2020-04-17 — Withdrawals

Today has been hard on all addiction fronts. 🙁

It’s been one of those days… Candy and ice cream have been calling my name. So has wasting my time in front of movies/TV… Porn, too. Ugh.

But… so far… I’ve survived the day. If I can get this journal entry done, get tomorrow’s work schedule laid out, and get to bed. I’ll officially survive the day. Can’t count the chickens…

So far…

12 days since buying any new junk food (amazing how fast the weight comes off when I lay off the crap 🙃).

20 days in a row now writing in my journal.

11 days clean from porn/sex addiction (public accountability is working, so… thank you, to all of you who are reading and helping me. You may not comment, but the mere fact that I know people are visiting the site reading stuff is helping me to fight a little harder.

(deep breath)

One day at a time.

Oh, I’m tired. …And my body is on the edge right now. I need to eat and drink and get myself taken care of before I crash hard.

Today has been… hmmm… a bit frustrating, honestly. I feel like I’ve worked all day and haven’t really gotten anything done. David did a couple of jobs for me. One big one, and a quickie. I did a freebie and then one that I ran into troubles and had to postpone until later when he’d have more time to have me there working on it. So… the only money I made today was the money David made for me, which was a decent amount, so that was good at least.

All the money coming in is helping me close in on making back everything I lost fourish years ago (not getting the money itself back, but earning enough to replace what I lost). That’s pretty amazing because it wasn’t just a little bit of money that I lost. I know money is relative, but it was quite a lot of money in my eyes. I’d spent years saving and saving and saving–every spare little bit, preparing for a future that never came, and then I lost it all anyway. Boom. But you already know that if you’ve been reading, so no need to repeat myself in this journal entry.

Anyway… lots and lots and lots of hard work over the last three years or so, and I’m almost back. Probably another few months, and I’ll be back to that point and going beyond.

I hope, anyway.

Well… I remember I had things I wanted to write about today, but now that I’m sitting down writing, I don’t remember anymore. 🙃

The withdrawals have been tough today. That’s what’s been on my mind a good bit.

What else… uh… one of my contract workers will be working for me again tomorrow, and is going to start working for me a bit again, hoping to return back to full time in the next few weeks, but we’ll see. The coronavirus thing is still raging, so who knows exactly what’s going to happen, but it’ll be nice to have him back.

I also got the lawn mowed today. For those of you who don’t know, I think we have maybe 2-4 acres that need mowing. My mom would probably know, and she’ll probably read this tonight or tomorrow and can set me straight. However you look at it, I think it takes about 2 1/2 hours to mow with a 48-inch deck on the riding lawnmower. That might give you an idea of how much there is to mow.

Believe it or not, though, I actually like mowing the lawn. It’s peaceful. Round and round and round I go, headphones in, just… existing for a little while. Life slowing down a little bit on a 4 mph mower (or whatever speed it is.

I had a bit of a mishap with the mower today, though. I thought one of the stump leftovers from one of the many many trees I’ve cut down was low enough to mow over. In fact, I think it’s been mowed over before, but I guess it caught on the stuff just right, that one of the three deck spindles sheered completely off, breaking apart.

That set me back a bit, and I didn’t take it so well… whining that I can’t catch a break.

(I’ve been whining a lot lately. Need to get over that.)

Anyway, fortunately, I have tools, and I have extra parts for the mower, so I went to our shed, pulled out the extra deck that we have, pulled the old one off, put the replacement on, and started on my way mowing again, finishing mowing well after dark, but finishing 😊.

That’s pretty much it for today.

Oh! I guess I should probably catch you up on what I decided with that power steering pump debacle from the other day. Once I got far enough away from it and less afraid of losing money, I just did what I pretty much always do and chose to eat the whole thing. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, a net loss of well over $500, I think, but it is what it is. The price of a clear conscience.

For anyone who knows me, they know I hate gray areas. I don’t want to wonder if I did the right thing, and the easiest way to know is to eat everything myself. I’d rather do myself an injustice than do one to someone else. At least my conscience can be 100% clear, even if my wallet stings a little.

Honestly, though, I’m doing fine financially, though, so hits like this (I had another one like this less than a month ago, I think) happen, but they don’t hurt that much. It stings. It’s hard to see the right choice in the moment, but then the fog clears, and a clear conscience is priceless.

Anyway, blah, blah, blah… I’m probably rambling, which means it’s probably time for…

GRATITUDE!!!

#1. I mentioned it already, but I’m grateful that we had the replacement parts I needed for the mower siting right there ready for me to transfer over. I didn’t have to leave the lawn unmowed for days more while I waited for parts to come in, and it probably only set me back 45 minutes or so, so not bad at all.

#2. I’m grateful that my “new” (probably five-year-old model, but new to me) phone came in today. I’ve been buying the same make and model for a few years now, I think. I break them fairly regularly because a phone is one of my most important tools, probably my most important tool for this business. It’s my communication device, my repair info device, my camera for hard to see places… it’s so many things. Just a cheap phone (ZTE Zmax Pro), but it’s a fabulous phone. Perhaps the best one you could get for the money at the time and still worth it now. This one cost me $60. Hopefully, it’s a well remanned phone. I’ll put it through the ringer a little bit before going to bed.

#3. I’m grateful that I’m getting closer and closer to jumping the car ship and boarding my non-profit ship. I’m getting more and more serious about it, and the ideas for bettering the world are increasing, too. Another thing I’d love to help create is a multi-perspective news source, where the news is shared, but articles are balanced because… well either each article will have multiple authors from various places on the political spectrum working together to create one article, or each news story will have multiple versions, one written from each of the various perspectives on the political spectrum. I’m hoping that such a resource would help people receive more accurate and honest news. I personally believe today’s news is really destructive. CNN is far biased to the left. It’s almost laughable how slanted the news is from them. Is Fox any better? No. Drudge? No. We might as well call them manufacturers of contemporary opinion and rhetoric instead of journalists reporting the news.

Sorry. Tangent/soap box.

I crave honest truth, not conservative or liberal twisting. Perhaps I can create a news outlet to share balanced news, or at least multiple perspectives to create a balance of perspectives not not just one-sided spun opinions.

#4. I’m grateful that my allergies haven’t been worse than they are. I’m allergive to something in my room that seems to hit me each day, so hopefully, I’ll figure out what that is, but so far, my allergies haven’t been too bad. I know other people who have to take medication just to survive the day each day during allergy season, so I’m grateful to have what I have.

#5. I’m grateful to be sober. I know I mentioned it already, but it’s been hard today, and thank you to you for being there, silently or otherwise.

Thanks, everybody.

G’night.

~ s