Hi, peopleses 😊,
What a difference a day can make!
Last night while I was at Miguel’s celebrating his birthday, the wind started to pick up pretty good, and the breeze turned cool rather quickly, and when I woke up this morning, it was a lot colder outside than the 90-degree high it had reached yesterday. Today’s high was in the mid 60s, I think (gorgeous, by the way. Loved the weather today. 😊
Such is Northwest Arkansas weather. You’ve probably heard the old adage that seems to apply to every place: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes, it’ll change.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere where that adage is as true as it is here. And this is just one day of seemingly hundreds just like it here.
Anyway, the relative busyness of my business (now isn’t that just a weird phrase 🙃) seems to have caught the same disease as Arkansas’ weather. I mean… It’s been relatively slow for a few days or so, and that was lovely, and then, boom! It didn’t just fill up, it exploded! I started the day with what could be described as a decent to light schedule, but by the time the day was over, I was back to barely having my head above oil (I’ve got 10 jobs on the schedule for tomorrow already. That’s super super busy, and that doesn’t even take into account the people who are going to call tomorrow! 😬)
I need to ind more workers. 😊
Anyway, pile that on the top of the maybe four hours of sleep I got last night after getting to bed way late last night (a customer called at like 3 a.m. and then again at like 6:30, and I just… gave up trying to sleep. I resigned myself to an early starting work day, and I headed out.).
Yeah, today’s one of those days where I’d like to have three mechanics working for me. Then I can just send them on their way to the various places they need to go, and I can just manage.
Well, despite the craziness, as days go, today was a good day. It was good because I was able to have yet another opportunity to face the tempation to stress out and get overwhelmed. It was a good day because I was able to make a decent amount of money which is helping me get ever closer to my goal of being able to spend my days, full time, going out and helping people via humanitarian and peace/unifying work. It was a good day because… every day is a good day. It’s just good in different ways. 😊
Guess what, though? I do think I saw some improvement in my propensity to stress out and get overwhelmed during days like this, I did get a bit stressed out when the phone just rang o the hook, but I remember at one point driving down the road to my next job and making the conscious decision to not stress and recognizing in the moment what I’d just accomplished.
(Side note: I’m falling asleep while writing this. I’m literally starting a sentence in coherent reality, and by the time I’m finishing it, no joke, the end of the sentence has morphed to be related to what’s going on in my dream at the moment. It’s super weird… and fun 😊)
Back to crazy work stuff… I wish I knew someone who new cars and who could stay at home, answer the phones, order parts, direct mechanics where to go, etc. Bobby could probably do some of that, but he doesn’t have a working phone right now.
The other problem is that work isn’t consistent enough to hire somebody full-time to do that as a job. Realistically, I would have to figure out some sort of on-call arrangement. I’m not sure how that would look, but maybe I’ll take some time to think about how I could do that with someone in such a way that it would be equally beneficial.
In the meantime, as I mentioned, tomorrow is going to be absolutely nuts. Even if we only get done the cars that we have scheduled and none more, it’ll be insane tomorrow.
Well… so… if you’re interested in what happened today on a more play-by-play basis. Here’s the summary. The first car was an ’02 Toyota Avalon. It had a severe coolant leak, and wouldn’t you know it, but the radiator had somehow managed to warp, breaking the seal, and sending coolant to run free in the world. I wasn’t able to get the radiator replaced because the part was special order, so that one’s on the docket or tomorrow. I’ve done about half the job to this point.
After that job, I went back to a job that my contract worker had done earlier this week. 2008 Jeep Wrangler, no crank, no start. My contract worker had said the issue randomly fixed itself after doing a whole lot of testing, and couldn’t do any more testing because the issue was no longer present to go test with. The battery ended up being bad, and I didn’t end up charging the customer because I felt like it was something that my worker should have found had he had the correct tool with him. I replaced the battery and headed to my third job.
The third job was the person who called me at like 2:30 or whatever it was. The gentleman broke down in Fayetteville at the MLK Super Walmart. I got there and found that is AC compressor was seized up, his power steering pump pulley had broken of, and the pump itself had seized a little bit.
He also needed a bunch more things (wheel bearing, oil leak fix, etc.)
In order to save money, I didn’t replace the compressor. Instead, I put an AC bypass pulley on. I actually really like doing those jobs. 😊
The power steering pump seemed like it would be easy, but it turned into a bit of a pain in my patute. I finally got it done and the gentleman on his way to Kansas in the car he’d just bought.
Last but not least, I headed to John’s place to put plugs and wires in his F150 Raptor truck. When I got there, before I let him know I was there, I took some time to get Friday organized, contacting all the customers who were already scheduled for tomorrow to confirm as well as all those who got bumped to tomorrow because today was so crazy.
It’s important that I do that earlier in the day like I did today, as when I don’t, I lose customers, and it’s not very considerate or them either.
Anyway, just as I was finishing all that up, John texted to tell me he was going to bed. Reading his message, I went and knocked on his door. John’s a long time customer and turning into more of a friend than a customer. We shot the breeze for a bit, and he was like, go home and go to bed (it was like 8:30 or later already). So we shot the breeze, and then I headed home instead of working on his truck. He said he wasn’t in a hurry, so we’ll get him taken care of next week some time.
So… the Durango has been acting up a little bit today. The tranny slipped a little this morning I think. It’s doing its super uneven idling/revving issue that it had a long time ago when I think it needed an O2 sensor. The O2 sensors seem to be giving correct data, though, so I’m not sure what it is this time. I guess I might have to do a diagnostic on one of our own cars 🙃
Well, it’s time for gratitude. 😊
1. I am grateful that for as crazy as the day was today, I’m at least getting home before 10, even if only just barely.
2. I’m grateful that I was able to get the big Cadillac power steering and AC compressor job done today. I didn’t make a lot of money today.
3. I’m grateful that I was able to pick up another job while buying parts at O’reilly’s today.
4. I’m grateful that I have like 20 cans of raviolis in my car for days like today when there is no time to go get food. Just crack open the can, grab my plasticwear, and live the high life 😊
5. I’m grateful that I have someone interested in buying my Subaru. Hope it sells soon 😊. I’m looking forward to downsizing the fleet that’s been crowding the property (although with the government printing money and devaluing our currency, perhaps I should buy more cars and have less cash 🙃).
Well peeps, sorry for a boring post. I’m so absolutely hammered that I don’t really have a clue what I’m saying or what I said or what’s going on. That dream writing thing is weird. I’ve been falling asleep halfway through sentences. and waking up to find I switched subjects to one that was related to my dream, or… something else. I then have to re-read and try to understand what on earth I was doing. 🙃
That’s probably a good sign that it’s time to call it quits. So, please receive one of these 🤗, and I wish you a muy buenas noches.
~ s
Lift the World 
Well done, sleep tight!