2020-11-28 — Gratitude Week, Day 7

Osiyo, mon peeps! 😊

Happy Saturday. 😊 It’s been a pretty crazy day today. Started out pretty rough because even though I made into bed last night without relapsing after having been triggered earlier while trying to find health information for my friend, I didn’t make it out of bed this morning without relapsing. 🙁

So… that was crappy. Sometimes I want to just hide myself away in the middle of the mountains or a forest for a good long time, away from everything, to give my brain a chance to undo all the rewiring that’s happened from years of addiction. My understanding is that it takes about 2 years for the brain to return to normal after pornography addiction… so… maybe I’ll go be a hermit for two years. 😉

Or not.

No… I just want to learn to love people more and to have love replace selfishness. It’ll be a while, as it’s already been a while, and progress is slower than I’d hope, but it is progress, so… as long as I’m giving a worthy effort, hungry to my core to be love, then I’ll be trending in the right direction always, however it looks on the outside. So…

Bring it on.

In other news…

#1. I’m grateful that today for the first time in a long time, I’m actually typing almost completely with my index finger on my left hand.

#2. I’m grateful that my finger is doing okay. I found out when I went back to the urgent care today that apparently either they told me incorrectly or I misunderstood how to take care of my finger, because the NP said that I was supposed to have been moving and bending it after like the first day. Well… what I understood was put the splint on after the first day and wear it for the rest of the time.

Whoops.

So… basically, she said I’m probably going to tear it all back open again because it wasn’t during the healing process. So… we left the stitches in. I’m out of the splint, and I’m now trying to move it to get full range of motion without tearing the wound all the way back open (though I do need practice overcoming my vaso vagal reactions. They say once a fainter, always a fainter. I didn’t used to be a fainter, so I’m gonna say I can train myself to get over it and be a rock during crises that involve nasty gashes. I don’t mind the blood, but when you can see inside yourself? That’s… apparently too much for me?

🤷‍♀️

#3. I’m grateful to have had two mechanics working today. We did 14+ billable hours today between the three of us. David did almost 6 with 5 cars. Doug did a little over 6 with one truck, and I did 2 with 2 cars. Nice. 😊

#4. I’m grateful that I had the courage to let my new guy know that I screwed up on billing. I overcharged my customer by somewhere around $150 or so and paid my new guy more than I should have. I’m letting him keep the extra, but I’m grateful I had the courage to let him know that I wasn’t going to charge as many hours as it called for. The book overbooked by at least an hour, probably an hour and a half or so. Not sure. I’m gonna drop the price by at least an hour and a half, which hits me both directions, but whatever. Integrity ain’t worth selling.

#5. I’m grateful to my mother for making French toast tonight. That was nice to have with the lovely whizzed up peaches.

#6. I’m grateful to have been able to get the latch figured out on the last car I did. Their trunk was stuck closed, neither the key would open it, nor the power trunk release button, nor even the emergency, I’m-stuck-in-the-trunk release cable. I managed to get the back seat removed, crawl in through the slot that was there, over the top of the full-size spare tire they had in their trunk, and unbolt the whole latch assembly from inside. Awkward, but done. And it took a lot less time than I think they thought it would, just 45 minutes or so, so that was nice. Now I just have to find a replacement part for it. It’s a discontinued part, sooooo… it might be a challenge. We’ll see.

#7. I’m grateful that Mindy is warming up to me more and more. She’s turning more and more into a dog. That’s nice. 😊

#8. I’m grateful to be facing forward after yet another set back with my stupid porn issues. Onward.

#9. I’m grateful to have had a good money day. With me being out for nearly 10 days, it’s not been so kind to the wallet.

#10. I’m grateful I had a full day’s work for both techs today, that the day filled out for David, and that I even was able to do a couple jobs. Honestly. Would be sooooo nice if I can keep this whole two-mechanic thing going. Would be sooooo nice. Need to get more work, though. Need to have a minimum of 12 billable hours a day available between the two. That’s… a lot. But Doug is okay doing the bigger jobs, sooooo…. There might be a decent chance. He can do diesel, heavier equipment, etc. So… I can say yes to more jobs, as well.

#11. I’m grateful that my soul is softening a little more even. Read something Joseph Smith had said to the people who were with him that had found rattlesnakes in the camp and were about to kill them. He directed them not to kill living creatures if they could possibly help it, even poisonous ones (the story is much better than my blurb here), and as I was chopping wood, I came face to face with a huge brown recluse spider (which was on one of the logs I’d just put in the dump cart. Instead of killing it, like I would have, that thought from JS crossed my mind, and I blew it into the grass and kept chopping wood. I’m glad I did. It feels… better to live peaceably with critters. I still don’t want them in the house or garage or whatnot, and we do have an infestation still, but the numbers are receding, and there are things we can do to keep them out. It’s an interesting balance trying to figure out what to do about the little critters on this earth…

#12. I’m grateful we got rid of all the sticky traps today. It’s such an inhumane way to die. Mom and both were like… yeah… let’s get rid of these. So… no more traps to catch bugs in the house. Maybe we can get some humane bug traps and let them outside. 😊

Loves and hugs, my lovelies. 😊

Lift the World.

~ stephen