Tapping Out

mother nature, you win

I am officially over and done with winter, as are Juniper and Leeloo (Nate has been done for a while). The latest round of snow and extreme wind brought frozen gate latches and crabby mares; okay crabbier mares. A windchill of nineteen below in the middle of March is total bull sh*t. We fed the girls mostly in the shelters so they could stay out of the wind but they still had to come up to the house for water. Juniper takes longer to drink than any living thing I have ever met. Overall she and Leeloo are getting along okay, but Leeloo gets impatient with how long Juniper takes to finish getting a drink and the antics can be rather amusing.

Since the weather was such garbage my goal was to get some indoor things done and on that count I was not particularly successful. Though I did finally get my kitchen clean (mostly), so that’s a thing. Historically I have blamed my job for why I struggle to get everything else I “want” to get done, done. Being on sabbatical however has really shown that work isn’t the issue, or rather it is just one of the issues. Becoming minor hermits in 2020 and not really coming back out of that also made it clear that extrinsic motivation is actually really important for me. People coming over to our house is still the only reliable way to get me to clean it. For some reason cleaning for other people (who probably don’t care) is more motivating than cleaning for myself even though I know I feel better when my house is clean. But some things I have never ever been good about getting done; usually the less visible things or things with little to no consequence for avoiding them. Like cleaning the vents above the stove. If I clean the vents they will work better and extend the life of the motor which will save me money, which are good things. If I don’t clean the vents though nothing bad will happen, at least not for a long time, and even then, at worst it will cost me some money sooner than it would have otherwise. How do other people motivate themselves to do those kinds of tasks? I’ve been pondering listing literally everything I do that isn’t “fun” and identifying those things that I don’t have issues accomplishing (or have only minor issues) and seeing if there is any pattern to them that I could use to help me with the other items that sit on my to-do list for weeks or months.

If I don’t get something figured out I might have to resort to inviting people to our house again.