Tuesday, December 26
Dec. 27th, 2023 03:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Gorgeous weather.
Not feeling rushed today.
I was able to let the goats and ponies into their bigger pasture while we picked up poop. It's fun to see the ponies run around and buck for the fun of it all.
We went to see River, and that was nice.
He did well on the Liberty work, though his confusion with the "away" and "draw" circle is ongoing and mystifying.
He's really offering the not-quite Spanish Walk efforts.
What I don't like, is how training him with treats turns him into a bit of a pest.
Part way through our session, K (R's husband) was doing some chores and chatted with us. It was pretty funny that he was basically talking about how over-full he's felt for days because of all the holiday eating, but then went into talking about other food he wants to eat later. Like it's been awhile since he's had a good donair.
It was fun chatting with him.
Then I did some ridden work. I did a few trot transitions from a halt, and then some walk to canter transitions, and a halt from the canter, and he did pretty well. What I was happiest with, is that he didn't "worry" about the work, he just responded to my cues. I didn't ride for long, because he did well right away so I wanted to reward him.
Then we went home. We watched one episode of "The Expanse".
Then I tried to talk about some of the things we need to address, and he left it on a bad note, his usual dismissive and non-committal "fine sweetie, I'll do something about it, sure I will, at some point, not sure when....".
So, then I fumed for a while, and got pretty mad about it. I feel like he's not doing what it takes to keep moving forward with the house right now.
He did do a bit of work towards installing the doors in the bathroom over the holidays, but there's SO MUCH WORK that has to happen. He hasn't been doing anything at all on the house during the week (and very little on the weekends) since he started working out of the office at the end of October, so for the past two months we haven't progressed inside the house.
Since it looks like he'll be working out of the office for the next several months, does that mean pretty much nothing is going to happen on the house as long as he's working this schedule?
I absolutely understand that he needs to be in bed by 9 pm, but he also COULD be home by 6 pm after work if he didn't fart around. If I make supper, he COULD work for two hours a night after work. It's what has to happen if we're going to make any progress.
I also said it was fine to keep going to the climbing gym on the nights I ride River, and not to work on the house on those nights.
So, for TWO NIGHTS during the work week, he could work on the house. That really isn't unreasonable, is it.
His biggest issue is JUST DOING IT FOR GOD'S SAKE. He gets paralyzed by the work, worried about just how to start, over-thinks it, then has this black and white way of looking at it; basically he likes to do it all HE-MAN style where he just goes hard for a week solid, when we aren't going to have a week to do that. He also is just not having the momentum or the motivation to do the work at all. He avoids these bigger jobs like the plague, and makes up things to do, or just doesn't even pretend to try.
He just deflects, and has an hour and a half long bath every night and goes "oh, look at the time, I have to go to bed now". Or, he "runs errands" in the city on his way home from work so he gets home later, and thus also has no time.
Tomorrow, he'll be so exhausted from our fight taking half the night that he will have to go to bed early too.
The house is mentally exhausting for me. I am physically tired some days because I'm fighting my inner rage over not being able to use the huge amount of space in the basement. Over how the wood meant for the bedroom floor takes up half the basement, and his tools take up the other half.
The basement area that is left unfinished is meant to be for bookshelves, a rec room, and a place for our workout stuff. For the last four years, my books have been stored in boxes where I can't access them.
He may get overwhelmed by all the work (so he just avoids it and gets lost in the cycle of work/sleep so he doesn't have to deal with it) but does not seem upset by it enough to actually commit to a schedule of working on the house.
I hate how the house takes up so much of my mental space, makes me angry all the time, and eats up other time because we have to do work on it. IT MAKES ME ANGRY ALL THE TIME. I see unfinished window frames, cracks in the walls, unfinished rooms, a very ugly bathroom that won't be improved for years, and on and on.
He says I don't focus on the positive, and that's not true. I know he did a fantastic job of siding the house this summer, and every time I go outside I see it and appreciate it.
It's just that at no point can we just stop moving forward. If I said nothing, I know that nothing would happen all winter, because that's what happened last winter. Also, nothing even happened the summer before, except that we hired a contractor. If not for the contractor, very little would have happened.
It feels more and more, that any time something happens, it's because I MADE it happen through sheer rage. I am tired of it needing to come from my anger and nagging. I never wanted to be that person. I hate being that person.
What choice do I have? Just be sweet and pleasant and live forever in a house that's barely functional? I've seen houses like that, where they've been "working on it" for ten years and there's still unpainted drywall in the living room, or a bathroom in the basement that's been abandoned, or the whole second floor is unusable.
Anyhow, I'm pretty tired of it all, and it really feels like there's no solution. We seem stuck on this pattern of zero progress, then rage, then promises, maybe something gets done, then inertia again.
I learned about Goodhart's Law, which states that : "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure".
This is the law that applies to poorly designed corporate (and all kinds of personal) targets, meaning that the target is often not properly identified, and people "game" the situation (cheat it) so to falsely achieve the goal.
Such as the government putting a bounty on rats to decrease the rat population. If the target becomes "as many dead rats as possible", then before you know it, "rat catchers" just become rat breeders, and make a good living off of bringing in lots of dead rats for the bounty being offered.
Or if the goal becomes production-oriented, like making 1 million units a month, so the employees respond by making 1 million crappier units that are too flimsy to do the job at all. Or, they just make 1 million VERY SMALL units that amount to the same units they used to make at a larger size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
Gorgeous weather.
Not feeling rushed today.
I was able to let the goats and ponies into their bigger pasture while we picked up poop. It's fun to see the ponies run around and buck for the fun of it all.
We went to see River, and that was nice.
He did well on the Liberty work, though his confusion with the "away" and "draw" circle is ongoing and mystifying.
He's really offering the not-quite Spanish Walk efforts.
What I don't like, is how training him with treats turns him into a bit of a pest.
Part way through our session, K (R's husband) was doing some chores and chatted with us. It was pretty funny that he was basically talking about how over-full he's felt for days because of all the holiday eating, but then went into talking about other food he wants to eat later. Like it's been awhile since he's had a good donair.
It was fun chatting with him.
Then I did some ridden work. I did a few trot transitions from a halt, and then some walk to canter transitions, and a halt from the canter, and he did pretty well. What I was happiest with, is that he didn't "worry" about the work, he just responded to my cues. I didn't ride for long, because he did well right away so I wanted to reward him.
Then we went home. We watched one episode of "The Expanse".
Then I tried to talk about some of the things we need to address, and he left it on a bad note, his usual dismissive and non-committal "fine sweetie, I'll do something about it, sure I will, at some point, not sure when....".
So, then I fumed for a while, and got pretty mad about it. I feel like he's not doing what it takes to keep moving forward with the house right now.
He did do a bit of work towards installing the doors in the bathroom over the holidays, but there's SO MUCH WORK that has to happen. He hasn't been doing anything at all on the house during the week (and very little on the weekends) since he started working out of the office at the end of October, so for the past two months we haven't progressed inside the house.
Since it looks like he'll be working out of the office for the next several months, does that mean pretty much nothing is going to happen on the house as long as he's working this schedule?
I absolutely understand that he needs to be in bed by 9 pm, but he also COULD be home by 6 pm after work if he didn't fart around. If I make supper, he COULD work for two hours a night after work. It's what has to happen if we're going to make any progress.
I also said it was fine to keep going to the climbing gym on the nights I ride River, and not to work on the house on those nights.
So, for TWO NIGHTS during the work week, he could work on the house. That really isn't unreasonable, is it.
His biggest issue is JUST DOING IT FOR GOD'S SAKE. He gets paralyzed by the work, worried about just how to start, over-thinks it, then has this black and white way of looking at it; basically he likes to do it all HE-MAN style where he just goes hard for a week solid, when we aren't going to have a week to do that. He also is just not having the momentum or the motivation to do the work at all. He avoids these bigger jobs like the plague, and makes up things to do, or just doesn't even pretend to try.
He just deflects, and has an hour and a half long bath every night and goes "oh, look at the time, I have to go to bed now". Or, he "runs errands" in the city on his way home from work so he gets home later, and thus also has no time.
Tomorrow, he'll be so exhausted from our fight taking half the night that he will have to go to bed early too.
The house is mentally exhausting for me. I am physically tired some days because I'm fighting my inner rage over not being able to use the huge amount of space in the basement. Over how the wood meant for the bedroom floor takes up half the basement, and his tools take up the other half.
The basement area that is left unfinished is meant to be for bookshelves, a rec room, and a place for our workout stuff. For the last four years, my books have been stored in boxes where I can't access them.
He may get overwhelmed by all the work (so he just avoids it and gets lost in the cycle of work/sleep so he doesn't have to deal with it) but does not seem upset by it enough to actually commit to a schedule of working on the house.
I hate how the house takes up so much of my mental space, makes me angry all the time, and eats up other time because we have to do work on it. IT MAKES ME ANGRY ALL THE TIME. I see unfinished window frames, cracks in the walls, unfinished rooms, a very ugly bathroom that won't be improved for years, and on and on.
He says I don't focus on the positive, and that's not true. I know he did a fantastic job of siding the house this summer, and every time I go outside I see it and appreciate it.
It's just that at no point can we just stop moving forward. If I said nothing, I know that nothing would happen all winter, because that's what happened last winter. Also, nothing even happened the summer before, except that we hired a contractor. If not for the contractor, very little would have happened.
It feels more and more, that any time something happens, it's because I MADE it happen through sheer rage. I am tired of it needing to come from my anger and nagging. I never wanted to be that person. I hate being that person.
What choice do I have? Just be sweet and pleasant and live forever in a house that's barely functional? I've seen houses like that, where they've been "working on it" for ten years and there's still unpainted drywall in the living room, or a bathroom in the basement that's been abandoned, or the whole second floor is unusable.
Anyhow, I'm pretty tired of it all, and it really feels like there's no solution. We seem stuck on this pattern of zero progress, then rage, then promises, maybe something gets done, then inertia again.
I learned about Goodhart's Law, which states that : "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure".
This is the law that applies to poorly designed corporate (and all kinds of personal) targets, meaning that the target is often not properly identified, and people "game" the situation (cheat it) so to falsely achieve the goal.
Such as the government putting a bounty on rats to decrease the rat population. If the target becomes "as many dead rats as possible", then before you know it, "rat catchers" just become rat breeders, and make a good living off of bringing in lots of dead rats for the bounty being offered.
Or if the goal becomes production-oriented, like making 1 million units a month, so the employees respond by making 1 million crappier units that are too flimsy to do the job at all. Or, they just make 1 million VERY SMALL units that amount to the same units they used to make at a larger size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
no subject
Date: 2023-12-28 07:58 am (UTC)Would he be willing to get ONE of them done, like that bedroom floor? He'd get the accolades, you'd get the peace of mind, both would get a decent floor. But how to convince him to start and to complete ONE project? Could you work alongside him nailing the wood into place?
no subject
Date: 2023-12-29 06:55 am (UTC)We have some big things ahead of us, and if we don't have much for big blocks of time to tackle them, then we're going to have to get better at persistently chipping away at them in small, frequent blocks of time.
I am trying to get him to finish something all the way to 100%, like the bedroom, but already he is now moving on to the wood stove project downstairs.
Fair enough, I wanted him to start working on that too, but here's the thing. That's a NEW PROJECT, meaning, will it GET FINISHED ALL THE WAY, or will it get about half finished and abandoned once we hit a tricky spot, like everything else that is still not finished?
The floor in the bedroom in the addition got abandoned once he hit a spot where we have to cut a doorway into the wall. That was trickier, so it got abandoned in favor of easier fish to fry.
The window frames are now an officially abandoned project too, because they are going to be quite tricky. He's done lots and lots of detailed planning and discussion, but it always ends with "that's going to take a lot of work", and so because the windows "work just fine" they don't really need to be "finished", do they?
That's what's happening in every part of the house. We did the work that HAD to be done, but we don't NEED to have the addition finished, or the basement, or the window frames, or the door in the porch that is STILL just a door shimmed into a hole in the wall with no trim around it, or the little tiny room on the second floor above the addition that I really want finished for a meditation room (it's just a framed in room that doesn't even have drywall up).
It is NOT good for my mental health to live with this ongoing, never-ending, stress.