, especially during the hot summer months here in Houston. But even if I have to work at it every other day, I can sweep the pool, check the chemicals and clean the skimmer baskets in less than an hour. There's three to four more hours a week of good, physical labor. Now we're up to six to seven hours a week of good, physical labor that cost me nothing more than time.
Need a handyman? Ever try to figure out how to fix things yourself? Study the problem. Go to a place like Home Depot. They have solutions to many problems and most things aren't that hard to do anyway. Why put yourself through the aggravation of waiting for the handyman to show up three hours (or three days) late? Get off your ass and do it yourself. It is extremely gratifying. And who couldn't use a little gratification now and then?
|
I decided to do two major projects this summer in 2005: (1) tear out the wood decking and replace it with flagstone and (2) rebuild our privacy fence. Here's how it went.
|
The hardest part about tearing out the wood decking was cleaning up the twenty years of debris that was under it. I did have to get my husband, Daniel (affectionately known as "Big D"), to knock out the support 4" X 4"s with a sledge hammer. I feel like a sledge hammer is bigger than me.
Once the old wood was removed and the debris was cleaned up (ten 39 gallon trash bags full of leaves, dog hair, bottle caps, glass, tennis balls, etc.) it was time to level the dirt surface.
|
Then it was time for the instant gratification. I had a whole pallet of flagstone delivered which weighed about 4,000 pounds.
Little by little, stone by stone, I laid them down like a jigsaw puzzle.
|
The day I finish was a wonderful day and now we have beautiful landscaping around the pool. Yes, it was a lot of work. Yes, I was very tired. But every evening I can sit on the patio and admire my hard work. The gratification lasts a long time. And an added bonus . . . the whole thing cost about $400.00.
|
My second project was a little more involved. First, I rebuilt the 15 foot section of privacy fence between the house and garage.
That was really technically the most difficult part of rebuilding the fence because of the gate and hinges, etc. But once that was finished the rest of the fence around the yard looked terrible.
|
 Here's how I decided to proceed. It took me about two months to rebuild the privacy fence. When you sit down and look at about 300 linear feet of privacy fence, it can be a daunting observation. But I decided I could do it if I did eight linear feet at a time.
So each day that I worked on the fence I went to Home Depot and bought my supplies for that day. I would come home and tear out eight feet of fence, replace the 2" X 4"s if necessary and hang the pickets.
I did have to get Big D to help me if the posts had to be dug out and replaced.
|
Some days it would rain, other days I had other things to do, but little by little, I kept on plugging away.
|
When I got near the end (40 feet to go), Big D and I decided to "git 'er done!"
|
It took us all day, but we got finished. It was about the most rewarding feeling we've had in a long time. It's beautiful and at ages 54 and 56, we believe we will never have to do it again. This beautiful fence cost $1,075.00. (Our bid from the fence people was right at $6,000.00!)
|
As many of you know, one thing leads to another. Now the front of my greenhouse looked old and washed out. I bought new cedar shake shingles and resurfaced the front of the greenhouse.
|
I have transformed our backyard for right at $1,500.00!
Get exercise, save thousands, build muscle mass . . . get off your ass!
|
I realize that laying flagstone, building privacy fences and resurfacing greenhouses may not be your "cup of tea." That's not the point. The point is that everyday we have opportunities to do very rewarding things for ourselves. All we have to do is recognize them when they present themselves and take action.
|
