An ounce of prevention…

There is something kind of cool about watching it snow outside, and pile up, and up, and up, to a foot deep, and then NOT shoveling because you know the temps will soar to 40 and 50, even near 70 in just a few days!  I did that. We got around 12″ of snow out of this past storm front. A neighbor boy came over on Saturday and offered to shovel (for pay, of course), but it hadn’t stopped snowing yet, so I asked him to come back the next morning. He said he would.  He didn’t.  And I didn’t.  Until today, now three days later.

I had to take my 2-wheeled trash bin out from the near-back outside of the garage, across the driveway, to the curb in front of the house this morning. As I had a breakfast meeting at 9:00 a.m. today, and since I will be hosting the neighborhood Bunco Babes tomorrow night, it now seemed like a good idea to get it done.  So I shoveled by myself at 8 am when it was a fresh 16° this morning.  It might have been easier if I had done it when the snow was still light and fluffy, before anyone (like the neighbor kid) or I walked on it, but it wasn’t all that bad. What made it ugh-ly was that my plastic shovel has a huge crack in it. Still, I got the job done. We are supposed to reach 47 degrees today, but at 12″, what I see is the level shrinking but not disappearing yet.  Anyhow, it’s done now.

I wonder how many other times I have left something go that if I had taken care of it sooner would have made the job easier or faster or lighter or cheaper or something. A branch that needs to be trimmed, that I worry about until it eventually falls on my deck and I say a quick prayer of thanksgiving that it didn’t break the window or damage the railing. A light that goes on in the car, and then it goes off so I forget about it, until one day I hear strange sounds that now cost more dollars to fix.  A coffee slosh on the stairs or a milk spill on the kitchen chair seat that now has become a stubborn set-in ring that won’t be coaxed away; and the wobbly arm of the dining room chair that has now split and fallen off.  Not buying an item at the grocery store because I’m not really out of it yet, and then one day when I need it,  I don’t have enough (or any) in the pantry.  I used to be better at prevention and maintenance, but I notice I’m not so good lately. I need to fix this (pun intended). Some of these used to be Kevin’s jobs, like shoveling and getting the trash out and motorcycle maintenance.  I knew they got done but I didn’t really pay much attention.  It’s been two years, and I still have to consciously, deliberately think about these things.  What’s up with that?

So I made a shortlist of things I really should pay attention to now, or soon:

1. My motorcycle was ridden only twice last year. Probably a good idea to get a professional to look at it, make sure it’s road-worthy, and have the oil changed before I want to take it for a joy ride on some random warm day this spring.
2. Buy a new snow shovel when they go on sale.
3. Keep a can of stain remover on hand.

I told you it was a shortlist.  I’m going to keep this list up, though, and add to it as I come across other still-little things that I may have neglected in the past several months.  Oh…the tear in the seam of that old sweater, the one that didn’t give me joy anyway? Yeah, that’s just going in the trash; not even going to mend it. Double-win.

What is on your list??