Small adjustments, big results

My wife didn’t like her pancakes much.

Her problem was that they sometimes came out a little burned, and while I don’t have a problem with slightly burned pancakes, she doesn’t like them, plus she just likes doing things the right way.

Then she tried something new — making sure the griddle was really greased up.

It made all the difference. The pancakes came out a nice, golden brown, and everyone was happy.

We had pancakes for breakfast this morning, and then I had to go out and deal with my own hard-to-solve problem.

Although I don’t think we got as much as much snow as had been predicted, it was still a decent amount, and it was still stacked up high at the end of my driveway, thanks to the plow.

This time, however, I decided to take a different approach.

Instead of immediately attacking it with the snowblower, leading to jamming, shutting off and loud frustration as I tried to both restart the snowblower (when I wasn’t yanking out the cord entirely) and attack the pile, I chopped it down first with a shovel, and then hit it with the snowblower.

Before we go any further, and before you say anything, I have no idea why in my 16 years as a homeowner, and having fought this problem for roughly the last 13 years, I had not thought of this sooner.

Better late than never, I guess, as clearing the top of the driveway was a snap.

The snow has pretty well stopped, and although the sleet or freezing rain that’s falling now means I’ll probably have to put down some salt to keep things from being too slippery, the worst is pretty much over.

So have you made any small adjustments in how you do things that paid big dividends?