I still have about 150 things to do but can't bring myself to do them, so I do the next best thing.

I put them off.

So long as they are not emergencies, they can wait. And wait. And wait. If they waited this long, they can wait a little longer. How much longer? I have no idea. Until I get my paycheck. Until I have some time. Until I finish my current project, and who knows how long that will take? All I know at this point is that I've got the rest of today to keep putting them off til I can't anymore, in which case, it's too late and is time for bed.

What a racket. A little piece of heaven on earth. Am I the luckiest person or what?

Here's another secret: Have some idea of the risks of putting anything off. All right. You're considering putting off the following situations that you have going on now: one of them is when you'll replace a broken laundry basket and the other is when you'll have that squeaking noise dealt with every time you run the washing machine. The noise that sounds like a little bird that's caught and is still tweeting loudly.

Of course, you can certainly put off replacing the laundry basket for a little longer. It's such a bulky item and an unwieldy one to put in the car, or horrors, lug from the Dollar Store to your home. Street-hanging people will stare, as will the kids on skateboards, adults with kids, dogs, bicycles, stolen goods. Yeah, they'll all look and maybe even say something. You don't understand what they're saying? That's good. That's why they spoke another language. But it's embarassing all the same.

On to the wrong choice, that funny, tweety-bird sound in your washing machine that you hear every time the machine enters a rinsing cycle. You probably don't even need to call a repairman, because that squeak could be a part that needs to be oiled. Or maybe even replaced. If you don't get it some help pretty soon, it will just give up the ghost and you'll be stuck. So you may not want to keep putting off this situation because it will lead to a real situation. Trust me.If not now, tomorrow, or whenever you use the machine. Then you'll have an emergency on your hands.

At the other extreme, maybe you're like me and have more than two things to put off doing. You have two choices here. You can prioritize, deciding which is more likely to be a disaster waiting to happen. In other words, which needs repair urgently? The doorbell? The faucet? The hot water heater? The washing machine? The toilet? The television? That's quite a range.

The other choice is not prioritizing anything. There's no real urgency in any of the items, so you can let the cards fall where they may. The litterbox can be dealt with later, unless you can't stand the poo smell.And that stack of magazines you've been meaning to read is out of sight, out of mind in the attic or basement. You can deal with it whenever.So why worry about doing it now?

Another option is making a game of it. Get some scrap pieces of paper and write one item down. Then on another scrap, write another, and so on, until you've noted every single thing that you still have to do. Place all of the written items facedown on a table. Okay. Now decide on the rule. Will you do whatever you pick up, or will that item be the first one, or second, etc., to be put off til tomorrow or whatever? Be consistent and stick with the rule. If you change your mind midstream, you'll ruin the game and turn it into something that you'll procrastinate on doing. There's no point in making even more work for yourself. Okay. Ready? Set? GO!

Well, this guy in Australia did, but wound up with 100 thousand less than he was asking for. I have to admit, some of his stuff, like his jetski and three-bedroom home sounded pretty good. Costly items are easy to include and combine in your own worldly possessions.

I also tried to come up with possible reasons why that guy (or anyone else, for that matter) would consider putting up his life for sale on eBay. A few of those reasons are included below:

- When you're on the verge of changing your identity

- Just because you feel like it.

- There's no other way to get rid of all of that stuff.

- When you've seen similar stuff that sells for way more and you think that you can make a real killing

- When you're pressured to do so by your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend

- When you're seriously considering joining a religious order whose members are required to give up all of their worldly possessions.

I think that I would have a hard time making a killing from my worldly possessions. My old clothes, shoes, computer, home, tv, books, appliances, and furniture altogether wouldn't fetch a lot of money.

I can practically hear the complaints now:

- all of that stuff is JUNK and is therefore worthless

- I'd have to pay Good Will to haul it away

- my junk is of better quality

- I have similar junk. Want some?

- Say, wasn't your place included on someone's "condemned" list?

- It's not even worth a counterfeit dollar.

- What dumpster did you steal that from?

- Don't even bother auctioning it off. Pack it and place it curbside for bulky-garbage pick-up.

-

I've lived in NJ for my entire life and now feel that I'm ready for a change. That is, move elsewhere. So the other day, I thought about a few possibilities, although most of the possibilities I came up with were areas that I didn't care to live.

- South: too hot, overall. Area seems to be highly susceptible to monstrous storms like hurricanes, tornadoes and the like. I've never witnessed something as horrible as a tornado in my entire life and hope that I never have to. I would have a heart attack.

- Midwest: extremely cold in winter and uncomfortably warm in summer. Also highly susceptible to dust storms, tornadoes, blizzards, flooding, snow and rain storms, depending on a given state's location.

- West, and California in particular: Area is susceptible to earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, wind storms.

- Likely possibilities: Eastern Pennsylvania, Maine, Canada

- Most unlikely possibilities: Definitely would avoid New York for its inconvenience, high cost of living and high taxes. Ditto for New Jersey. As far as I'm concerned, the only good thing New Jersey has going for it is the availability of public transportation in most areas. Being able to walk a short distance to a bus or train stop is very convenient, which is part of the reason why I've stayed here so long. Negative aspects are high taxes, overcrowding, loss of forests, etc. Also, most family members are deceased, which frees me up to go wherever and be happy. Connecticut and Massachusetts are also out for similar reasons.

When I first bought my home, I cheerfully mowed the lawn with an old rotary mower the first four or five summers. As pulled out twigs that got caught in that thing and dealt with its dull blades in the summer heat, I found myself getting fed up. The lawn was trimmed, but somehow, using that old rotary mower didn't yield the results that I was looking for.

So I looked for help, which shouldn't have been a big deal. Just look in the Yellow Pages and pick and contact two or three. Get an estimate. Choose and hire the best lawn guy. Save time and aggravation.

Even more important, you find someone good and rehire him/her time and time again, supposedly. It should have worked out like that for me but didn't.

One guy did the job for a time, then insisted on payment for work that he did not do. I sent him a payment along with a note explaining why the enclosed amount was less than he requested. Needless to say, I didn't rehire him. Good riddance!

Another guy kept raising his prices and although his work wasn't bad, his services became unaffordable after awhile. I was between jobs at that time and only had so much money to spend on extras. So much for him.

Another guy seemed to be better. His prices weren't too bad, but one or two of his helpers turned out to be thieves. Late one Saturday night, they and/or their friends forced my garage doors open and stole my beautiful red ten speed. I worked hard to scrape up money to buy that bike and assumed it would be safe in my garage. Yeah right. That lawn guy was fired outright.

The next guy was really great. He and his helper were very thorough and honest. His prices were reasonable and he accepted partial payments. He also helped to remove a small dead tree from my front lawn. A few summers later, he stopped working for me and a few other neighbors. He became ill and wound up in a hospital. Since he was a heavy smoker, he probably wound up with cancer, though I hope that was not the case. My neighbors and I hold that guy's work to successors.

Then my father became terminally ill and I didn't have the luxury of extra time to find someone good. So I hired this one guy in a hurry. His prices were reasonable and he did an excellent job in removing tons of leaves from my property in the fall. But he got a little too greedy and lazy. He didn't believe in doing a thorough job in other aspects, however. Every so often, he'd pee against the house or fence. Didn't matter to him that neighbors were home next door. The following year, things were different. My dad had died and on top of everything else, I had to find someone else, as I fired the lawn guy. So did another neighbor. He was clearly pissed and didn't want to take no as an answer. He tried to tell me that I begged him to do the work, which I didn't. I just acted in haste under trying circumstances.

Now, we have another lawn guy who was recommended by one of my next-door neighbors. This guy already works for a landscaping company, but does freelance work like mowing grass. He doesn't insist on cutting lawns every other week, but will only accept cash payments. If my money is tight, he will accept a partial payment. So one of my other neighbors and I are using him now, for the time being. I say this because he's done things that I didn't ask him to do, such as blowing leaves behind my garage (Who does he think will wind up cleaning them out -- the leaf fairy???) and allowing his wife to hand trim my front hedge. The job that she did stunk. Nothing was even and the hedge looked a little lopsided. I had to redo that job using an electric cutter and it took me awhile to get the hedge trimmed neatly.

Sometimes I wonder what these lawn guys' problems are. Could it be that they've lost pride in their work? Just cut the grass any old way?After all, they are hired to do a good job, but they just don't in a number of instances.

But they better watch out. Quite a few people are opting to deal with their own lawns. One neighbor even has his son mowing the lawn for free. The kid does what he can, and the lawn looks like it too. If enough people stop hiring landscapers, the landscapers will be forced to provide quality service for a change.

In yesterday's post, I completely overlooked the most inspiring song of all, "My Way," by Frank Sinatra. I don't care for his other songs, but love that one.

One of the lines in that song's lyrics, "I did it my way," sums up my life so far. When push came to shove, I came through for myself and others and did it my way, though sometimes the results weren't quite what I expected. On a more positive note, however, I managed to meet deadlines, even tight ones, keep my cool in controlling my panic as my bike rolled faster and faster down a steep hill, committed money in purchasing my house before telling my dad (he would have discouraged me from doing so), found ways to keep afloat when I was between jobs, tried to rescue homeless cats and kittens, spoke out when I needed to.

The funniest thing about such lists is that they tend to highlight more positive aspects than negative ones. You can't help but get a lift in knowing that you stepped up to the plate and did something your way, for better or worse. There were wrinkles along the way, but you straightened them out as best you could. That's why the song's lyrics ring so true.