2021-10-26 — Ongoing Progress

No excuses.

Here we go: Up at 5, check (getting up in the dark is hard 😶. Yes, I’m spoiled–being able to get up whenever I want. And in my spoiledness, getting back on this morning routine is a challenge 🙃). 5×5, check (progress today cleaning my room (after only a few days of 5x5s, my room is cleaner than it’s been in months, and ditto with the upstairs bathroom. Got some laundry started, improved the mess in the driveway a bit, got more weeds pulled and more emails cleaned up/organized/deleted.

Exercise, check. Still not a full 30 minutes, and not really even close to 30 minutes, but progress nonetheless. I think I did several minutes of non-stop sit-ups while listening to a Les Brown motivational speech. I was surprised that I could just go and go and go and go without my stomach muscles really complaining. I guess all the awkward lying down under cars and getting up and down from lying on my back working on cars has been pretty effective for keeping the abs in shape. Cardio… that’s… another story. That’s where I’m awful, I’m sure. I doubt I have really any cardio endurance. Unfortunately, until my hip heals (I hope it heals without surgery!) ain’t gonna be able to do much cardio.

Breakfast, check. Meditation, check. Work prep, check. Working on non-profit, check (spent 30 minutes working on a name for the organization (some new trains of thought but nothing solid yet). I added the new ideas to the Come Together section of the Projects tab.

Made a little bit of progress with my taxes. I did get rather distracted because it’s the annual haunted hayride here on Haven Hill, and the theme this year is hillbilly cannibal, and I still didn’t have a costume, so I did something I’ve never done before. I found a costume online that I like, and I forked over (gulp) almost $100 for it 😶 (a good chunk of that for rapid shipping to get here by Friday to be ready for Saturday’s festivities.

Feels like a lot of money for a costume. Never done that before–not even close, I don’t think. I almost never dress up period. I tend to be a little boring at holidays, forgetting they’re there until they arrive and then just… not really giving them much thought, but I said I was going to participate, and though $100 is a lot, when I thought about how much time it would take to think of something else to do, and how much more time it would take to get something here, and something else over there, piecing something together, though it was a bit of sticker shock, it was actually cheaper just to go with what I chose.

So… I’ll post a picture after the night’s deeds are done. 😁

Anyway, made a little progress on taxes. Not a lot, but some. Better than nothing, and I’m prepared for Saturday.

Got a late start because my phone threw up all over itself when I restarted it, somehow dumping a gazillion archived text messages in my inbox, which caused about an hour and a half delay in getting started this morning, as I had to go through who knows how many texts to figure out which were the ones I needed to pay attention to and which weren’t.

That was weird. Not sure how the phone did that. So… delayed start, but decent day. 1st car was a charging problem, which turned out, apparently, to be just corroded connections. I replaced his battery connectors, cleaned the terminals, and no problems. Second car was a no start (turned out to be a simple battery install). Third car was a pre-purchase inspection at a dealership for someone from Texas. There were some red flags, so he asked me to do more in-depth testing, so instead of my normal hour, I took over two hours to inspect the car.

It’s gratifying when people comment about my inspections. I’ve had that happen multiple times recently, people super happy with how thorough I lookover cars (I really do check a ton of stuff, and I give play-by-play commentary for them via text to read, including pictures. The customer was super happy, and that felt nice.

Fourth car was one that’s been waiting for weeks, and we still didn’t finish it today. Needs one more part that I didn’t know it needed until I started pulling stuff apart. So, I’ll go back on Thursday to finish up (cross your fingers).

Fifth car was replacing a purge valve on a 2017 Ford Escape 1.5 turbo that was clackity clacking super loud. I thought it was going to be a pretty challenging install, but it took less than 30 minutes, I think.

Wahoo!

1. I’m grateful that I was able to have relatively friendly jobs today.
2. I’m grateful that I had epoxy with me to repair customer #1’s battery when my drill slipped and drilled a nice hole in the top of his battery. 🙃
3. I’m grateful for happy customers who express their appreciation.
4. I’m grateful that when I found that another company’s customer had given me a bad review (the company that is using the name I used to be known by), they went out of their way to get the customer to remove the bad review from my page, and they even managed to get the customer to give me a 5-star review. Class act from my competitor. 😊
5. I’m grateful I’ve got two days of doing rather well in my course correcting.

Things to work on: It’s 9:34, so I’m late. I didn’t get done with the last job until almost 8, part of that because I added a new job earlier that made the last job star later. So… I need to remember that in my no new jobs started after 6. I have to remember how saying yes earlier in the day might affect what I have promised customers later in the day.

Also… I didn’t do as well eating today. I pulled over to eat for my lunch break, but that’s when I saw the bad review, and I got distracted trying to get that cleared up, and I didn’t end up eating much of anything until the drive home. Then I ate a second dinner upon arriving home. Full belly means might be a bit hard to fall asleep. Fingers crossed.

Seriously thinking about going to Costa Rica for a vacation. Might go with my college buddy John. That would be cool. Just like old times, except a little farther north (last big trip with him was Peru).

Loves and hugs, all you wonderful people, you! 😊

Lift the World. 🙂

~ stephen