One of my readers recommended that I not write my journal at night because perhaps I’m more likely to look back and negatively on the day when I’m exhausted.
Perhaps that’s right. It also seems to be that bad news seems to come in the evenings pretty regularly as well. 🙃
Today was no exception.
But given that there is enough bad news from the day today to fill a post by itself, I’d probably better list some things I’m grateful for before I go into any of that.
Today’s Gratitude:
- I’m grateful that I was able to sleep in my recliner. I woke up at some point in the night with the stomach acid reflux whatever issues, and so I figured it would probably be good if I sat up, as lying down exacerbates the symptoms. I’m not very good at sitting up and sleeping, but I was able to doze at least a little bit, so I’m grateful for that.
- I’m grateful that the first job I did today was pretty smooth. I was able to quickly diagnose the issue as well as several other things he needed to be paying attention to (the car was leaking pretty much every fluid but brake fluid, and leaks weren’t even the reason he called me out, but gratefully, I noticed the leaks, which may save him from ruining his car).
- I’m grateful that answering the phones today was somewhat like riding a bike. It came back almost instantaneously. Malaki is taking the next two plus weeks off, so I’ll be back to running everything myself. Nice to be able to jump right back in.
- I’m grateful that I found one of the reasons why my bank account went down so quickly. Hopefully I can rectify it. Cross your fingers. I realized that I have potentially thousands of dollars worth of errors in orders and returns related to parts and billing. I noticed an issue today, checked on it, and realized there have been major issues. So far I verified about $1,500 worth of issues that equate to direct losses to the business. And I have a lot more paperwork to go through. I’m just really crossing my fingers that I can get this money back, as there’s a good chance there’s no way to prove the errors. It’s looking like I actually lost quite a bit of money with my auto business while in New Zealand. I thought it was only that I didn’t make very much, but it looks like not only did I not make very much, but I may well have lost quite a bit because of all the things that were happening. I was grateful for two AutoZone employees who were able and willing to fix two of the many issues today. I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll find more AutoZone people willing to give me the benefit of the doubt on things that I likely won’t be able to prove.
- I’m grateful that my migraine went away for most of the day before coming back in the evening.
- I’m grateful that I was able to communicate positively when some pretty significant mistakes were made that negatively impacted me and my business.
- I’m grateful that the heartburn issues have not been as bad today. I’ve been busting my butt today trying to do every single thing I can think of in perfect order to take care of my stomach issues. Crossing my fingers at the effort actually pays off long-term and not just in a decrease in symptoms today.
- I’m grateful that the new cell phone signal booster seems to be much more effective than the old one. Instead of zero to one bars in my room, now I have full bars. 🙂
- I’m grateful that I was able to help a friend learn how to fix her heater in her truck without having to spend gobs of money doing it.
You know, I’d probably ought not to really talk about the rest of the negative stuff. I realized today there’s pretty much a mountain of issues that need to be gone back through and corrected and a lot more to be corrected going forward. At the moment, I’m discouraged and overwhelmed by it, but I’ll get over it. Just gotta figure out how to fix things from here.
What I thought was maybe just ingrown hairs and rubbing my toes a little raw on my left foot, has now spread to my right foot. Blisters, rash, ingrown hair looking things that aren’t actually ingrown hairs. I’m really really really hoping it’s not hand foot and mouth disease. My nephew who is sharing a room with me had it for a little while before temporarily moving out so is not to contaminate the house here. But unless I have some random foot rash, which I don’t know if I’ve ever really had one in my entire life, I’m probably getting hand foot and mouth disease. At the same time, the only symptoms I have are just the rash and blisters and raw spots on my toes. Hand foot and mouth disease usually comes with a fever and other symptoms like that, and blisters not just on the toes.
Cross your fingers. Maybe somehow I just got poison ivy on my toes? I don’t know. It doesn’t act like poison ivy. Some of it looks a little bit like poison ivy, but most of it doesn’t.
I think I noticed today that stress aggravates the heartburn stuff. I’m not going to say it 100% sure yet, but I did notice today that when I found the issues that were going on, nearly immediately I had a spike in heartburn symptoms. Multiple times throughout the day, several times, I stopped myself to try and breathe and relax and de-stress, and I think that helped.
What a life. Crazy crazy times.
Hope you all had a meaningful day today.
Love and hugs. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 