How Self Sufficient Are You?

[~ / % ? *]

How well can you take care of your place, yourself and others? What can you do? What skills do you have?

[tory]

I wish I had the confidence to do DIY - it's a bit of a source of shame for me. I'm just worried that I'll balls it up, so we just get a handyman to do it instead. He has OCD about cleanliness, which works really well for us.

[Mr. FOLLARD]

I can cut my own hair and wipe my own arse

[DarknessFish]

Just make sure you don't mix the two up.

[tory]

Dec 14, 2020 8:03:41 GMT Mr. FOLLARD said:

I can cut my own hair and wipe my own arse

It shows

[Deleted]

I'm still not the best to be honest in most of these things. I'm scruffy enough looking, i've said before on here that i would wear the same clothes everyday if i could get away with it. Though i would like to stress i shower everyday. Working in bars has made a clean as i go type of person, but when it comes to dusting for example i'm terrible. I've only recently took a greater interest in my money in terms of saving and pensions. I budget a lot better and cut back when simply don't have the money, instead of going in to my overdraft. Quite proud of myself in that regard.

[Mr. FOLLARD]

Dusting is a nightymare

[~ / % ? *]

It is nice to see some traditional roles, broken with the child care, cleaning and cooking. Auto mechanics have dropped as cars are seen as too complex, yet some things have gotten dramatically simpler, like tune ups (just change out wires and plugs, no more calibration with strobe, carburetor adjustments, etc., Auto body has totally dropped off, no need for ball peen hammers(panel beating)body parts are swapped out (easy enough), painted (need the equipment, expertise), but the frame always needs to be looked at straightened, tighten (need the equipment, and expertise). Getting a house, an apartment, etc., usually confers moments of greatness or disasters, starting a family confers more. Some of us were brought up having to do these things, some weren't, some learn, some don't, I guess welcome to adulthood. It's not that you have to do them perfectly, but maybe that you can make the attempt. I have a buddy, who is struggling with anxiety and long term addiction problems whose triggers are always about doing something new and doing it perfectly. I laugh at this one, explaining, most of us seeming to function don't do it perfectly, do somehow get whatever task done, learn from it, may be do it a little better next time, instead of not doing it. I always remind him, I'm the one who had the IRS show up at 6am fully armed, and that most things are doable, survivable.

[Half Machine Lipschitz]

It's been a while since I've really used my carpentry/construction skills for anything other than small jobs around the house (this past summer I made some doors for an upstairs closet that has an 8' tall opening), but I reckon I could build a house from the ground up (although I'd probably subcontract someone to pour/build a concrete foundation, and do the plumbing, wiring, and hvac). I built a 2-storey addition on a friend's house back in 2013, and that was the last large scale job I did before getting the call to get back into photography.

I do the majority of the cooking and cleaning around the house, too, mostly because I enjoy it, but also because if B had her way we'd probably have a sink full of dirty dishes and cobwebs covering piles of dirty laundry all over the place.

My parents raised me to be pretty self-sufficient, and to this day I still think the best lesson my dad ever taught me was to "put your tools back where you got 'em when you're done with them." which, for me, has been applicable in multiple scenarios.

[tory]

Dec 14, 2020 12:55:54 GMT ~ / % ? * said:

I'm the one who had the IRS show up at 6am fully armed, and that most things are doable, survivable.

Wtaf

[sloopjohnc]

When I was married, I did the cleaning, laundry and outside maintenance.

My dad was the ultimate DIYer and cheap. You never had anyone do any kind of work if you could do it yourself. He even got his contractors' license to totally rebuild my childhood home from the foundation on up. My brother has done the same with two houses.

I'm not super handy by nature, but because my dad made my brother and I help in everything, even car repairs, I can manage.

Let me put it this way. We had a cement mixer in the backyard. Who has a cement mixer?

My dad owned a little cabin next to our house which he rented out. When I was 14, he had me lug tar paper and composite shingles to the roof, showed me how to tear off the old stuff and shingle the new stuff. Then he left me and told me to start and I could come down for lunch and at the end of the day.

I had some pretty crappy little cars as a teenager and I had to do all the repairs - brake pads and rotors, belts (we had a timing light) the radiator and starter engines.

I'm not a very good cook or carpenter and I wouldn't touch electrical work, but everything else I can manage.

[tory]

There's a lot to admire in that. I'd love to be able to build my own house for example- the sense of pride would be enormous.

At the same time, if I can afford to get someone to do it professionally, I will. We are slowly refurbishing our house and I know that my own efforts at decorating etc just would not be up to the standards of a tradesperson. Their own abilities have shot up in the last two decades, so that the standards of finish are exceptional.

⁰

[sloopjohnc]

Dec 14, 2020 15:50:23 GMT tory said:

There's a lot to admire in that. I'd love to be able to build my own house for example- the sense of pride would be enormous.

At the same time, if I can afford to get someone to do it professionally, I will. We are slowly refurbishing our house and I know that my own efforts at decorating etc just would not be up to the standards of a tradesperson. Their own abilities have shot up in the last two decades, so that the standards of finish are exceptional.

⁰

I have a good friend who's Jewish. I asked him once if he was going to do some project and he said, "John, I'm Jewish. I always pay someone to do something I don't have to do myself."

You have to remember, this is the same guy who wanted to move to a different town that we both lived in because he said it was getting too "ethnic." I told him, "Al, you're Jewish. Your people have been persecuted and forced to move for generations. It's called the Diaspora." His response was, "Well, then I'm diasporing to Pleasanton."

[rayge]

Dec 14, 2020 15:35:19 GMT Half Machine Lipschitz said:

My parents raised me to be pretty self-sufficient, and to this day I still think the best lesson my dad ever taught me was to "put your tools back where you got 'em when you're done with them." which, for me, has been applicable in multiple scenarios.

One of my father's rules was 'No job is finished until you have cleaned up the workplace and put your tools away'. Think our fathers might have got on.

[sloopjohnc]

Dec 14, 2020 16:45:14 GMT rayge said:

Dec 14, 2020 15:35:19 GMT Half Machine Lipschitz said:

My parents raised me to be pretty self-sufficient, and to this day I still think the best lesson my dad ever taught me was to "put your tools back where you got 'em when you're done with them." which, for me, has been applicable in multiple scenarios.

One of my father's rules was 'No job is finished until you have cleaned up the workplace and put your tools away'. Think our fathers might have got on.

My dad was the same way with another rule: Never return a tool in worse shape than you borrowed it.

I had a vegetable garden in our backyard and used to rent a rototiller every Spring to mix in gypsum and fertilized soil into the clayish soil we had. The rental place probably never got it back so clean. Took forever.