A couple days ago I started a new “fix-it” project for some friends of mine, repairing a piece of wood on the side of their house. At first I thought it would be as simple as nailing a board back in place, but I quickly realized the wood also needed to be “filled in” with wood putty and then painted. Plus, all of the surrounding wood needed to be re-caulked, then re-painted. Shit, I thought, this is turning into work. But what do you do? That day, I screwed the wood back in place and patched as much as I could.

Here’s a picture before the patching. Notice the gaping holes.

Here’s a picture of the mostly patched holes.

Today I finished patching the holes and applied an extremely thick layer of caulk above the wood. Well, two extremely thick layers of caulk. However, since the caulk takes a while to dry, I couldn’t paint it. I could, however, paint the wood, so I did. This was a big deal for me because although the paint technically matched, it didn’t actually match, since the old paint had faded with age and sun exposure. The big deal part is that The Old Marcus would have turned this into a major ordeal and ended up re-painting the entire side of the house, if not the entire house. But The New Marcus thought, Just re-paint the affected board and call it a day.

So I did. (Notice the trash can–that’s what I used for a ladder.)

Now it’s 9:30 at night, and I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to paint over the caulk, after it dries. I’m still at my friends’ house, as I’m meeting a Criagslist contact later tonight in order to sell him a piece of furniture my friends left behind when they moved. This has been another project, getting rid of what they left. But tonight’s piece of furniture is the final one. After weeks and weeks of listing stuff online, it’s all gone. Or, almost gone anyway. I never assume a Craigslist deal is finished until I have money in hand.

Earlier I took a break to get dinner and work on another a project at the library–organizing my digital photos. This is one of my goals for the fall and winter, to get both my physical and digital photos in order. Ugh, talk about an ordeal. The paint/caulk project is only taking up a few days, but I imagine the photo project will take weeks or longer. Tonight at the library I sorted through–I don’t know–a couple months worth of photos from 2014, the year I first began backing up my photos online. And whereas it’s going to be great (super, really) to have my photos organized (like, Family, Trips to Albuquerque, Medical Documents, Remodeling Projects, etc.), it’s slow-going and overwhelming.

But at least I’ve started. That’s huge. I’m telling myself, A little at a time, Marcus. A little at a time.

The other overwhelming thing about this project is that I’m not always sure “where” to put a photo. Or if every single photo (there are thousands) “deserves” to be put into a specific album. Like, what am I suppose to do with that photo I took of a piece of furniture in an antique store four years ago? But again, I’m trying to not get overwhelmed and demand “perfection” of myself. I’m telling myself, Anything is a giant improvement over the current situation, which is everything simply lumped together (by date order).

My tendency when I start these projects is to sit down for ten hours at a time and grit my way through it. It’s difficult for me to work for, say, an hour and walk away. But that’s what I did tonight at the library. Well, okay, I worked for an hour and a half and walked away. One because the library was about to close, two because I wanted to blog. Plus, the project’s waited this long (and no one’s complaining that it hasn’t been done), and it will be there whenever I want to pick it back up. This is a something I’m working on, that the world won’t fall apart if things aren’t just so, that it really doesn’t give a damn if this paint doesn’t match that paint or all my photos aren’t neatly organized.

Like, the world has its own problems to deal with.

Somehow, it keeps spinning.