Deferred maintenance

Original post:  Jul 18, 2015

Over the weekend, I found myself with a small block of free time with absolutely no agenda. This luxury usually doesn't happen very often. On most days, I might just plop down in front of the television or a computer screen and while away the time. Today, I decided to do some deferred maintenance on our home.

Leading up to our front door is a stone walkway. Between the stones is fill made of stone chip. Every year, weed seeds float into the area and germinate. I often get too lazy to do much of anything about it. Unfortunately, it really does look terrible. Since I had the time, I forced myself to address it. Here were the main enemies:

About fifteen minutes into the exercise, I started to regret it. After all, the sun was streaming down and it was a humid 90+°. Sweat started dripping into the area I was weeding. My fingers actually started to turn black from a mixture of weed sap, sand, and stone dust. After a bit more than an hour, I was done.

It was certainly gratifying to look at the path after I was done. I felt as if my sacrifice had certainly made my world better in some small way.

I am sure that there are many areas at work that have languished because we've been so caught up in the day to day. The next time you find an odd block of free time at your disposal, I hope that you can also work on similar chores for yourself!