I’m probably about 30 mi south of nephi right now, heading north back to Utah County tonight.
Good visit with my dad and my step mom. Need to make sure I do that more often. They’re getting so old. 😕
The older I get, the more I wish my family weren’t so spread out. We just sort of scattered to the four winds. Seven children in five different states. Two of them live about 35 minutes apart, but the next closest siblings are about 3 hours apart.
It’s sad that we’re all spread out so much. I wish things were more like they are for my Arkansas family, with several sibling families all living on the same property.
I love that.
But, it is what it is.
I’m thinking I might not be much longer for Arkansas. I guess we’ll see.
Anyway, I woke up this morning to still know reply from my accountant to got that crappy email from me. I had sent her just a quick message asking if she was still awake last night. She didn’t see the message last night, and she didn’t reply this morning.
Since I didn’t hear from her, I spent a good little while composing an email apologizing and taking responsibility for my behavior, and requesting, if she felt up to it, a do-over. I told her that I couldn’t unsend what I had already sent, but I could, in my mind, return back to the place I had been before where I thought of her as a wonderful person who was working very hard to help me in my time of need.
And I truly was able to do that and have.
I feel pretty crappy still about how I treated her in the last email.
I still don’t have answers to the questions I’d like answers to. It’s still hard to make an excuse for the referral fee on the invoice, but seeing her email reply yesterday… I feel like it’s pretty clear that I made a pretty awful misjudgment.
Anyway, so I spent a good chunk of the morning, before emerging from the guest bedroom, writing my apology email.
I spent some time hanging out with Dad and Cindy for a little while as they shared more of their alternative conspiracy news stuff.
When Cindy bowed out of the conversation to take her daily nap, I jumped in the shower, doing my laundry while in the shower, as usual.
It’s really easy to use underwear and socks as a washcloth, and in doing so, everything gets clean. 🙃
Heck, I used to do that when I lived in the duplex in sugarhouse/ Millcreek. I would load up a load of laundry in the bathtub, plug up the drain, and agitate all the clothes in the tub with my legs as though I wear a washing machine, well I washed my hair and bathed. All the soap from washing myself would go into the water and wash the clothes as I agitated them with my feet.
No need for a laundromat. 😅
Anyway, I took a shower, and at some point I received an email back from my accountant. She let me know that she truly appreciated the email I sent her, that she had been going over and over our communications to see how she could improve, and that she still wanted to have All the work that she did for me given to me as an “unexpected gift.”
Unfortunately, it’s also true that my email was very painful for her and brought a lot of very painful stuff back to the surface.
😞
(sigh)
I wish I could heal that. I really really wish I could heal that.
I haven’t replied to her since that email. I want to give her space, as things are very tender and raw for her right now. Clearly, she’s an amazing woman, and I’m sorry to have been a source of great pain for her.
😞
After my shower, and reading through her email and all that, I spent a little while chatting with Dad, listening to him tell stories about his younger years. I asked him if he would write some of the stories down. He’s never really felt like anybody wanted to hear the stories, but I told him that instead of Amazon gift cards for my birthday and Christmas presents this year, I wanted him to write down stories from his past that were meaningful for him.
Cindy came back in after her nap, and we talked a bit more. We shared stories, Dad about his younger years, and I about my experiences in New Zealand a little bit.
That was the best time I had on my whole visit with them, talking about life stories from the past.
Good stuff.
We also talked a bit about what I was wanting to do with my non-profit service organization thingy. Their experiences in life give them a different perspective in a lot of ways than mine. Dave had a lot of negative experiences with the people they’ve run into over the years, and mine have been more positive than negative, which leads me to my belief that most of us are just good people.
Anyway, we loaded up the car, and I snapped a few selfie pictures with them before driving away in my little civic with its hobbled foot.
I was later getting out the door than I wanted to be, needing to be in mesquite by 5:00 to get the front left foot of the Civic replaced.
Already being late out the door, I managed to make the wrong turn at the end of their street and without recognizing it for at least a handful of miles, started driving towards Hoover dam.
😅
Oops.
So I flipped around, looking at the clock, and looking at my fuel gauge. Having lost that time, now even if I went the speed limit, which wouldn’t be smart on a donut, I wouldn’t make it to my appointment in time at the Walmart supercenter Auto center in mesquite Nevada.
Not only that, but my digital fuel gauge that has something like 20 little illuminated blocks that disappear one by one as the fuel goes down, was down to two. And within the first probably 15 minutes of the drive, it was down to one lonely little illuminated block and I with something like 35 mi left to travel to the nearest gas station.
So I crossed my fingers, and prepared myself for the possibility that I might either blow out my donut either because I was driving too fast or because the pavement was super hot, or a combination of the two, or I also might run out of gas.
So I mentally prepared myself for both, telling myself it would make for an interesting story, there wasn’t really anything major that could get messed up by me being stuck in southern Nevada for another day.
And then the last lonely little glowing block on my fuel gauge disappeared.
Could I make it still? How many miles could the car drive on empty?
In an effort to increase the likelihood that I might make it, as I was descending down one of the steeper grades, I straight up just turned the car off and threw it in neutral, rolling down for maybe a mile? Maybe not that far. I don’t know. But I wanted to stretch what little gas I had left as far as I could stretch it. 😅
And guess what?
I made it to the flying j on the far west side of mesquite. 🥳
Gas there was $4.79, which was about $0.50 cheaper than what it was over by my dad’s house. Don’t know if it was worth the risk, well I guess it was in the end since I made it, but I certainly risked a longer stay in southern Nevada in my effort to say 50 cents a gallon. 🙃
I also hadn’t heated the normal warning of only going 55 on a donut. Those still under the speed limit, I was going 70 mph most of the way back from moapa valley to mesquite.
Amazingly, even with stopping for gas, I managed to get to the Walmart auto center only 10 minutes late for my appointment. 🥳
They told me that it would probably take a half hour, but I was the first priority.
Nearly an hour and a half later, I realized that I had not been put at first priority even with my appointment. It doesn’t take an hour and a half to put on a single tire. 🙃
And there was only one car left to be completed, all the others having been taken care of before me.
But whatever. I got my new tire. They added a lug nut to the bill as well because I only had four of the five, and they couldn’t let me out of the place without putting another lug nut on, which was fine.
I got underway at about 6:30 p.m. Pacific time, planning to get gas in St George because I had only put 5 gallons of gas in where it was super expensive. I remembered that St George was a good bit cheaper, so I only put 5 gallons in and headed north.
I was expecting even cheaper gas than what I ended up getting in St George because Google maps said that the gas station I was going to was only $4.16 a gallon. Unfortunately, it turned out to be $4.25, but that was still a good bit better than the $4.79 a gallon that I was paying in mesquite.
And that has been really the story. I’ve been listening to YouTube videos on the drive back, and I’m just rolling through Payson right now on my drive north. I was going to see my friend Cory tomorrow, so I was going to drive all the way up to Salt Lake, but he’s sick and said it would probably be better on Saturday, So I’m probably going to find some place to stay in Utah County, and then I’ll spend some time alone in the mountains up one or more of my favorite little waterfall canyons.
Anyway, I’ll sign off for tonight with that. I might add something to it if there’s anything notable that happens between now and when I actually bed down and close my eyes, but for now, I’m going to say good night!
Loves and hugs.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 