(written on the 29th)
I didn’t go to sleep until after 5:00 a.m., I think.
Audible.
For several months, if not longer, I’ve wanted to cancel my audible membership because I just don’t use it, and spending 15 bucks every month on something that I don’t use is… Not very intelligent.
But, the way audible’s membership work, if you cancel your membership, and you have existing credits, you lose those credits–even though you’ve already paid for them.
😒
I’ve had my membership for a Long time, and I’ve racked up more than a Year’s worth of credits. Except… You’re not allowed to rack up more than 12, so I’ve paid for many months without being allowed to keep my credits.
Every month, I get the warning that I am going to lose my credit if I don’t use it. But I’m always so busy, and I have no books that I even know about to be interested in to purchase. I keep thinking I’m going go look for books that I might be interested in, but I’m so busy all the time, and I’ll jump on audible, and after 10 minutes of looking and not finding anything, I give up for the day, and that day turns into several days, and then it turns into another lost credit, and that happens month after month after month.
I have no clue how many months I’ve had my membership, but I’m pretty sure I’ve paid for quite a few months worth of membership without actually getting a book for the credit that I paid for.
It’s really A crappy business model, in my opinion, to remove something that I’ve paid for because I haven’t used it in time for what they think is reasonable.
So I’ve had 12 credits rolling over for who knows how long, and I’m sick and tired of paying for the membership, but I haven’t wanted to cancel, because then I lose all 12 credits…
So I surfed online and on audible for hours trying to find books that I thought would be meaningful and useful for me.
Gratefully, I finally succeeded, purchased my 12 books with the 12 available credits that I had, and then spent the next however long trying to navigate through the cancellation process so I could cancel my darn membership.
I also let them know what I thought of their policy of losing credits that I’ve actually paid for.
So I’m finally free of Audible, And I’ve got 12 more books in my library to listen to. Probably half or more of the books that I chose are books that promote ideologies that I don’t subscribe, and even several that I find downright distasteful, to put it mildly, but I would like to understand other people better, their perspectives and reasonings, And I don’t want to hear it from the mouths of people who are already against those ideologies/philosophies. I want to hear it from the people who advocate for those ideologies/philosophies.
Despite going to bed after 5:00. I think I got up around 10 ish. So definitely not enough sleep for the night. But, the van was going to start cooking in the heat, so not much point trying to sleep any longer.
It didn’t rain, so all the rain preparations were… for naught. But whatever. There are plenty of times that I’ve expected it not to rain, and it has, so just is what it is.
I spent the first part of the morning cleaning everything out of my truck, so it can get properly stored where it’s going to be in the future.
Jim came down a little bit after noon, we made a plan for where to put the shed and where to put all of the trusses that I rescued from the woods. Jim wanted to put the trusses leaning against a big walnut tree.
The challenge with that is that the Walnut tree he wanted to lean everything against was in the woods. So I cleared out small trees and brush and Vines and what not in order to cut the woods back far enough so that he could lean the trusses against the big walnut tree.
That took a little while, and while I was doing all of that, Jim grabbed the tractor with the forks on it and started to move the pieces of the other massive Walnut tree that split in half That I had broken up into pieces. He moved the pieces over to the burn pile.
Once I got the brush and Woods cleared back far enough so the walnut tree was now at the edge of the woods instead of inside the woods, Jim went over and used the forks on the tractor to move all of the trusses that I had pulled out of the woods and laid out in the field next to the greenhouse, and he put them cleaning up against the walnut tree, which makes them take up a lot less space, and will make it so they can stay that way for a while without having everything grow up around them again.
We also walked down to the creek, and Jim talked about wanting to put another bridge across the creek, possibly using the trusses this time.
While Jim was working on moving the trusses, I gathered up all of the leftover branches and whatnot That had fallen or weren’t able to be picked up with the forks of the tractor. So I gathered those all up and put some into piles and moved all the rest into the main burn pile.
After we got all of that done, I took a bath in the creek because clearing the brush had me face to face with multiple poison plants that my body doesn’t like. 🙃
From there, I grabbed my skid steer and leveled out a spot to put the shed that was on my trailer. I had to carve away some of the hillside in one place, and then add some dirt to a depression in another place, but I got it relatively level.
Them I moved the trailer with the shed on top from where it was on the south side of the greenhouse to the north side of the greenhouse and far enough over that another greenhouse could be put next to the first one And still be between that greenhouse and the shed.
At first, Jim suggested that we try and use the retaining wall blocks to unload the trailer onto, which seemed absolutely insane to me, because I had tried something similar with actual cinder blocks, and failed miserably. Of course, I didn’t do it the way that I had hoped, but still, using retaining wall stones seemed just, nutty, but Jim was confident, so we started giving it a try. 🙃
As we were almost done getting it set down onto the retaining wall stones, I just… Was pretty confident it was all going to come crashing down on us. So I suggested that he get the big tractor with the bucket on the front, and we use my skid steer with the bucket on the front, and we lifted up using the 4x6x10s that were under it. We could lift it up above the trailer, pull the trailer out from underneath and then slowly lower it down.
He was okay with trying my plan, went and got the big tractor, and it worked.
🎉
I felt much better about it that way. 🙃
After we got that done, I had a bunch of stuff that I was giving away, so I had Jim go through it, and he picked out what he wanted.
When I went back to the trailer, I realized that somehow, when I moved the trailer with the shed on top using the skid steer, the chain that we had wrapped around the front of the trailer actually bent the frame of the trailer.
😶
As messed up as I am right now, I melted down. I just… don’t have any resilience at all. It seems like every time I try and do good things, it just blows up in my face. I’m trying to give away the shed for the good of the hill…
Has Jim put it, “it’s not the end of the world.” But right now for me everything is. I could lose a bolt, and I might melt down over it. I just have nothing left in my tank. It’s ridiculous. It’s pathetic. But it’s… what is.
And I’m not going to avoid writing about it just because it’s embarrassing and makes me look ridiculous. I started this blog because I wanted to add to the number of people trying to be transparent in order to be a blessing to other people’s lives, To show that good people can struggle and still be good people. To show the good people can do bad things and still be good people.
My mom was already on the hill, And she was just coming to visit when I melted down. She was there for part of my meltdown.
Jim came down when I told him that I was melting down a bit. He came down after my mom left, was there for a little bit, left, then my mom came back.
I got a piece of metal and a sledgehammer and started trying to pound the frame back into shape. It wasn’t badly bent, but it was bent, and it just… It’s just one more thing. One more thing to add to the list of things that need to be done that take up time and energy and mental space that I don’t have.
Pound pound pound.
Pound pound pound.
I was able to get the side bent back without too much trouble. The top, on the other hand, was much more difficult. I ended up taking a torch to heat up the metal to make it just a little more pliable.
Mike came down for something, I think to return the mini excavator that he borrowed from me. While down here, I asked him to take a look at the trailer, he said there was no structural damage, just a little deformity, but nothing that would cause problems for the trailer itself. That’s what my mom had said as well, and it made sense, but it was nice to hear it from Mike as well.
I started loading up the shed with some of the stuff that I’m going to be leaving here on the property until I figure out where it is that I’m going to live. Ladders and gas cans and outdoor tools and what not. Writing my name on everything, and storing it in the shed for now.
My mom stayed to help out, for which I’m grateful. We use the retaining blocks to make a little wall around the tree that I left next to the greenhouse. Then I put the leftover blocks and some nice stones inside to keep the weeds from growing.
We moved the rest of the stuff that’s over by the greenhouse over to the van In the ongoing effort to clean up, thin out, organize, etc.
There was a little bit of a threat of rain overnight, so once again, we loaded everything up into ET before calling it good and heading out for dinner at Wendy’s.
My diet has gone to crap since moving into my van. 😅 Sugar, junk, and I’d broken my vegan.
Being at Wendy’s with that gazillion flavor drink machine reminded me of when Chase was working for me, and we’d both go out fixing cars separately and then would meet back every night at either Taco Bell or Wendy’s and I’d buy him dinner, and at Wendy’s, I’d always have a gazillion different flavored drinks.
Love that machine. 🙃
Though of course everything that comes out of it is absolutely awful for you. 😅
Anyway… I just don’t have the bandwidth for all the extra effort it takes to eat well… and eat vegan right now.
Full to the brim. The brain is absolutely full to the brim and overflowing.
Thank you, to my mother, once again, for being the angel that she is. She continues to lift my world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 