Building foundations

There are a great many proverbs about the necessity of a solid foundation to do any sort of work of consequence, and there is a lot of truth to that.  Without foundations, everything collapses.  And truth be told, I've been having a multitude of foundation issues.

The basics of human foundations is systems.  Systems and routines for the morning, getting going, doing quality work you want to get done, maintaining order, not getting bogged down in other people's minutae...and frankly put, at this point, I've got nothing.  My morning routine is shot, my meal routine is non-existant, my finances are a disaster, my social life is a farce, my creative work is non-existant, and my work schedule is unfulfilling and bogged down in everyone else's last-minute demands.

However, as a teacher, I am lucky in having a summer vacation.  I did not get summer school this year (application didn't get submitted correctly), which has turned out to be a blessing.  So, I'm going to do some foundation work.

In part of the case, that work is going to be literal foundation work.  The back wall of the apartment house is peeling off, and the rest of the foundation needs patching.  The mortar is crumbling away, and that's the reason the house has already shifted once about seven years ago.  And doing some inspection of things downstairs, the partial patching that was done in the back years ago seems to be holding. 

So my "summer job" (notably because amongst the financial wreckage is owing my landlord money) is going to be fixing and re-setting the back wall, along with patching the foundation.  I'd had a few "cosmetic" fixes in mind (new flooring in kitchen and hallway, where some of the sub-flooring seems to be loose, and also the main foyer hallway), but the foundation work is clearly the most critical.  Without the foundation in place, the entire house goes backwards into the creek.

In a similar fashion, much of my existance is headed creekward if I don't apply some fixes.  I'm 41, which is time enough to fix things, but nearing a critical point.  So I'll be identifying areas I'm working on, including:

• Creative
• Summer prep for school
• Financial
• Basic life areas (morning routines, cleaning, maintaining, etc)
• Relationships (ex and others)

As part of this shift, I'll be keeping track and blogging, since a great deal of personal change is accountability.  So the blog will be a little more active than it has been of late.

Alright - off to get ready for school, prepare for closing up the library for the summer (sort of - explanation of that later), and rehearsal this evening.  Long day ahead.