What's Next #3

In the first part of this series I established the fact that I'm probably not hopping back into a job when my last son starts school full time. In the second part I explained that this wasn't always the case. I did in fact have every intention of continuing to be a proper contributing part of the economy with a little re-training. As my life changed and my wife's job changed and we kept having more and more children, so did my plans.
I do have some things around here that I really need to do. The garage needs a new roof for starters. I don't just mean new shingles either, it has holes in it you can climb through. Since I have to dive that deep into the project I'm seriously thinking of making the roof somewhere around 8 feet taller. This will give me enough room inside the garage to install a lift for working on cars. It's always been a dream of mine to have my own lift. It's sort of the ultimate automotive tool. At about $3000 I can't imagine how I'm going to justify it. I'm thinking that maybe I can explain that since I'm doing all the work on the garage myself then the money I save can be used on a lift. Maybe? It's going to take me as much time to come up with something to tell my wife as it's going to take me to do the work. I also have a lot of work on the house to finish. I have moldings that I started putting up 9 years ago that I'm not quite done with yet. I should probably get on it. While I'm at it I need to finish up the rest of the drywall that I hung 8 years ago when I put the addition on the house. Then I need to do some tile work in the bathroom. The kitchen also needs to be gutted. That's going to suck. Now that I think about it, I've been putting off doing a lot of work.
That's what I need to do, but what do I want to do? I want to build a race car, just because. I also want to build a go-kart for the kids, and they really want me to do that too. I want to have the time to properly train for a marathon. I could do that now, but I don't want to take the time necessary for the long runs. A 20 mile run takes me 3.5 hours and then time to eat and then take a nap. I'd rather not demand that big of a chunk of the weekend right now. I also want to try out some volunteering. The Houston Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, and Meals on Wheels are three organizations that I'd like to spend some time with. They all do great things. Those are volunteer jobs that I know I can do by just calling and showing up. There are also some things that I might need a little training to do. I'm very interested in literacy. I'm convinced that one of the primary reasons that school was easy for me, and probably the reason that people thought I was smart, was because I could read well at an early age. Everything is easier when you can read well and harder when you can't. If you fall far enough behind, you get lost, and with a lot of kids it's just the time, the practice and the patience of a dedicated reading teacher that they need. I can read. I taught my kids to read. I think I can help teach other kids to read and help them succeed if I can get the proper training in it. This is something that can make a real difference on an individual level. I am also interested in volunteering at the Shriners Burn Hospital in Galveston. I burned myself a few years ago. Not so bad that my life is changed long term, but bad enough that I had to rely on a lot of physical and emotional help while I healed. When you're burned badly enough that you can't do much other than sit and heal, life sucks. I'd like to go help life suck a little less for the kids that end up there. Again, I'm not exactly sure what I can do, or how I can help, or what training I need, but I'd like to help.
There's a lot I can do in the world, both at home and away, when I've got the time. Things that help me, things that help my family, and things that help people I haven't met yet. I think I've got a lot of options.